Bite the apple?

J-see

Senior Member
Image Capture is the one that keeps getting me, because while a lot of my settings sync (via iCloud) across my multiple Macs, these settings aren't included. So once I get my home Mac desktop working the way I want, I'll be on the road and plug in my iPhone to charge and suddenly iPhotos opens to sync the phone ... and then starts syncing photo stream and everything else that I didn't want it to do. But once I get things set everywhere, I've not had problems with minor upgrades like 10.10.2 to 10.10.3 changing those settings.

Before I used the Nikon import but that seems to be gone for some reason after I updated to the latest NX versions. Then it was image capture which worked well besides being a serious memory hog. I see no reason for every shot that I import to be added to my file cache and remain there until the end of days. But maybe it's me and Apple thinks that the more there is in the memory, the merrier.

Now image capture no longer activates and photos does the *cough* import *cough*. That app can very correctly be described as CRAP. It all wouldn't be much of an issue if I could remove it or at the very least, tell it to never ever pop up again and let something decent do the job.

But hey, it's an Apple; I'm just its user, not its owner.
 

Krs_2007

Senior Member
You can also change the default app that is associated with the file type that is being imported. I dont get prompted to import anything when my phone/ipad/card is inserted so never experienced these issues.

I am activating the new photo's app now, so lets see what kind of issues this creates.
 

Krs_2007

Senior Member
Well, maybe I shouldn't have done it. What a resource hog and I only have 10k in photo's. Oh well, i am sure the old girl can stand to have the soot blown out of her.
 

J-see

Senior Member
Well, maybe I shouldn't have done it. What a resource hog and I only have 10k in photo's. Oh well, i am sure the old girl can stand to have the soot blown out of her.

I don't know if photos is a resource hog. It's just crap and I don't need it. Image capture is a memory hog since it adds every shot I import to the file cache and unless I manually dump it, it remains there. When I bird, 100 or 200 D810 RAWs come at a cost.

I'm curious if I'd shoot 500 if I could even import them in one go or if the whole thing just locks down.

The idea I can't import 20Gb of shots because it would drain my memory is ridiculous. It's not as if I'm importing one 20Gb RAW so all the memory it should require is the size of one shot.
 
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Krs_2007

Senior Member
I don't know if photos is a resource hog. It's just crap and I don't need it. Image capture is a memory hog since it adds every shot I import to the file cache and unless I manually dump it, it remains there. When I bird, 100 or 200 D810 RAWs come at a cost.

I'm curious if I'd shoot 500 if I could even import them in one go or if the whole thing just locks down.


We shall see, its still migrating the library over. The only reason I will use it for controlling pictures to the cloud. I have several devices the myself and my wife share so it makes it easy on keeping the photo's in sync. I put pictures that I take with the DSLR into the app for that sole purpose. All editing and storing originals are done with with Lightroom and Photoshop.

When I import to LR it doesn't bog my system and thats with RAW. But I have a quad core Xeon 2.8 GHz Mac Pro desktop, although its 5 years old it does have 16 GB memory and 3 1TB drives so I try to balance things a bit. Plan for the 4th slot is to possibly go SSD, just haven't done it yet.

I have a Mac Pro laptop that does bog down when importing RAW files but it only has 6gb memory and its a slower processor, but its 6 years old. It does the job because I am never in a hurry.

On the desktop I usually have 2 or 3 Safari's, Mail, iTunes, Lightroom and sometimes Photoshop open when importing. I think the desktop just handles the workload a little better in my case.

Its hard to find the right balance when every company is updating their software all the time and the hardware stays the same for a long period of time. Oh well, I gave up on trying to stay the bleeding edge of technology.
 

J-see

Senior Member
Maybe there's a difference between your system and mine but in my case, memory management is THE problem. It simply does not dump unnecessary memory use. I'm doing that manually most of the time but I can't dump during a load and I simply can not understand the fact that it will add everything I import to the memory when there is simply no need for that at all.

Maybe there's some third party hack-ware that allows me to get to the core of this idiocy and somehow fix it.
 

Krs_2007

Senior Member
Maybe there's a difference between your system and mine but in my case, memory management is THE problem. It simply does not dump unnecessary memory use. I'm doing that manually most of the time but I can't dump during a load and I simply can not understand the fact that it will add everything I import to the memory when there is simply no need for that at all.

Maybe there's some third party hack-ware that allows me to get to the core of this idiocy and somehow fix it.

That is strange, the differences between them. Something is up with yours, that's for sure.

I did a complete restore, update on my laptop at one point. It did help and hasn't been needed since.

Not sure if you are familiar with disk utilities on Mac but you can try to repair permissions. Short of that I would suggest restoring laptop to new state and doing the updates from that point forward. Them installing any software you have added. I personally have never removed, modified in any way from original state of receipt and they all have worked flawlessly.


By that I mean core apps/services. I have installed/uninstalled 3rd party with no ill effects.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 

J-see

Senior Member
Here's a sweet example. I got home, inserted the card, told photos to f*k off, ran image capture and imported the NEF files. All 124 of them.

Here's the situation after that import:

Screen Shot 2015-04-12 at 12.03.22.png

Now Mac keeps that cache in memory because I will probably look at those photos and when doing that, don't have to load them into the cache again. Mac Nanny. It's also fantastic logic to better have 12Gb memory in constant use than having to wait 2 seconds when checking a shot.

Even ignoring this mac-logic, the problem is that when I need the memory, it should dump the cache.

It should.

Btw, more than 10Gb for 100+ shots puzzled me at first since every RAW is maybe 40Mb. It didn't add up. Unless it uncompressed them in which case they're double the size each. I wonder what happens when I try to import 200 of them. That's more than I got cache.

It also shows the mentality of Apple. This generation Macbook is no longer targeted at a serious audience. I'd dare bet good money that within five years, the whole graphic sector that always worked on Mac, will have moved to greener pastures.
 
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J-see

Senior Member
I discovered how to avoid the mem-hogging.

Insert card: close all app-crap that pops up, manually select all files, copy and paste in folder. No matter how many files you copy like this, nothing is kept into the memory.

But the moment I use one of the apps, I'm screwed. Their "we'll do the thinking for you" philosophy might work if they first hire someone capable of thinking things through.


A couple more days and I'm desensitized again. ;
 

J-see

Senior Member
Image capture and photos right now. I quit using both but it seems I am unable to disable photos from popping up. They're both system-integrated. There's no way I can get rid of them.

Before Nikon used to import my RAW but somewhere I lost that "app" and I have no clue why or when.


I don't know if all Macbooks suffer this problem but what they're doing with those apps is disastrous. The idea that if you import something, it'll be kept in the memory since that speeds up using or looking at those files afterwards is nice and dandy and might work well when you attach an i-Phone but if you shoot DSLR and insert a card with 20Gb of data, it's just a bad, bad idea.

I have been turning this thing upside down and there's no option I find to disable this. It prioritises this file cache above anything else even if it takes down the whole system.
 
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Fred Kingston_RIP

Senior Member
First off... Apps aren't integrated with the OS... In fact, I totally deleted iPhoto...

I don't get a popup when I plug in an SD card...

I just tried Importing files with Image Capture as a test while watching the memory cache w/Activity Monitor... and as soon as I closed Image Capture it released the cache...

When was the last time you totally rebuilt the permissions on your hard drive?
 

J-see

Senior Member
First off... Apps aren't integrated with the OS... In fact, I totally deleted iPhoto...

I don't get a popup when I plug in an SD card...

I just tried Importing files with Image Capture as a test while watching the memory cache w/Activity Monitor... and as soon as I closed Image Capture it released the cache...

When was the last time you totally rebuilt the permissions on your hard drive?

It's not iPhoto, it's the new "Photos" app. The moment you want to delete it, you get the "can't because..." message. I just close it each time it pops up. That's the best I can do at the moment.

It's part of the latest update.

What version Macbook do you got? Yours does what it should do; purge the file cache. Mine sits there until eternity.
 
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Fred Kingston_RIP

Senior Member
There's an app... "CleanMyMac 3"... Unfortunately, and contrary to popular opinion, Macs do install stuff in different places, that simply deleting an App file in Applications, doesn't remove...
 

J-see

Senior Member
Mine doesn't popup... :ambivalence:

The moment I insert the card, the new photos app pops up. I checked if I could change that behavior but there's nothing I find.

I now do all manually and it somewhat works since I can limit the cache use in Capture NX-D when doing my first selection of the shots.
 

J-see

Senior Member
There's an app... "CleanMyMac 3"... Unfortunately, and contrary to popular opinion, Macs do install stuff in different places, that simply deleting an App file in Applications, doesn't remove...

I'll could try that but I have no problem deleting any app besides the ones part of the OS-X. Those are "protected". Even silly stuff like the chess game. I maybe better check if the system doesn't break down when I delete one of those using third party.
 
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