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MacBooks, Core Image and graphics
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2000
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I have an old version of Photoshop that won't run on my MacBook, so I decided to give some of these new Core Image image editors a try. None of them including Pixelmator, Acorn and Chocoflop were fast, even for simple tasks, and none of them were usable for larger images. I thought maybe it was unoptimized code, or whatnot...
But then I tried adjusting colors for a picture in Preview. Preview beachballed on me and simply couldn't keep up with the slider movement. This was on a 3072x2304 pixel photo. What is going on here? My MacBook is maxed out with 4 GB of RAM, and I know there was plenty of free RAM, as Activity Monitor told me so.
Was Preview using Core Image to do the adjustments? If so, are Core Image editing features simply unusable on a new MacBook at this point?
I simply cannot understand why I cannot drag the contrast slider quickly from left to right on a Photo in Preview without getting the colorful beach ball of death each time. These are things I could do easily and quickly on my G4 eMac with Photoshop and other image editing tools.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2000
Status:
Offline
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Well, I tested Preview again with the same 3072x2304 image and another 4800x3480 JPEG image on both my MacBook's built-in screen and on my external 20" LCD, and I must say it did pretty well. Mind you, results weren't instantaneous either. I still think old, non-Core Image code (like Photoshop) is faster, but it was acceptably responsive nonetheless.
What it really has some issue with is the sharpness. After carefully trying each function, this is clearly the only function it somewhat chokes on. The first time around, I took issue with the slow Sharpness function and drew a premature conclusion out of that. It does give me the beachball with the Sharpness function, but with a little patience it will complete the task
Pixelmator, on the other hand, is a bit slower at some things. I may have been too harsh on it too, though. While it has problems with some specific functions, others are at least as fast as Preview's Color sliders. I guess I expected these apps to fly on a brand spankin' new Mac with maxed out RAM. Unfortunately, that is not quite the case. Apple would do well to provide some type of significant hardware graphics acceleration on the MacBooks, even if it applies only to Core Image and system operations.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Houston, TX
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On a machine with a relatively powerful CPU and relatively weak GPU, why are you looking into Core Image based photo editors?
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Sep 2000
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Originally Posted by mduell 
On a machine with a relatively powerful CPU and relatively weak GPU, why are you looking into Core Image based photo editors?
I'm merely looking for tools which will help me replace Photoshop. Most of the efforts to write a Photoshop replacement that I've seen happen to be Core Image based.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Portland, OR
Status:
Offline
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Originally Posted by Gamoe
But then I tried adjusting colors for a picture in Preview. Preview beachballed on me and simply couldn't keep up with the slider movement. This was on a 3072x2304 pixel photo. What is going on here? My MacBook is maxed out with 4 GB of RAM, and I know there was plenty of free RAM, as Activity Monitor told me so.
A 3072x2304 image is simply going to be too large for Intel Integrated Graphics to really deal with.
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8 Core 2.8 ghz Mac Pro/GF8800/2 23" Cinema Displays, 3.06 ghz Macbook Pro
Once you wanted revolution, now you're the institution, how's it feel to be the man?
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