# DPP for MAC too slow?



## smi (Aug 29, 2012)

I am trying to use DPP on my new iMAC (i7 3.4GHz, 16GB RAM, 256 SSD, 2 TB hard disk, 2GB graphic card). Unfortunately, every time I access the folder view + thumbnails its taking a while to refresh the screen, and if I exit a photo edit window it takes even longer to come back. On the same iMac I am also using Windows Parallels, and I installed DPP for PC for comparison. Everything runs very fast. 
Is it a problem with my settings (I use DPP high quality view option on both systems) or the DPP for MAC is not well written? Thank you all.


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## stefsan (Aug 29, 2012)

I can't give you an authoritative answer on that but my guess is that the Canon guys who wrote DPP for Mac never put very much effort into it. I use a quad core Mac Pro 1,1 (2.66 GHz Intel Xeon 5100 series processors) with 16GB RAM to run DPP and it is always very slow. Alright, the Mac is fairly dated but the Xeons are still rather good performers. Maybe altering the quality and size settings of the viewer can speed DPP up a tiny bit but not viewing the picture you want to work on defies the purpose of using DPP at all. ???
I have not found a workaround for this yet but I always keep handy some books so I can read while waiting for DPP (or Photoshop) to get the work done…


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## brianleighty (Aug 31, 2012)

Only suggestion I can think that might help is try going under preferences and enable "Retain sort order". I'm wondering if it's trying to rebuild your thumbnails each time? Does this happen in all folders or a particular one? How many pictures are in that folder?


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## smi (Sep 3, 2012)

Thank you very much for your suggestion (retain sort order). Unfortunately, its doesn't seem to make any difference in the Mac version, although I also tried it in the PC version (which I run under Parallels) and it has accelerated it even more. The folders I am using contain in excess of 400 files...


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## DB (Sep 3, 2012)

Have you tried <Tools> then <Preferences> and in the General Settings tab (near the bottom of the panel) where it says "Default value of output resolution" [dpi 1-60000] and then changing this value. All you really need is 150 dpi or 72 dpi for screen resolution. My default on PC (similar spec to yours i7 3.4 GHz, 16Gb RAM, Nvidia GTX570 etc) is automatically set to 350 dpi for thumbnails.

Try playing with this setting and see if it speeds things up.


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## marekjoz (Sep 3, 2012)

It is slooow. Slow for viewing, rating and developing. Using DLO makes me wanting screw my head off and throw away for an idea using it all.
Finally I found a very stupid and very "workaroundy" but working way to add WATERMARKS on photos using only DPP! Yes, finally watermarks with Digital Photo Professional by Canon. But this is so stupid way, that I shame to write about it


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## stefsan (Sep 3, 2012)

marekjoz said:


> It is slooow. Slow for viewing, rating and developing. Using DLO makes me wanting screw my head off and throw away for an idea using it all.
> Finally I found a very stupid and very "workaroundy" but working way to add WATERMARKS on photos using only DPP! Yes, finally watermarks with Digital Photo Professional by Canon. But this is so stupid way, that I shame to write about it



Let's hear it anyway!


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## marekjoz (Sep 3, 2012)

stefsan said:


> marekjoz said:
> 
> 
> > It is slooow. Slow for viewing, rating and developing. Using DLO makes me wanting screw my head off and throw away for an idea using it all.
> ...



Jeeez. But this is so stupid... It works for me with version 3.11.31

OK. You need to have a jpg, or CR2  with your watermark. You need to put it into same folder, where your CR2 file is. You open a CR2 file and choose "Start Compositing Tool" from Tools menu. Having your photo seleced, you select the watermark image for foreground and depending on the photo and watermark background colors you choose an appropriate Composite method. For example below I've chosen "Add". You can finally choose the correct watermark image placement with the arrows below.

Good thing is, that the Compositing Tool preserves CR2 settings made before, so DLO for instance. If someone doesn't use Lightroom, Photoshop or sth like that, but likes DLO results, I think the described process is the best for them to obtain a watermark on their images.

The watermark used here is just an example, I know it could look better 

But this so stupid....


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## brianleighty (Sep 5, 2012)

DB said:


> Have you tried <Tools> then <Preferences> and in the General Settings tab (near the bottom of the panel) where it says "Default value of output resolution" [dpi 1-60000] and then changing this value. All you really need is 150 dpi or 72 dpi for screen resolution. My default on PC (similar spec to yours i7 3.4 GHz, 16Gb RAM, Nvidia GTX570 etc) is automatically set to 350 dpi for thumbnails.
> 
> Try playing with this setting and see if it speeds things up.


I don't think that really makes a difference as it's still the same number of pictures. I think that's more for printing settings.


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## smi (Sep 6, 2012)

I have tried all above suggestions, but none seem to accelarate the MAC version at all. Its seems to me that its the way DPP for MAC manages memory. Has anyone contacted Canon abour this?


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## stefsan (Sep 6, 2012)

marekjoz said:


> stefsan said:
> 
> 
> > marekjoz said:
> ...



I wouldn't call that procedure stupid but easy and practical  Thanks for sharing!


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## obbsey (Sep 6, 2012)

Im guessing if you have a new mac, you're running OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion)?? Or even 10.7 (Lion)?
Well, alot of the 'latest' Canon Utilities including DPP, EOS Utility etc are showing incompatability issues.
Some can be used (ie Photostitch), but some like DPP have _limited use_, and others like EOS Utility are _not supported_
Check this link:-
http://www.canon.com.au/Support-Services/Support-News/Mountain-Lion-Support#camera

Im told there is a fix sometime in October.


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## JoeDavid (Sep 6, 2012)

Interesting. I have it on the latest generation of MacBook AIR running Mountain Lion and am not experiencing any problems. I use it when traveling and take a small WD 1TB Passport USB3 drive for extra storage. I typically do not edit a lot of images at one time keeping the image count low per folder. Being and AIR, it only has a 1.8GHz Intel processor. The one big difference I can think of is that it's local drive is a pretty fast SSD instead of a traditional hard drive.


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## smi (Sep 6, 2012)

As I mentioned on my first email, I do run a very fast MAC, with primary disk a 256 SSD and a 2TB secondary hard disk. I will recheck the installation to see if DPP is installed on the SSD. I have not upgraded to Mountail Lion yet, waiting for any incompatibility issues to be resolved. DPP runs fine, its just noticeamply slower than the PC version of DPP that runs on the same MAC under Parallels. More specifically, every time I exit the photo EDIT window (I process RAW files), the programs takes around 6-8 seconds to come back. On the PC version, this is almost instant (maybe around 1sec).


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## JoeDavid (Sep 6, 2012)

I use the Lion versions of Canon's software on Mountain Lion. DPP runs fine. I too shoot RAW. DPP is not my tool of choice but it doesn't exhibit the symptoms you describe. The edit window goes away immediately when dismissed. The only other thing I can think of would be if you were accessing the same image files from another application at the same time and getting into some sort of file locking situation...


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## smi (Sep 7, 2012)

After doing a lot of tests using both the Mac and PC versions, I think I have managed to identify the cause of the issue. On the MAC version DPP has a problem handling folders with over around 400 images in them. It seems that there is a memory management issue. On the PC version, it does not appear to be a problem.


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## RLPhoto (Sep 7, 2012)

I Use Windows. :|


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## smi (Sep 7, 2012)

I have also been a great fan of PCs since the beginning. I have started using MACs I the last year, and I am a convert now. They are super fast, stable and just fun to use!


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## brianleighty (Sep 7, 2012)

smi said:


> After doing a lot of tests using both the Mac and PC versions, I think I have managed to identify the cause of the issue. On the MAC version DPP has a problem handling folders with over around 400 images in them. It seems that there is a memory management issue. On the PC version, it does not appear to be a problem.


Very interesting. I run on a Mac as well and I tend to run into a lot out of memory issues when I have a big folder of pictures. Is it exactly 400 or there abouts? I might have to start splitting up things into more folders but if it helps with these issues then that's not a bad trade off.


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## Aglet (Sep 8, 2012)

smi said:


> After doing a lot of tests using both the Mac and PC versions, I think I have managed to identify the cause of the issue. On the MAC version DPP has a problem handling folders with over around 400 images in them. It seems that there is a memory management issue. On the PC version, it does not appear to be a problem.



I run into this often too.
I've also found splitting up my files into groups of less than 300 speeds things up considerably on my i7 iMac and I get fewer DPP-out-of-memory warnings.
I once put over 600 raw + small jpgs from a trip into one folder and DPP basically hung up for minutes and then was extremely unresponsive.

the little I've used DPP on windows it certainly does feel snappier. I don't think the program is making good use of multi-cores/threads on a mac and memory management is less than stellar.
Even Adobe stuff whips large raw images around like nuthin' on my machine while DPP drags along.

Complain to Canon, they sort of fixed a bug I reported with digic 4 based bodies that put a strange kink into the shadow end of thinks causing some strange posterization. Only took about a year. :


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