Canon 650d - iPhoto?

[daveknott5]

Thinking of getting a new 650d as my 1st SLR. Currently I use iPhoto on my mac to store and manage my pics. Would this be appropriate to use with the 650d? I ask as currently it runs pretty slowly, and I'm worried I'd slow my machine down even further with mega 18Mp (big files) pictures.....

Would it be better to start afresh and use something like Adobe Photoshop - which has far more powerful editing features anyway?

Thoughts?

[GetCarter]

It's a racing certainty that it's the Mac not iPhoto that's running slowly. Photoshop is a bigger prog, takes more memory, so will probably slow things down even more.

[K12beano]

A Big Mac and Aperture might be the way to go. As Steve says, if iPhoto is currently struggling it's more likely to be eating too much resource on your current Mac - which one have you currently got?

[daveknott5]

GetCarter said:

It's a racing certainty that it's the Mac not iPhoto that's running slowly. Photoshop is a bigger prog, takes more memory, so will probably slow things down even more.

You're probably correct. It is a 2006 iMac, 1Gb of RAM, 250Gb hard drive - so is getting on a bit.

[K12beano]

Ideally 8Gb RAM or more if you're twiddling with lots of images (and you'll be better off with latest OS), I'm afraid!

[Otispunkmeyer]

I've found Lightroom to be less than smooth most of the time and that is with both 16 and 18 MP RAW files. I may possibly be to do with the high resolution on the 27 inch imac display, because the processor is very fast and I have 16 GB of RAM and it is not fluid. iPhoto doesn't run all that well either when trying to use their photo book making software. That happens on both my mac and my gf's 13 inch iMac (which is brand new).

[GetCarter]

daveknott5 said:

You're probably correct. It is a 2006 iMac, 1Gb of RAM, 250Gb hard drive - so is getting on a bit.

O/T - I find Macs run on a 6 - 7 year cycle... I've just updated from a 2006 G5 to a 12 core Mac Pro. which has 48gb ram and 6 terabytes HD! (If only I could have read that when I bought my first ZX80). I do however use it for recording music, with dozens of associated plug-ins, which eat memory and space.

I digress. Apologies.

[K12beano]

Using a 2011 MBP here 2.2GHz i7, 8Gb 1333 DDR3, Lightroom and D800 RAW files (Lossless compressed 14-bit) run really happily. (Thinking of ordering up a Carter-spec machine for replacement in 2016 now!!!)

Although the difference is that I am on an SSD - only 128, but with firewire External Drive as necessary for longer term storage. The SSD is a really good option for running and accessing stuff that much better, IMHO.