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Extremely slow on my 4 month old iMac (10.13.6).


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I'm studying my way through Affinity Photo Work Book.  I find so often that when I click on a function, I'll see the Apple color time icon, stationary and I won't even be able to use my mouse.     I'm also learning how to use the new Wacom Intuos Pro.   I've experienced the much older one on my old (retired) iMac.   It too, seems to freeze the screen. The Activity Monitor tells me that of the physical memory of 8.00 GB, the Memory Used: is 7.55.   Is that why my Affinity moves soo slowly, with frequent frozen screen until it unlocks its self?    BTW, I've used PhotoShop since 2005 up to PSCS5, but switching to Affinity Photo and loving it.       If you tell me the long pauses is normal, then I'll just accept it.    Either way, thank you in advance.

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I assume you are using the Activity monitor on the Mac to see how much memory is being used, if so check at the bottom and see how large the Swap Used is. You may benefit from restarting your computer if it is too large. By large I mean hundreds of megabytes or a gigabyte.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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"forever" is a relative term. Do you have an SSD, if yes it should be a couple of minutes if you have all the programs shut down (meaning you only have the Finder running when you reboot the computer), if you have it set up for opening the running applications then all bets are off.

I just noticed you have (10.13.6) in the topic title. Is that a typo or are you running an OS beta (or did I miss an update?)? If you are running an OS beta, again, all bets are off.

And 2.6 GB swap is quite large, I would expect the sort of very slow response you described.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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I bought this in February, from stock at Micro Center here in St. Louis.  Yes, 10.13.6 High Sierra the 'about this mac' says.

I haven't thought of closing all programs.   I will definitely do that next restart.   I haven't set any programs to auto open.   I'll watch that too.   And if a program auto opens, where do I turn that off?

Sorry for the questions.  I teach college physics, but that doesn't mean I'm a computer expert.   And thanks for your suggestions.

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By the way, I should also tell you that I've purchased the newest Wacom Intuos Pro pen tabled, and from time to time, the pen fails to respond.  And also, there are occasions when I will click on something with the mouse and the Apple time icon will appear, but not even spin.   But during that time, even the mouse has no effect, as though the screen is frozen.    Maybe I'm picking unfairly on Affinity Photo.   One last observation, from the Activity Monitor is running about 7.00 to 7.35 yesterday.   It's currently 6.95.  I'm making it a point to close all software except for Chrome, Affinity, and Thurnderbird for my e-mail.     There it is.

 

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53 minutes ago, elliott937 said:

Yes, 10.13.6 High Sierra the 'about this mac' says.

It is too early here for me, I missed the vital bit (Byte) of information 10.13.6 I was thinking about Mojave 10.14.5. Going to make and drink a coffee now.

 

59 minutes ago, elliott937 said:

And if a program auto opens, where do I turn that off?

System Preferences > Users and Groups in the Login Items tab. Generally there are just things in there which 'need' to run but you can add things you want to have running.

Check and make sure you are running the latest Wacom Drivers. Driver 6.3.34-2 (macOS 10.11 - 10.14) https://www.wacom.com/en-ca/support/product-support/drivers

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Thank you for the login automation.   There was only one, and it was ITunes.   I've unselected it.

Apple keeps sending me "y updates" for the 10.14 OS.   NO!    My last computer was only four years old.   The newer OS on this computer cost me a scanner and my Wacom pen tablet.  I had to replace both.   I choose not to rush to any update based on my past experience.

thank you for the link to Wacom drivers.   Last week, when my pen was working only part-time, I called Wacom.   Got an expert in the Dominican Republic, who told me I needed to update to the latest due to problems with 10.14.   But.....I don't have 10.14, but he told me I must update that drives.   The pen is much better, and maybe the computer "freezing" is due to something else.  I've learned to just sit, wait a couple of minutes, and I'll have it back.  Now you understand better why I was asking if it could be due to Affinity.

BTW, where are you?   Morning coffee??  Europe???   Afternoon tea????

 

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Are you in Canada?   I looked at the radar for the west coast and found rain only in Canada.   Now, if you look in the Midwest, you'll see lots of it, and coming my way for St. Louis.

BTW, I did the restart...and closed everything before the restart.   Wow, I'm impressed, and you know your stuff.   Think about this:  after the restart, I before I opened Affinity, Memory used was 4.9.  After opening Affinity, it went up to 6.6 GB.      Now I'll know to close everything before Restarting the computer.

Lunch time here, two pugs are reminding me of that.    BRB.

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1 hour ago, elliott937 said:

you know your stuff. 

Wrong. [smiley face emoticon] I just have years of experience being burned over and over again sometimes I learn.

Actually it is not raining at present here on the island, AKA Vancouver Island, but there is a saying "We don't Tan, We Rust" which is apt.

I have 16 GB of RAM and Affinity uses from 1 to 2 until I open a document and then it uses up to all of it. depending on the size of the file.

 

Should I say "Go Blues!" ? Nice to see two teams from my childhood in the finals.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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2 minutes ago, elliott937 said:

 Now, just a couple of hours later, it's 379.3 MB.    What did I do to cause this?

Don't know, that seems excessive. A trick that helps me is I will Log out and back in again, that doesn't take as long as a restart but sadly it doesn't completely clear the swap. Do you have at least 20% of your System Hard drive free? I like to have more than that free, it helps keep the swap size down I believe.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Log out and back in  again?   How is that different from Restart?    And....this computer doesn't have a hard drive icon on the desktop, as all prior ones have.    Will the Activity Monitor have that data?

We've been on a cruise up to and past Vancouver.   This is your best weather time, isn't it?

 

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4 hours ago, elliott937 said:

I bought this in February, from stock at Micro Center here in St. Louis.

Was this Mac sold as new(in which case it's strange that it came with 10.13.6)? If not, in what state did it come - with some software pre-installed? Is there a chance that there's some bloatware on the machine?

Affinity Photo - Affinity Designer - Affinity Publisher | macOS Sonoma (14.2) on 16GB MBP14 2021 with 2.4 versions

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It came new, in the box, in February.  And no pre-installed software that I'm aware of.   I purchased Microsoft Office and installed it.   I purchased Affinity Photo, needless to say. I Installed Photomatix Pro6, OnONE 10, which means Perfect Resize, Toast 17, and FastRawViewer, and Wacom's Intuous Pro.    The Photomatrix and Perfect Resize were downloads previous paid for from my previous iMac.  

You said one thing that really shed some light on the matter.   you said that Affinity takes up about 2 GB, until you load a file, and when ywhyou open a file, it uses all of it.  Can that be the reason why my computer freezes/long time out when I have one, two, or more Affinity files open?        And what do you mean about a log out?    

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This just popped into my head. Are you using the option to save the history with your files? It is in the File menu File > Save History with Document. It is a toggle and if it is on there is a check mark next to it. That makes for larger file sizes which in turn makes for slower running processes. If it is ticked un-tick it and see if that helps, this is a per file setting too, so you could open a file with it on then move on to others but the Swap file gets filled up by that first file with the saved history.

Logging out is under the Apple menu, Shift + Command + Q. It will ask you what account you want to log into and then the password for that account. I always setup with two accounts, The Administrator account and my own account which is what I use all the time. This is in Preferences Users and Groups. Not a big deal really, as I said Logging Out/In only partly clears the swap. 

Does Toast have an auto backup feature? I haven't used it for yonks now (it was in single digits, not a teenager) but I seem to recall there was something that could be set automatically. Probably not a factor, it was a solid piece of software back then, and you would be prompted to insert DVD/CD media if it was running.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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When you say 'it is in the File menu > Save History with Document' ... I would find "File" where?  Obviously not Thunderbird, where I read your e-mail.   So I clicked on the desktop, which brought up Finder, but under Finder, there is no Save History with Document.   I'll gladly untick it, if I could find it.

Just out of curiosity, what OS is on your iMac?

When you go out with your camera for a shoot, how do you save your images?    I've never saved them to the computer's hard drive, but instead, I've always used Toast to save them onto a DVD.   I've even pulled up a DVD or CD from ten years ago, and all the images are there.     So, to answer you question if Toast has an auto backup feature, I don't know how to answer your question.   When I installed it, I was not asked if I wanted to back it up.

So let me ask: When you use your Affinity Photo, do you ever have two or three or more images opened at the same time?  If yes, how has that impacted your computer.   And...have your purchased the Affinity Photo Work Book?    It is impressive.    On on the Core chapter, for I really want to know how to do Quick Mask as I've done so frequently in Photoshop.    I have a wonderful capture when we vacationed in New Orleans at their bar/pub/museum, with three statues of historic jazz performers.   I want to extract them so that I can better improve the image.    But so far, in Affinity, I've only found the "auto" selection.   I don't want auto, i need to "paint" my selection.   I'll bet you already know how to do that, don't you?

On a separate topic, how did you survive the winters there?????   No sun for months, right?

Bill

 

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3 hours ago, elliott937 said:

When you say 'it is in the File menu > Save History with Document' ... I would find "File" where? 

Affinity Photo.

3 hours ago, elliott937 said:

When you go out with your camera for a shoot, how do you save your images?

I save to a separate Hard drive, you save to DVD, Horses for courses. Just a matter of preference for each of us.

 

3 hours ago, elliott937 said:

When you use your Affinity Photo, do you ever have two or three or more images opened at the same time?  If yes, how has that impacted your computer. 

Slower, sometimes much slower.

 

3 hours ago, elliott937 said:

On a separate topic, how did you survive the winters there?????   No sun for months, right?

We get lots of sun, just blocked and filtered through thick grey clouds. Effectively: dark at 3 pm until 9 am. Lots of Seasonally Adjusted Depression around here due to the grey as much as the dark.

I am unfamiliar with the workbook, you could post a question about your New Orleans photo, people more experienced than I could offer more salient advice than I ever could, I rarely extract elements. Have you watched the Affinity Tutorials? https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/photo/desktop/

 

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Speed is an issue here is a couple things in addition to what you already have checked:

What kind of internal storage: HDD or SSD? An SSD will be tremendously faster for everything. They are worth every penny and can make an old computer feel like new.

How full is your internal storage? If you are more than 70% full I think you will see more slow downs. Above that you will have more issues. 

Clear your system cache out might help.

One person said to turn off the history - yes. Affinity files can get massive even without history.

I've found that you may have better luck changing your preferences in performance as seen in the screen shot. 

You might want to turn your memory usage down just so you can give more back to the system. Also change from Metal to OpenGl or vice versa seems to affect performance differently depending on the computer.

I've run Affinity before on an 8GB Mac Book Air and it was fine. So I think it should be good on yours.

Screen Shot 2019-06-12 at 10.47.56 PM.jpg

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To show you how much I do not know about iMacs, I do now know how to find the Performance window.   It's not in my Preference, although your screen capture looks like what I saw when I had a PC.  Could you be using a PC?

I do not know if my internal storage is HDD or SSD.   You say that SSD will make the machine go much faster, but is that an internal device put into the computer by Apple, or is it something I can purchase, attach, and make my machine move much faster?

Also, on this machine, I am not saving any image files (Affinity) or word files (Word) on the machine.   I have two external 4TB HDs that are being used to save any work I do on the machine.eir 

And Brice, the Affinity Photo Work Book is one that I purchased from Amazon.  But since I updated my Affinity, I see their store on the home page.   The book is great, and I'm studying it now.   HOWEVER, since I clicked on the link and there are 64 tutorials, including masks.   It is Quick Mask that I need to learn for my New Orleans photo.   I can do Quick Mask (actully, that means you can paint exactly the object, and its borders, where the selection tools seems to always use "magnetic" methods) easily in Photoshop, but I don't know how to do that in Affinity.

I welcome your responses about HDD or SSD.....this is the first iMac I've seen without a HD icon on the desk top.

I value your suggestions....I'm running my machine now with the Activity Monitor running, with the bottom edge visible all the time.  With Affinity open and one file open, the Memory used is 6.62GB, with the simple file closed, the Memory Used went down to 4.69, and with Affinity closed that 800e Memory used is down to 3.45 GB.   is this all normal?

if my "Cached Files" are at 802.2MB, is that bad?   The Swap used is at 627.8MB.   Bad yet?

Bill

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9 hours ago, elliott937 said:

To show you how much I do not know about iMacs, I do now know how to find the Performance window.   It's not in my Preference, although your screen capture looks like what I saw when I had a PC.  Could you be using a PC?

I do not know if my internal storage is HDD or SSD.   You say that SSD will make the machine go much faster, but is that an internal device put into the computer by Apple, or is it something I can purchase, attach, and make my machine move much faster?

Also, on this machine, I am not saving any image files (Affinity) or word files (Word) on the machine.   I have two external 4TB HDs that are being used to save any work I do on the machine.eir 

And Brice, the Affinity Photo Work Book is one that I purchased from Amazon.  But since I updated my Affinity, I see their store on the home page.   The book is great, and I'm studying it now.   HOWEVER, since I clicked on the link and there are 64 tutorials, including masks.   It is Quick Mask that I need to learn for my New Orleans photo.   I can do Quick Mask (actully, that means you can paint exactly the object, and its borders, where the selection tools seems to always use "magnetic" methods) easily in Photoshop, but I don't know how to do that in Affinity.

I welcome your responses about HDD or SSD.....this is the first iMac I've seen without a HD icon on the desk top.

I value your suggestions....I'm running my machine now with the Activity Monitor running, with the bottom edge visible all the time.  With Affinity open and one file open, the Memory used is 6.62GB, with the simple file closed, the Memory Used went down to 4.69, and with Affinity closed that 800e Memory used is down to 3.45 GB.   is this all normal?

if my "Cached Files" are at 802.2MB, is that bad?   The Swap used is at 627.8MB.   Bad yet?

Bill

No. This is the affinity preferences on the Mac. The way you know is Metal is only on Mac - and it helps tremendously.

If you click the 12 block square button at the top of the window it will give you a whole bunch of preferences that you may not have seen before, one of these being performance.

Depending on the Mac you have depends on what you can upgrade - and the difficulty. A MacPro, Mac Mini, are easily upgradable. An iMac can be upgraded by not so easy. A Macbook, Air, Pro cannot be upgraded with internal storage. You could use an external SSD and it's relatively easy but trying to explain how to install the OS on an external large SSD is not something I'm going to go into here. I don't know what machine you have.

If you want your harddrive to show up on the desktop you need to go to Finder preferences and check the box:

1465247427_ScreenShot2019-06-13at8_24_20PM.thumb.jpg.286dfc72ab9d340ed5113aa05eedd2c5.jpg

I don't think the numbers sound too bad for your files being opened. It's different depending on how much memory you have in your system. I think you have 8GB RAM but not sure. How much space did you say you had left on your Harddrive? Either way If you can the SSD really will help things.

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Hi Bryce,   I hope you are having a good weekend.   I'm studying my Memory Used so that I can learn what is 'smart' to have open, and what is not.   I'm learning a lot.

I'm progressing through the Affinity Photo Work Book, paying real close attention to 'masks', and I've learn a convoluted way to achieve masks, but it's not the same as Quick Mask in Photoshop.   However, if I put Quick Mask in the Affinity help window, it tells me it exist.   But where?   How?     And just so that you don't think I'm a spoiled brat and insist having things "quickly", that is not it.   I want to 'paint' precisely where I want a mask to exist.  That's all.  Does such exist?

Thanks Bryce in advance.

Bill

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