Leica Q3 Raw Files Editing Performance

[Miltz]

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Ever since getting my Q3 and editing images in Photoshop Camera Raw I've noticed it's much slower than any other files I've edited before. There's a lot of lag. I have a New MacBook Pro 16inch M1 Pro with 16GB of Ram and the SSD is pretty empty. Have you seen any differences with your editing performance since updating your camera? I really don't need an excuse to get a M3 MacBook next week as the Q3 already ruined my 2023 budget... lol

[dpitt]

Do you use the internal drive to edit? If you use an external drive that might slow down things considerably.

[Miltz]

Nope. All done on the laptop.

[nonoirie]

I edit the Q3 files on M1 MBP 14 with 32GB Ram pushing DNG files from external HD on LRC and I have no issues.  

[Le Chef]

Check in Help on Adobe for ways to speed up your computer through how it uses memory.

[MindsEye]

13 hours ago, Miltz said:

Ever since getting my Q3 and editing images in Photoshop Camera Raw I've noticed it's much slower than any other files I've edited before. There's a lot of lag. I have a New MacBook Pro 16inch M1 Pro with 16GB of Ram and the SSD is pretty empty. Have you seen any differences with your editing performance since updating your camera? I really don't need an excuse to get a M3 MacBook next week as the Q3 already ruined my 2023 budget... lol

This may be a really basic question but have you previously edited 60MP Raw files? I have noticed a little lag with both Lightroom and ON1 Photo Raw. Also a little lag even with Photo Mechanic 6, which I use for its great speed, when downloading, keywording, rating/culling before I do editing. I believe this is attributable to the large file size as I don't see it with my 40MP and smaller files from my other cameras. I am using original M1 macs with 16GB RAM and SSDs over half full. Not a big deal really, other than a tad slower than with smaller raw files.

[nameBrandon]

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I edit Q3 and GFX 100 images on my M1 Ultra studio in both LR and C1. C1 is noticeably faster when moving through the library. I can't say I've noticed any real difference beyond the preview loading, though. Any specific actions that are slow in LR?

[Miltz]

Thank you everyone for your replies. Everything feels slow overall. I guess I was spoiled with the instant action on the Z6 files. I checked my activity monitor and Photoshop is using 15.5GB out of 16GB, but that’s normal I think. I be honest I never really checked before because everything was instant. I wonder how much faster the M3 will be that’s coming out next week. Leica should start selling a bundle with the Q3 that includes a M3 MacBook Pro lol. I can’t imagine editing on my older intel laptop I got rid of to get the M1 Pro. I’m going to go back to my Z6 files and do a test just to see if it’s my imagination or if it’s really that much slower. 

[CalStanford]

4 hours ago, Miltz said:

Thank you everyone for your replies. Everything feels slow overall. I guess I was spoiled with the instant action on the Z6 files. I checked my activity monitor and Photoshop is using 15.5GB out of 16GB, but that’s normal I think. I be honest I never really checked before because everything was instant. I wonder how much faster the M3 will be that’s coming out next week. Leica should start selling a bundle with the Q3 that includes a M3 MacBook Pro lol. I can’t imagine editing on my older intel laptop I got rid of to get the M1 Pro. I’m going to go back to my Z6 files and do a test just to see if it’s my imagination or if it’s really that much slower. 

The M3 won't make much of a difference. You need more RAM. I've got 24GB on my M2 Macbook Air and it sure ain't slow at all.

[idusidusi]

27 minutes ago, CalStanford said:

The M3 won't make much of a difference. You need more RAM. I've got 24GB on my M2 Macbook Air and it sure ain't slow at all.

Yes RAM is the key here. I have an M1 Max Mac Studio, with 64GB RAM, no speed issues at all editing with C1 and other editors.

[David Wien]

16 minutes ago, idusidusi said:

Yes RAM is the key here. I have an M1 Max Mac Studio, with 64GB RAM, no speed issues at all editing with C1 and other editors.

64GB, while possible, sounds like overkill to me. I can edit Q3 DNG files on my 32GB pc in PhotoLab 6 without having to wait for results. Also, when I then export the results as TIFF files to Abobe, there is no sluggishness.

David

Edited October 27, 2023 by David Wien

[idusidusi]

6 minutes ago, David Wien said:

64GB, while possible, sounds like overkill to me. I can edit Q3 DNG files on my 32GB pc in PhotoLab 6 without having to wait for results. Also, when I then export the results as TIFF files to Abobe, there is no sluggishness.

David

Overkill perhaps, but every time I have moved to a new computer, that is the one thing I have always done stuffed the max memory in that I could afford at the time.

[jps1]

For my part, I have a MacBook Air M1 with 8 GB of rom.

I have no slowness problems when processing DNGs with Capture One.

And I see no difference with Nikon NEFs that are only 20 MB!

Maybe Capture One is less gourmet than the Adobe suite.

[Knorp]

8GB of ROM ? That's the minimum amount of memory as advised by CO, but perhaps a powerful graphics engine helps here too ?

Also check if Hardware acceleration (OpenGL) is enabled.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Knorp

[jps1]

Sorry RAM

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[jaapv]

2 hours ago, Knorp said:

8GB of ROM ? That's the minimum amount of memory as advised by CO, but perhaps a powerful graphics engine helps here too ?

Also check if Hardware acceleration (OpenGL) is enabled.

The graphics engine in the M chips works somewhat differently and is integrated in the chip. Even with 8 GB it should be able to cope.

[Anakronox]

10 hours ago, idusidusi said:

Yes RAM is the key here. I have an M1 Max Mac Studio, with 64GB RAM, no speed issues at all editing with C1 and other editors.

Have to second this from personal experience.  I used the M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM for a year and with LR (or C1) and Photoshop open simultaneously, PS would lock up often for 30-60 seconds, sometimes longer.  This was editing 47 MP SL2 and 40 MP M10M raws, one at a time.  LR alone would consume 12GB just upon opening the catalog.  

How did I fix it?  Ditched the 16GB MacBook and traded up to a 64 GB model.  Absolutely zero lockups and I can have 10 files going in PS simultaneously if I need to.  It’s true that unused RAM is wasted RAM, especially in the Unix/Linux/Mac world, but not having enough is so much worse.  Hate to say it, but OP should consider 32GB as the bare minimum for running both DAM and the pixel editor together. 

[ianforber]

I have a 2017 MacBook Pro with an Intel chip and (I think) 16GB of RAM. I use Capture One and while importing and exporting 60MB files from my M11 is slow, editing them in CO is quick enough. Masking is real time and it takes only a slightly noticeable time to see the change if I hover the cursor over the different styles I might want to apply to an image. I have all my images on an external SSD and don’t have any other applications running while editing. My only problem at the moment is that since the latest Nik Effect upgrade I can’t launch most of their apps but that’s a different story. 

[SAronian]

My MacBook Pro M1 Max / 32GB with 1TB SSD has drive speeds of 5900 Write / 5500 Read (Blackmagic Disk Speed Test). With a 60MP Q3 file open in Camera Raw Activity Viewer shows Photoshop 25.1.0 as using 4.9GB of memory. Not sure why you're seeing a slowdown which shouldn't be caused by the file size.

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[kIB]

I have 32 GB ram at a pc from 2012 and no problems handling the files -  exept for DXO noise reduction when shooting high iso.s= Here it is really slow, but others claim the same.