Lightroom Export and 1:1 Previews - Time & Temp Tests

[Eric-PTEK]

Thanks for adding the 1:1.

I'll just leave the rMBP in the camera bag. I originally bought it just to leave in the camera bag and get a rMB for everyday use.

One more interesting would be the battery loss from 100 percent doing the same test between the two.

 

[newellj]

I tried the keyboard and trackpad briefly in the store and they seemed fine.

This has got to the weirdest laptop launch in Apple history. I've never seen one like this where none of the stores has any and have no clue when they are getting any. And the Apple website lead time is 4 - 6 weeks! And the Best Buy website has it in stock? Simply bizarre.

I'm pretty bonded with my rMBP also. But the tasks I use it for are general tasks and Lightroom. Losing the SD card slot would be a pain but it could be worked around. The rMB in space gray was just stunning though. I can't remember an Apple laptop that looked so good.

The SD reader is a point - though the 11" MBA is also missing that. There are inexpensive, very compact USB 3.0 readers that do very well (I gave my son one of them and it performs very well).

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Thanks for adding the 1:1.

I'll just leave the rMBP in the camera bag. I originally bought it just to leave in the camera bag and get a rMB for everyday use.

One more interesting would be the battery loss from 100 percent doing the same test between the two.

Yes - but I don't trust the accuracy of the calibration on the software reading, and I was concerned about comparability issues when comparing a seasoned laptop to a brand new laptop, which is why I didn't do it.

The other thing that was on my mind was that it's possible that one or both of the Apple laptops might have some sort of hardware or OS-dictated throttling on battery power, separate from the settings in Sys Prefs. Comparing them on mains power eliminated that potential question.

 

[hypno]

It makes my hair stand on end a bit but yet, the rMB could be stashed in the back of a camera bag, the way I sometimes do with my iPad. I guess it shouldn't bother me, because the *camera* gear in the bag is worth many times what the iPad or even the rMB are worth!

Exactly. It's the least expensive thing going in my bag. Plus I'll probably put it in a dbrand skin once released + sleeve.

 

[xPad]

The SD reader is a point - though the 11" MBA is also missing that. There are inexpensive, very compact USB 3.0 readers that do very well (I gave my son one of them and it performs very well).

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Yes - but I don't trust the accuracy of the calibration on the software reading, and I was concerned about comparability issues when comparing a seasoned laptop to a brand new laptop, which is why I didn't do it.

The other thing that was on my mind was that it's possible that one or both of the Apple laptops might have some sort of hardware or OS-dictated throttling on battery power, separate from the settings in Sys Prefs. Comparing them on mains power eliminated that potential question.

You've already done quite a lot, thanks for the tests and numbers! But I also second the request for battery-based tests. It would be really helpful!

You can use a free battery monitor from the App Store to see the current capacity of the battery compared to the original capacity to put battery wear into perspective.

And because you already have wall powered numbers, you will also highlight what differences (if any) running off battery makes, in addition to showing how much of a difference battery life may be under load.

MacBook Pros and Airs both drop from their long battery lives by a large amount under load. The MacBook should drop by a much lesser amount.

 

[thedeske]

Yup. I can often shoot 200+ photos in a day, but to put the tests above into context, if I am traveling and forced to do some preliminary editing on a laptop, the first thing I'm going to do is cull the keepers from the rest. That can be done with standard previews (much faster rendering).

Evaluating the results of the first round culling may involve some 1:1 previews to check critical focus, but that's a relatively small percentage of the overall number of photos. That will dispose of a lot of photos.

The final set that results from those two rounds of culling might be only 10%, possibly but infrequently 20%, of the total, so the times (and time differences) shown above would be proportionately reduced. In other words, the 20% advantage of the rMBP looks a lot less significant if we're talking about 20% of an operation that takes 2-5 minutes rather than 25 minutes.

Sounds very close to the process my traveler friends go with. 90% of the time it's in Library, marking rejects. If the tour is long (3 weeks plus) some editing in develop will happen in hotels.
They tend to keep more than your 20% - more like 50%
Once home, it's on to the big screen desktop systems for any serious editing, but the main
complaint on the road is weight with MBP and screen quality with Airs. This solves it IF you
can get past the performance hit in this first version.

Sounds like it IS usable and a nice step up from the Air for the Screen.

Thanks Again

 

[newellj]

They tend to keep more than your 20% - more like 50%

They are either better photographers or less demanding editors.

Once home, it's on to the big screen desktop systems for any serious editing, but the main
complaint on the road is weight with MBP and screen quality with Airs.

Definitely this. Very, very few laptops have screens good enough (after calibration) to avoid the need to at least tweak the edits I made on the road after I get back home and can use my desktop. It's not just that working on a larger space is easier, but the calibration of the monitor is almost always better.

 

[Miltz]

Here's a screen shot. I have the left side panel set for hidden/hover. Because of the vertical height limitations, doing the same to the right side panel doesn't increase the size of the image.

I'm not certain (either way) about whether the 1.3 will do any better. Both of these operations pegged the CPU at its thermal limits. I posted 91*F but there were short spikes up to 94*F, at which point it would throttle, fall back to 88-89*F, then climb to 91-92*F for a while before repeating that cycle. If the 1.3 gHz throttles similarly, the results might be only slightly different? Not sure.

Image

Well, it really depends how to edit your photos... I don't like lightroom and personally use photoshop. I edit one image at a time so all I need is quick bursts of power. I don't do anything that will have my computer running at full load for 30 minutes... So 2.9GHz burst with 1.3GHz base will be excellent for photo editing... At least that's what common sense tells me. I'm a little worried about screen real estate... I'm leaning towards the rMBP for 3 reasons, larger screen, more ports, and faster SSD. Believe it or not I don't like editing on my 27" monitor, it hurts my eyes too much. I really wish they make a 14" macbook with two usb-c ports. But that will never happen.

 

[iRun26.2]

Well, it really depends how to edit your photos... I don't like lightroom and personally use photoshop. I edit one image at a time so all I need is quick bursts of power. I don't do anything that will have my computer running at full load for 30 minutes... So 2.9GHz burst with 1.3GHz base will be excellent for photo editing... At least that's what common sense tells me. I'm a little worried about screen real estate... I'm leaning towards the rMBP for 3 reasons, larger screen, more ports, and faster SSD. Believe it or not I don't like editing on my 27" monitor, it hurts my eyes too much. I really wish they make a 14" macbook with two usb-c ports. But that will never happen.

Never say never. I wouldn't be surprised if you get you wish for a 14" rMB eventually.

 

[Miltz]

Never say never. I wouldn't be surprised if you get you wish for a 14" rMB eventually.

If apple starts going crazy releasing multiple products that overlap it will turn into the Apple of the 1990's. I think they already are doing a little bit of that.

 

[iRun26.2]

If apple starts going crazy releasing multiple products that overlap it will turn into the Apple of the 1990's. I think they already are doing a little bit of that.

I see four laptops. Two MB and two MBP (no MBA) in the future.

 

[saifrc]

If apple starts going crazy releasing multiple products that overlap it will turn into the Apple of the 1990's. I think they already are doing a little bit of that.

I think many of us believe that Apple will eventually kill off the "Air" line entirely, as it's sort of become the odd man out. The MacBook Pro line has gotten slimmer and slimmer over the years, and fulfills the role of the "power" laptop line. The new MacBook represents the evolution of the "portable" side of the product matrix. If anything, the current 13" MacBook Air is now the device with the most overlap across categories.

I foresee a near future where Apple sells two MacBooks, at 12" and 14", as well as two MacBook Pros, at 13" and 15". Within each of those lines there will be various stock and BTO options, of course. This provides symmetry with the two sizes of AIO desktops, the iMacs, the other Macs that integrate a display. Lacking integrated displays, the two "sizes" of headless desktops (the Mac Mini and Mac Pro) remain separate product lines, and serve customer bases with little overlap.

 

[Miltz]

I think many of us believe that Apple will eventually kill off the "Air" line entirely, as it's sort of become the odd man out. The MacBook Pro line has gotten slimmer and slimmer over the years, and fulfills the role of the "power" laptop line. The new MacBook represents the evolution of the "portable" side of the product matrix. If anything, the current 13" MacBook Air is now the device with the most overlap across categories.

I foresee a near future where Apple sells two MacBooks, at 12" and 14", as well as two MacBook Pros, at 13" and 15". Within each of those lines there will be various stock and BTO options, of course. This provides symmetry with the two sizes of AIO desktops, the iMacs, the other Macs that integrate a display. Lacking integrated displays, the two "sizes" of headless desktops (the Mac Mini and Mac Pro) remain separate product lines, and serve customer bases with little overlap.

I like your thinking... Apple selling any laptop with a crappy TN display is inexcusable in 2015. Forget retina, but crappy TN? That's why I sold my air. I couldn't stand the display.

 

[newellj]

Well, it really depends how to edit your photos... I don't like lightroom and personally use photoshop. I edit one image at a time so all I need is quick bursts of power. I don't do anything that will have my computer running at full load for 30 minutes... So 2.9GHz burst with 1.3GHz base will be excellent for photo editing... At least that's what common sense tells me. I'm a little worried about screen real estate... I'm leaning towards the rMBP for 3 reasons, larger screen, more ports, and faster SSD. Believe it or not I don't like editing on my 27" monitor, it hurts my eyes too much. I really wish they make a 14" macbook with two usb-c ports. But that will never happen.

Running LR on the 13.3" and 12" displays doesn't really make a whole lot of difference to me, subjectively, but everyone's sense of visual space is different.

I agree (as a guess) that PS would probably be fine on individual operations. I think I mentioned that before. Any difference between the i5 or i7 and the Core M is going to become less and less noticeable as the time required for the operation shrinks.

I should also say that other than exports at the end of editing, I generally don't do batch operations on my photos. The reason I experimented with these two operations on such a large group of files is that it was a useful way to put the Core M to the test. I think it came out very well - better than I would have expected.

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I think many of us believe that Apple will eventually kill off the "Air" line entirely, as it's sort of become the odd man out. The MacBook Pro line has gotten slimmer and slimmer over the years, and fulfills the role of the "power" laptop line. The new MacBook represents the evolution of the "portable" side of the product matrix. If anything, the current 13" MacBook Air is now the device with the most overlap across categories.

I foresee a near future where Apple sells two MacBooks, at 12" and 14", as well as two MacBook Pros, at 13" and 15". Within each of those lines there will be various stock and BTO options, of course. This provides symmetry with the two sizes of AIO desktops, the iMacs, the other Macs that integrate a display. Lacking integrated displays, the two "sizes" of headless desktops (the Mac Mini and Mac Pro) remain separate product lines, and serve customer bases with little overlap.

I agree with this, and...

I like your thinking... Apple selling any laptop with a crappy TN display is inexcusable in 2015. Forget retina, but crappy TN? That's why I sold my air. I couldn't stand the display.

...I emphatically, foot-stompingly, screaming out-loudly, agree with this. I have tried with the MBAs three times and just cannot do it. Cannot.

 

[thedeske]

They are either better photographers or less demanding editors.

More like fussy decision makers. That or a bad habit of leaving the finger down so they get just the right pose on some big cat in Africa. I've made my argument, but it never sinks in. A pro would wait and get "The Shot". They blast away and figure it out later. I think they should just get is over with and shoot video

 

[Traverse]

And people said all it was good for was web browsing.

 

[newellj]

And people said all it was good for was web browsing.

Yes. I have said a couple of times that I don't do thinks like Handbrake encodes on laptops any more (relatively slow, too much heat, compared to a desktop) but I think it's clear that the fanless Core M design here probably can do things like that and probably won't take much more time than the common rMBP machines.

 

[Krevnik]

Here's a screen shot. I have the left side panel set for hidden/hover. Because of the vertical height limitations, doing the same to the right side panel doesn't increase the size of the image.

Random side question, what Sony body are you shooting with?

 

[newellj]

Random side question, what Sony body are you shooting with?

That was an RX100 MkII. My usual carry these days is an Olympus OM-D E-m1 and E-M5, though. I sold a small mountain a Nikon DSLR gear a couple of years back. No more CF card readers needed!

 

[thedeske]

Perhaps some new tests with Lightroom6 (released today!)
Should be interesting