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Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
Is there an optimal size for an iPhoto Library?

Not really. The more photos in there the slower it gets, but it can handle a lot. Thousands easily. Try the steps here to rebuild the iPhoto library and see if that helps. Make sure you have backup first just to be safe.
 

disasterdrone

macrumors 6502
Aug 31, 2013
300
0
Why is aperture better for large iPhoto libraries?

Over a good few years, with SLR becoming cheaper, surely everyone will have large libraries. I have a large library as i include the videos taken in the same album as i like to group them in one place. When SSD's are so cheap that they come standard 4TB drives for 100 bucks, i'm sure none of this will matter anymore at which time, the average iPhoto library will be 500GB

This. There's a really big difference between having a lot of photos (think and family with kids and a modern slr after a few years) and someone who wants power editing tools.
iPhoto needs to be robust enough to have 'huge' libraries which are going to be common in the coming years.

----------

Why is everyone so keen to make iPhoto work? It's not a good piece of software is it?

I just bit the bullet and deleted iPhoto and its library.

Freed up 20GB of my little SSD.

Very happy.

iPhoto 09 is an awesome piece of software, the current version sucks.
 

lsquare

macrumors 6502
Jul 30, 2010
442
1
Changing the subject...

... if you have 30K pictures, you should probably consider switching to Aperture or Lightroom. I have a similar sized library as yours (51K pictures with about 240 GB of data)... and I cannot even imagine how painful that would be in iPhoto.

Personally, I use Aperture because I like how it plugs into all of the Apple Apps painlessly. I know people who use Lightroom and like that as well.

/Jim

Can you provide an example of how Aperture plugs into all of Apple's apps painlessly?
 

McGiord

macrumors 601
Oct 5, 2003
4,558
290
Dark Castle
What about videos? I find iPhoto and Aperture kind of slow to preview and open videos, what do you recommend to manage them?
 

rhett7660

macrumors G5
Jan 9, 2008
14,219
4,294
Sunny, Southern California
If you decide to buy Aperture... or even if you just want to evaluate its potential... I strongly recommend getting Robert Boyers ebooks which are very inexpensive... and probably the single best few bucks to spend in learning about photo management. He uses both LR and Aperture, but he seems to like Aperture better. Even just searching his blog is eye opening.

I think it is http://photo.rwboyer.com/. I would recommend the organization and file management books to start.

/Jim

Thank you for the link. Purchased Aperture and have been fiddling around. These are just what I was looking for. Very nice!!!
 

stjames70

macrumors regular
Jul 5, 2009
108
8
iPhoto 9.5.1

I have a mid-2011 3.4 27-in iMac hooked up to a Promise R6 where I store 847 GBs of photos and video. It is neither slow nor cumbersome to work with this array. After you reach a certain library size, it is your storage system which will limit your access speed. iPhoto 9.5.1 (the latest iteration of iPhoto) handles all my AVCHD files with aplomb. I also have Aperture, but like the original writer of this thread, my library is purely for personal use (family photos and videos).

My advice, get a Thunderbolt or RAID array to handle your photos and videos. Improved sensors will stretch the limits of optical lenses as well as the size of photo libraries. What are you going to do? Put old photos in static media like BD discs or thumb drives? Maybe. But if you are like me, you want to see that photo of yourself 10 years ago when you got married or the video of your first born in the hospital. And you have to hunt for that? I think not. At least not me.

I want all my photos and videos in front of me and available as soon as I touch its thumbnail. Not only that, as your library grows, do you really think you will be able to back it up? I cannot. As my library reaches terabyte size, I realized that the only safe and practical solution would be to set up a RAID 1+0 array where at least my data would be somewhat safe. I know, no solution is without fail and backups are essential. But at what cost? I could always get a second array to back up the first one, but that will have to wait until I have enough money. Hopefully inexpensive large arrays and fast storage will come soon and alleviate the storage bottle neck which we now face.

Your problem is not the software. It is your access time to the storage medium. Solve that, and it will not really matter how big your library really is.

Good luck.
 

TwoBytes

macrumors 68040
Jun 2, 2008
3,086
2,032
I have a mid-2011 3.4 27-in iMac hooked up to a Promise R6 where I store 847 GBs of photos and video. It is neither slow nor cumbersome to work with this array. After you reach a certain library size, it is your storage system which will limit your access speed. iPhoto 9.5.1 (the latest iteration of iPhoto) handles all my AVCHD files with aplomb. I also have Aperture, but like the original writer of this thread, my library is purely for personal use (family photos and videos).

My advice, get a Thunderbolt or RAID array to handle your photos and videos. Improved sensors will stretch the limits of optical lenses as well as the size of photo libraries. What are you going to do? Put old photos in static media like BD discs or thumb drives? Maybe. But if you are like me, you want to see that photo of yourself 10 years ago when you got married or the video of your first born in the hospital. And you have to hunt for that? I think not. At least not me.

I want all my photos and videos in front of me and available as soon as I touch its thumbnail. Not only that, as your library grows, do you really think you will be able to back it up? I cannot. As my library reaches terabyte size, I realized that the only safe and practical solution would be to set up a RAID 1+0 array where at least my data would be somewhat safe. I know, no solution is without fail and backups are essential. But at what cost? I could always get a second array to back up the first one, but that will have to wait until I have enough money. Hopefully inexpensive large arrays and fast storage will come soon and alleviate the storage bottle neck which we now face.

Your problem is not the software. It is your access time to the storage medium. Solve that, and it will not really matter how big your library really is.

Good luck.


847GB of photos eh?
I'd cry endlessly if I lost all of that info. Your children born, your wedding as you say... I wouldn't want to risk a day without it backed up. Don't worry about TB speed, buy a cheap usb 2.0 drive even to get that backed up. They sell for peanuts.
 

flynz4

macrumors 68040
Aug 9, 2009
3,242
126
Portland, OR
847GB of photos eh?
I'd cry endlessly if I lost all of that info. Your children born, your wedding as you say... I wouldn't want to risk a day without it backed up. Don't worry about TB speed, buy a cheap usb 2.0 drive even to get that backed up. They sell for peanuts.

I agree. Get a USB drive and let Time Machine back up to the drive. Get Crashplan+... a couple of bucks/month for unlimited cloud backup. If you have a slow internet connection, pay the extra $125 and seed the backup.

RAID is not backup. In some ways, RAID is better than a single spindle drive, and in other ways... it is worse. I would strongly recommend that the previous poster back-up the data.

BTW: I also use a Pegasus (8TB R4)... and it is configured as a 4TB RAID 10 array. Still... I have many copies of my pictures being updated constantly.

1) iMac SSD (Aperture primary)
2) Pegasus R4 (Aperture copy (nightly) + video primary) - contains 100% of all my media.
3) Single spindle Seagate 3TB Thunderbolt drive (nightly clone of Pegasus R4)
4) Crashplan+ backup of all primary data: SSD + Pegasus R4
5) Time Machine backup of all primary data: SSD + Pegasus R4
6) External 1 & 2. Rotated offsite copies of media drive (Pegasus R4)

That makes 7 copies of my pictures... not counting the copy of my Aperture library on my wife's computer (and hers is also double backed up to Time Machine and Crashplan+). This makes 10 total copies of my photos. Note that I am only counting my Pegasus R4 as only 1 copy in these calculations.

/Jim
 
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robgendreau

macrumors 68040
Jul 13, 2008
3,465
329
I have both Aperture and Lightroom, but prefer Lightroom.

I agree that lots of applications access photos via iPhoto or Aperture libraries (and BTW in recent iterations the libraries are now the same). Mail e.g. That's cool, since it means some of the organization you impose on your photos, like events and keywords, eases searches.

But tons of other applications don't use Aperture. Some use iMedia Browser's framework, embedded in their own application, like Comic Life. iMedia Browser can find Aperture and/or iPhoto libraries, AND Lightroom catalogs. But its keyword search seems to lag.

Unfortunately, you'd think that media browsing would be so integrated into the finding system of the OS that it would be easy to be in any application and find photos by name, keyword, tag, exif, etc etc...but nope. Maybe some day.

Meanwhile, it may depend on what you do most with your photos. If you're all into editing and Adobe products like Photoshop then LR is the best choice, although Aperture works. If you are into Pages, then clearly iPhoto or Aperture.

Another reason that I like Lightroom is actually iPhoto. Since we all have it, I catalogue photos with it just so they're easily available in things like Pages. I do all the organizational work, developing, light editing, etc in LR and then just import into iPhoto at some point for certain classes of photos. Hardly open it besides to do that.

Note that this stuff depends on using referenced libraries. Ditto with some of the storage solutions people talk about. It makes it very much easier to use your photos with other applications.

Finally, consider GraphicConverter. It has a fine browser and a good editor, and is one of the very few applications I know of that can add both photo metadata like IPTC info or exif info, AND Mavericks tags. Using that latter feature can make your photos play very nicely with other applications, since not all access IPTC/exif.
 

stjames70

macrumors regular
Jul 5, 2009
108
8
Totally agree about backup

847GB of photos eh?
I'd cry endlessly if I lost all of that info. Your children born, your wedding as you say... I wouldn't want to risk a day without it backed up. Don't worry about TB speed, buy a cheap usb 2.0 drive even to get that backed up. They sell for peanuts.

Enough said! And all true. I have multiple layers of backup for my office data, but not so much for personal stuff. As I said, I was looking for reasonable cost effective backup solutions, and I thank you for all the given suggestions. I do own a MacPro 3,1 connected to two RAID arrays. What I need from you folks out there is inventive and inexpensive solutions to transfer close to a terabyte of data from the Promise R6 array to the MacPro arrays. Since all MacPros lack TB connections save for the nMP, how do you suggest I move that to my existing arrays? I really do not want to spend much more money as I have already sunk close to $6000+ for storage on the MacPro, so suffice it to say, I have enough space.

Firewire? Ethernet? (cable between iMac and MacPro) Anything fast, cheap and inventive? Thanks in advance for any solutions. (I could buy a nMP, but I have invested heavily on storage and really don't need the horsepower which the nMP provides -- I will save the nMP for my work)


Cheers and Happy New Year to you all!
 

benjai

macrumors member
Oct 1, 2009
87
20
About half year ago, had a single iPhoto gallery of just over 1TB running over USB 2 on a 2007 alu iMac (with SSD) and it was painfully slow. I then upgraded the external HD to FW800 which made it a bit quicker but not ideal. Starting a new library helped massively but but referencing anything on the old library was a pain.

A couple weeks ago, I took delivery of a 27" iMac with a 3TB fusion drive. Leaving the same 1TB library on the same external HD but over USB 3.0 now was much much quicker. Perhaps a slight lag very usable.

I then chopped up the library by year (2013 alone was over 200 GB) and kept the latest on the fusion drive, all others went to the external HDD. iPhoto absolutely flies now and I barely notice the difference between the libraries on the fusion drive versus external.

Now, to split the libraries was pretty straightforward if a bit laborious. I didn't really trust any software and was to cheap so just did it manually. I created a bunch of smartfolders in the big library which basically split all the photos by year. Then copied the photos in each smartfolder into a new physical folder somewhere else on the HD. Then create a new iPhoto library for each year, and reimport. Once reimported into a new library, I just auto split event by date. Obviously you'd lose any custom events and albums but I didn't really have any of those.

For reference, I benchmarked all my drives in the new system and the fusion drive came to around 600MBps and the external drive around 120MBps. My old iMac SSD only came to around 200MBps!! I didn't benchmark over USB 2.0 and FW800 but I suspect those would have been much much slower. The new iMac really does fly!!
 

dgalvan123

macrumors 6502a
Feb 16, 2008
684
22
Why is aperture better for large iPhoto libraries?

I'd like to see this question answered, as I'm not convinced that Aperture is actually faster than iPhoto. I fear that if the OP buys Aperture thinking it will run faster or something, he's going to be disappointed.

I had/have the same problem as the OP: A large iphoto library taking up lots of space and being somewhat sluggish to navigate and use.
I was also told that Aperture was the solution. So I got the free trial version and gave it a try. (this was back in Fall, 2011).

I found that Aperture, while certainly a nice app, didn't solve any of those problems. It was just as slow to navigate my photos in Aperture as it was in iPhoto.

I documented my findings (as an iPhoto user trying Aperture for 30 days) in this MR post.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1260189/

If longtime Aperture users know something I don't, I'd love to hear what I'm missing. But, as far as I can tell, upgrading to a higher-level photo management software is not going to resolve the OP's problem.

So what do I do? Well for me, I also tend to snap away and worry about the consequences later. (This is actually a good policy if you have kids. Only 1 out of 10 pics or so is a keeper since the darn things move around so much. So there is incentive to snap away. .. but you HAVE to remove the cruft later or your photo library will balloon.)

Before I even download the photos from my SLR or iPhone into iPhoto, I go through the photos on the camera itself and delete those pics I know I won't need to keep. Basically, I intend to keep only one photo of each subject attempt. (So if I snapped 10 photos of my two kids playing together on the floor one morning, my goal is to only keep the best one. 5 years in the future when I look back on these photos, I'm not going to really want to see 10 photos of the same thing from different angles. I'm just going to enjoy glancing at the 1 best photo of that brief memory, and move on.)

Culling on-the-device means most of the "non-keepers" never make it into iPhoto in the first place, which saves import time, storage, and hassle. (i.e.: once you import all your photos, including non-keepers, time machine will get a chance to back those up and waste some space on your backup drive as well.)

Other hardware/software solutions that might help:

1. ILM is definitely a useful piece of software, and if your library is "too large", just cap it at its current size and start a new library, using ILM to switch between them when necessary. I have a library for everything before my kids were born, and then a separate library for everything after my first child was born, for example.

2. More RAM. I experienced less lag in scrolling through a large library when I added RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB in my MBP.

3. New computer or SSD. That should improve performance.

I may still move to Aperture one day, especially if I end up scanning historical photos/negatives from my family's past. But I don't really have time for that now.
 

flynz4

macrumors 68040
Aug 9, 2009
3,242
126
Portland, OR
I'd like to see this question answered, as I'm not convinced that Aperture is actually faster than iPhoto. I fear that if the OP buys Aperture thinking it will run faster or something, he's going to be disappointed.

I had/have the same problem as the OP: A large iphoto library taking up lots of space and being somewhat sluggish to navigate and use.
I was also told that Aperture was the solution. So I got the free trial version and gave it a try. (this was back in Fall, 2011).

I found that Aperture, while certainly a nice app, didn't solve any of those problems. It was just as slow to navigate my photos in Aperture as it was in iPhoto.

I documented my findings (as an iPhoto user trying Aperture for 30 days) in this MR post.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1260189/

If longtime Aperture users know something I don't, I'd love to hear what I'm missing. But, as far as I can tell, upgrading to a higher-level photo management software is not going to resolve the OP's problem.

So what do I do? Well for me, I also tend to snap away and worry about the consequences later. (This is actually a good policy if you have kids. Only 1 out of 10 pics or so is a keeper since the darn things move around so much. So there is incentive to snap away. .. but you HAVE to remove the cruft later or your photo library will balloon.)

Before I even download the photos from my SLR or iPhone into iPhoto, I go through the photos on the camera itself and delete those pics I know I won't need to keep. Basically, I intend to keep only one photo of each subject attempt. (So if I snapped 10 photos of my two kids playing together on the floor one morning, my goal is to only keep the best one. 5 years in the future when I look back on these photos, I'm not going to really want to see 10 photos of the same thing from different angles. I'm just going to enjoy glancing at the 1 best photo of that brief memory, and move on.)

Culling on-the-device means most of the "non-keepers" never make it into iPhoto in the first place, which saves import time, storage, and hassle. (i.e.: once you import all your photos, including non-keepers, time machine will get a chance to back those up and waste some space on your backup drive as well.)

Other hardware/software solutions that might help:

1. ILM is definitely a useful piece of software, and if your library is "too large", just cap it at its current size and start a new library, using ILM to switch between them when necessary. I have a library for everything before my kids were born, and then a separate library for everything after my first child was born, for example.

2. More RAM. I experienced less lag in scrolling through a large library when I added RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB in my MBP.

3. New computer or SSD. That should improve performance.

I may still move to Aperture one day, especially if I end up scanning historical photos/negatives from my family's past. But I don't really have time for that now.

Aperture allows the user to control the size and quality of previews... so you have some direct control on the files that will be used as you quickly scroll through tons of photos.

Also... Aperture is MUCH easier to organize photos than iPhoto. Learning Aperture's basic well... makes it exceptionally easy to organize.

Rather than "deleting" 9/10 of your "kids playing on the floor"... with Aperture, you can put them into a single stack... and the "stack pick" will be the only preview that is rendered as you navigate your library. It will also be the only one that you see. Hence... if 10 years from now, you want a good picture of your kids playing on the floor... that is the only one that you will see... but... the others will be "stacked" behind it... so if you want some other angle or whatever... there are still there.

Bottom line is that Aperture gives you far greater organizational tools than iPhoto. It also does not create duplicates if you edit. Edits are non-destructive (I am not sure about iPhoto). Finally... iPhoto is just a clunky piece of software that works well for small libraries, but seems to be too limited as the library grows.

My library is 400GB... and on my SSD... it is "instantaneous". I have my library managed, so the entire thing is on the SSD. However, if I had referenced originals... it would be MUCH smaller in size, and approximate the same speed.

/Jim
 

dgalvan123

macrumors 6502a
Feb 16, 2008
684
22
. ..
My library is 400GB... and on my SSD... it is "instantaneous". I have my library managed, so the entire thing is on the SSD. However, if I had referenced originals... it would be MUCH smaller in size, and approximate the same speed.

Appreciate the insight on Aperture's organizational capabilities.

I expect the "instantaneous" nature of your library is mostly due to you having it stored on an SSD. While Aperture does indeed have more organizational features, I am not convinced that it is "faster" than iPhoto on the same hardware. When I did the trial of Aperture for 30 days, it was no faster than iPhoto on my machine.
*shrug*
 

robgendreau

macrumors 68040
Jul 13, 2008
3,465
329
Appreciate the insight on Aperture's organizational capabilities.

I expect the "instantaneous" nature of your library is mostly due to you having it stored on an SSD. While Aperture does indeed have more organizational features, I am not convinced that it is "faster" than iPhoto on the same hardware. When I did the trial of Aperture for 30 days, it was no faster than iPhoto on my machine.
*shrug*

You were using it for stuff like showing pictures on an AppleTV, and navigating through its event structure that way. And waiting for stuff to show on screen. While Aperture can do that, it's primary mission is for organizing photos, not as a front end for that kind of sharing. Most photographers would prepare a subset of stuff they export to a slideshow or something for that kind of use.

iPhoto is a bit more streamlined because in fact it is designed so somebody can do what you've been doing with it. Photographers with Aperture are probably not even using events much. But when you need to search for all photos taken with a certain camera under certain conditions it's way faster than iPhoto, even assuming you could do that in iPhoto.

I don't see that either of these, or LR for that matter, is gonna make your stuff pop up on an AppleTV much faster. Maybe Plex or something designed to display photos, not organize them.
 

glenthompson

macrumors demi-god
Apr 27, 2011
2,982
842
Virginia
Bottom line is that Aperture gives you far greater organizational tools than iPhoto. It also does not create duplicates if you edit. Edits are non-destructive (I am not sure about iPhoto). Finally... iPhoto is just a clunky piece of software that works well for small libraries, but seems to be too limited as the library grows.

/Jim

To my understanding, iPhoto does not create duplicates when editing unless you use an external editor like Elements. In that case you can get a quickly expanding library. One of the reasons I switched from iPhoto to Aperture was to get additional editing capabilities and not have to work with outside apps. The additional organizational features was a bonus.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
To my understanding, iPhoto does not create duplicates when editing unless you use an external editor like Elements. In that case you can get a quickly expanding library. One of the reasons I switched from iPhoto to Aperture was to get additional editing capabilities and not have to work with outside apps. The additional organizational features was a bonus.

I have never used Aperture, but iPhoto does create a full sized duplicate for even the slightest edit of the original photo.

I just did a test. I grabbed an old photo and put it on the desktop and named it "testtwelve.jpg" then imported it to iPhoto. I then dragged the one from the desktop into the trash and emptied the trash. Then I did a search outside iPhoto and only one copy of the 1.6MB files exists in /iPhoto Library/Masters in a subfolder by today's date.

Then I did small brightness edit/adjustment in iPhoto and now see two versions of testtwelve.jpg. One in the earlier Masters folder and another 1.7MB version in /iPhoto Library/Previews with a dated subfolder.

Those other three files are the faces scans and the preview thumbnail.

FtGJ7mG.png


I have observed this before also. If I import 100, 2MB photos, then a do a color correction on each photo, my iPhoto library swells by 400MB because of this.

If someone can do the same test I did and confirm Aperture does not do this, I am buying Aperture today. :)

Edit: I found the info below on this page. So it seems iPhoto does create a full duplicate for edits as I found and Aperture does not.

Mfkb0EY.png


So I assume if I switch to Aperture, I would have to go back and swap all my edited photos to the original, unedited version, then reedit them in Aperture to achieve space saving on old photos. Can anybody that switched over comment on this aspect?
 
Last edited:

glenthompson

macrumors demi-god
Apr 27, 2011
2,982
842
Virginia
I have never used Aperture, but iPhoto does create a full sized duplicate for even the slightest edit of the original photo.

I just did a test. I grabbed an old photo and put it on the desktop and named it "testtwelve.jpg" then imported it to iPhoto. I then dragged the one from the desktop into the trash and emptied the trash. Then I did a search outside iPhoto and only one copy of the 1.6MB files exists in /iPhoto Library/Masters in a subfolder by today's date.

. . .

So I assume if I switch to Aperture, I would have to go back and swap all my edited photos to the original, unedited version, then reedit them in Aperture to achieve space saving on old photos. Can anybody that switched over comment on this aspect?

I stand corrected. I thought I had read that iPhoto didn't create copies but I looked back at a photo I edited in iPhoto in 2012. There were two copies, one in Masters and one in Previews. The previews copy was slightly smaller since the photo had been cropped. 9.5mb for the master and 6.7mb for the preview.

Checked some Aperture edits on both my old iPhoto library and an Aperture only library. The preview folder still has a copy of the image but it is significantly smaller than the original with only minor cropping. Originals are 5mb in size and the preview copies are less than 1mb.

It looks like the iPhoto previews are full sized but the Aperture previews are about 20% of the size of the masters.

It looks like Aperture will save you significant space on your edits.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
I stand corrected. I thought I had read that iPhoto didn't create copies but I looked back at a photo I edited in iPhoto in 2012. There were two copies, one in Masters and one in Previews. The previews copy was slightly smaller since the photo had been cropped. 9.5mb for the master and 6.7mb for the preview.

Checked some Aperture edits on both my old iPhoto library and an Aperture only library. The preview folder still has a copy of the image but it is significantly smaller than the original with only minor cropping. Originals are 5mb in size and the preview copies are less than 1mb.

It looks like the iPhoto previews are full sized but the Aperture previews are about 20% of the size of the masters.

It looks like Aperture will save you significant space on your edits.

Thanks. I appreciate your info on Aperture.

I have been tinkering around with iPhoto export options quite a bit, and since the last version I looked into this there have been some new features added. In the export menu it lets you pick if you want to export either the original or "current" (edited) photos, and also allows them to be exported in folders by event name. I did a test with a few events and current photos, then imported them into a new iPhoto library and it was seamless.

Now deciding if I should wait for the rumored Aperture 4.
 

glenthompson

macrumors demi-god
Apr 27, 2011
2,982
842
Virginia
Now deciding if I should wait for the rumored Aperture 4.

I decided last summer that it wasn't worth the wait. Even if they came out with a new version shortly afterwards, it was going to take me a few months to learn Aperture 3 and I could wait on a upgrade. I'm glad I went ahead and bought it then.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,493
California
I decided last summer that it wasn't worth the wait. Even if they came out with a new version shortly afterwards, it was going to take me a few months to learn Aperture 3 and I could wait on a upgrade. I'm glad I went ahead and bought it then.

Alright... I'm in! :D

R60mk3C.png
 
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