What annoyed you today?

[Jediboy]

You're better than me H.
I wouldn't dream of doing anything like that. I am beyond hopeless with computers and often rely on my 12 year old son to help me.
Glad your PC is working.

[Jediboy]

I was using LR and photoshop and it was the photoshop bit that was crashing.

I guess it was too much for the Mac to manage.
I will try an edit in StarStaX or Star trail, whichever one I can get to work.

[Oldboy]

I was using LR and photoshop and it was the photoshop bit that was crashing.

I guess it was too much for the Mac to manage.
I will try an edit in StarStaX or Star trail, whichever one I can get to work.

It depends on how much RAM you've got. Normally, you need at least 3 times the size of the file of free memory to process it. If you have a lot of free disk space then you can increase the size of the virtual memory file. This will allow you process a large file but it's slower than Ram memory. I've used this on a PC and it took eighteen hours to run but it worked. I went to bed and left it running over-night. When I got up it was still going and ended about mid-day. 

[jinky]

You do wonder if these says the larger files delivered by cameras and brought to life  in software processing with multiple images are getting too big for the standard computers we buy at home. A few times lately I`ve noticed my photoshop and other programmes slowing down to do particularly heavy processing jobs I`ve tried and I`ve needed to clean it up and re start to get the speed up. That said I rarely know what i`m doing anyway with computers 

[Jediboy]

I was using LR and photoshop and it was the photoshop bit that was crashing.

I guess it was too much for the Mac to manage.
I will try an edit in StarStaX or Star trail, whichever one I can get to work.

It depends on how much RAM you've got. Normally, you need at least 3 times the size of the file of free memory to process it. If you have a lot of free disk space then you can increase the size of the virtual memory file. This will allow you process a large file but it's slower than Ram memory. I've used this on a PC and it took eighteen hours to run but it worked. I went to bed and left it running over-night. When I got up it was still going and ended about mid-day. 

I have 8 GB of RAM, but I have no idea how much photoshop / LR was using. Its all beyond me. 

But I did manage it in some free Star trails software that I have used before, and it was really quick and easy. I am disappointed as I was keen to see how it came out in Photoshop. I will look into the RAM situation and see if I can work it out, and then try again.

[Jediboy]

You do wonder if these says the larger files delivered by cameras and brought to life  in software processing with multiple images are getting too big for the standard computers we buy at home. A few times lately I`ve noticed my photoshop and other programmes slowing down to do particularly heavy processing jobs I`ve tried and I`ve needed to clean it up and re start to get the speed up. That said I rarely know what i`m doing anyway with computers 

I think you have probably hit the nail squarely on the head here Jinky. It is entirely likely that I had unrealistic expectations, but am keen to keep trying.

[Jediboy]

Here is the photo.
Not 100% happy with it. focussing in the dark has left it a bit off, which is annoying. But it will spur me on to keep trying, when the weather is right.

[StephenBatey]

I feel for you. I've had programs crash (or the computer) several hours into running something.

As far as RAM goes, many years ago when I first started scanning 5x4 black and white negatives with an Epson flatbed, each scan took 4 hours. That's not a typo. Add more RAM, same computer, same program, same settings - scan time about 15 minutes.

[Jediboy]

I feel for you. I've had programs crash (or the computer) several hours into running something.

As far as RAM goes, many years ago when I first started scanning 5x4 black and white negatives with an Epson flatbed, each scan took 4 hours. That's not a typo. Add more RAM, same computer, same program, same settings - scan time about 15 minutes.

RAM is like the holy grail. In normal use I can't complain about my Mac, it tends to cope well. But I guess this was too much for it.
And I suspect it is time for me to start to get my head around the capabilities and capacity of my Mac and software.

[Oldboy]

One of my first computers was a ICL 486 SX25 computer with 4mb of ram. I wanted the DX25 chip but was told there was a six month waiting list for that. The DX had a maths co-processer which made any calculations quicker. I wrote a word document of about 100 pages and it couldn't process that but kept crashing. I got around that by printing the document in batches of twenty pages. I went out and brought a 16mb Ram chip and also a 540mb hard drive to replace my 85mb hard drive on the PC. I always remember the price I paid was £486. 

I got home a took out the old drive after backing up with twenty odd 1.4mb floppy disks. Moved the 4gb ram to another slot and put the new 16gb ram in the first slot. and removed the old hard drive and replaced with the 540mb drive. This took over an hour to put it all back together. Switched on and it didn't boot up because of a problem. I wasn't very happy. At the time there was some problem with memory chips not matching so you had to put them in different slots that weren't connected. Open up the PC and removed the 4mb and put it all back together again. It still wouldn't boot up! 

Took computer apart again, removed 16mb chip and replaced with the 4mb and put it all back together again. Booted up and it worked. The new 16gb chip was faulty. Thinking back to when I brought it I remember the salesman pausing before giving me the chip. I reckon he knew the chip was faulty but sold it to me anyway. I had brought the chip at the computer fare at the NEC. The firm had it's shop in Wolverhampton and it took me over an hour to reach it and exchange it. I expected some trouble but they exchanged it with no arguments. Went back home, took the PC apart again, refitted the new ram and put the 4gb ram in another slot then, put it all back together again. Switched on and it worked. I had 20gb ram and the 540gb hard disk. I never used that firm again. I then printed that Word file and it did it all in about five minutes no problem. 

On a PC you can see how much memory a process is using and the size of the page file. The page file outputs to the disk but can be anywhere where there is free space. This puts a heavy load on the disk as it keeps spinning to use up spare space on the disk. Creating a virtual drive uses space that is next to each other so speeding up the page file usage. It locks this memory block so other programs can't use it. 

[Oldboy]

If you download loads of files and programs and then delete them at a later date your disk becomes slower. You should use a disk management program to restore you disk to it's best condition. This can take some time to run but when it finishes processing should be a lot faster. It could be that you have too many programs open so, try closing those not required while processing the file. Can the file be split up so you process a bit at a time and reconnect them when they have all processed, like I did with the word file. Photoshop uses a lot of memory whilst some of the modules aren't been used, try closing them. If all else fails ask IBM if you can use deep blue.  You could ask Google if you can borrow their quantum computer which processes everything at once. 

[Jediboy]

Sounds like I should get you around Oldboy to have a look at the Mac.
But like I say, for the list part it's fine and works well. I guess it just struggled with this.

One of the annoying things is that a piece of free software did it in about teb minutes.

When I get a bit of spare time (shouldn't be a problem at the moment) I will do some research on it.
Cheers for the help. 

[Jediboy]

I have been enjoying a more productive time on photoshop  recently. That was until my wife unplugged my Mac thinking it was her phone charger!
It switched off as I was in the middle of editing a photo.

It was rather annoying! 

[Oldboy]

I have been enjoying a more productive time on photoshop  recently. That was until my wife unplugged my Mac thinking it was her phone charger!
It switched off as I was in the middle of editing a photo.

It was rather annoying! 

 

Years ago at work, I was writing a program to create a file that would produce output to a printer, to show what parameters needed to be changed  on the main computer before running the overnight updated. The program used current date to workout what parameters need to be changed and this depended on the day of the week and/or if that was a public holiday or if the day before it was a public holiday etc etc. When writing the program what I always did was to construct it in my head and then run it to see if it would produce the right result. I had been sitting at the PC staring at the screen for over half-hour without moving whilst, running the program in my head. My line manager asked what I was doing and I lost the lot, as it was in short term memory. I wasn't happy to say the least. After that I never wrote programs like that at work again, use to take it home and do it on my PC at home.   

[Mick]

I have been enjoying a more productive time on photoshop  recently. That was until my wife unplugged my Mac thinking it was her phone charger!
It switched off as I was in the middle of editing a photo.

It was rather annoying! 

UPS