Pre Processing where is the bottleneck ?

[davsachz]

I'm new to Digital workflow. What I call preprocessing, Downloading, resize, rotate so the client can view the images. Right now I have a PII-450 with a 7200rpm IBM 40G HD, and 396MB ram. Batch rotation of Fine Jpgs from the S2 is sloooow.
Is the bottleneck just Raw hardware, more ram, faster drive, or the software ? Right now I'm using something called Irfanview which is great and only $10, but maybe something else is faster.
Your feedback please. Thanks, Dave

[Swampy]

I use ACDSee for general viewing and for quick work, EXIF Image Viewer. ACDSee will take about 3 seconds for a rotate of an S2 Fine jpeg and I haven't tried resizing with it yet. Exif Viewer really flies on my computer, rotating and resizing takes about 1/2 second for each picture.

I'll bet half of your complaint is your hardware speed. I haven't tried Irfan, but I know a few people who have and think it's a great program. Maybe if I have some time, I'll install it this weekend and try some resizing and rotating, but Exif really does me well, especially with being able to view all the info on the photo plus the histogram.

[Swampy]

Originally posted by swampy101
I'll install it this weekend and try some resizing and rotating, but Exif really does me well, especially with being able to view all the info on the photo plus the histogram.

I had some free time and installed Irfanview. Don't like it. :) Full size image up, scrolling around is choppy and made me feel like I was on a really slow computer (maybe this is most of you problem!). But, sizing and rotating were still fairly fast, faster than ACDSee, but slower than EXIF Viewer.

Try the EXIF Viewer and see how you like that...

http://home.pacbell.net/michal_k

This is freeware program with no nags. Don't forget to look at the EXIF InfoTip thing at the bottom of the download page too. Kinda nice to hover your pointer over a file and have the EXIF info popup in a quick popup tip.

[davsachz]

Which viewers / Browsers offer truly lossless Rotation of Jpegs ?
When I rotate with Irfanview which I was told had lossless rotation my Jpgs shring from 5MB to about 1MB so It appears to not be lossless. Thanks again, Dave

[Swampy]

Originally posted by davsachz
Which viewers / Browsers offer truly lossless Rotation of Jpegs ?
When I rotate with Irfanview which I was told had lossless rotation my Jpgs shring from 5MB to about 1MB so It appears to not be lossless. Thanks again, Dave

I don't have any problem with EXIF Viewer. Filesize stays the same and the EXIF info remains the same. From a few versions ago, here's a quote. I'd go check it out...

New in version 1.1.5.27: EXIF info export function, more robust JPEG decoder, experimental Polish translation (hopefully more languages on the way), loss-less JPEG rotation outputs files conforming Exif specification.

[SSonnentag]

I think it's a combination of CPU and lack of memory. You didn't say which OS you're running, but Win2000 can use 300MB just for itself. My computer is a dual Athlon MP 2000+ with 2 GB of RAM and batch rotations using PhotoShop on fine JPEGs take exactly 1 second each. That reading, rotating and writing the file again. Your 7200 RPM hard drive is not a bottleneck.

Shawn

[Wichita Wayne]

I do most of tasks you speek of in Corel PhotoPaint 9. Its batch processing is really easy to use and very fast, but I seem to be the only one on the forum that uses this product.

[davsachz]

I'm using Win 98SE currently on all my PC's but seriously thinking of going to Win 2000. Since Ram is cheap I want a OS that will support lots of it. It would be great if they ported Photoshop 7.0 ti Linux Dave

[SSonnentag]

Ditto to the Linux port wish. I sent e-mail to Adobe just this week requesting that they make the effort and make my day. :)

Shawn

[Wichita Wayne]

The CF readers I have don't really work as slick as Win98. Nor do all of my Zip drives. However, everything else is super. I can leave the computers on for weeks at a time and they never seem to lock up or fail. The CF that I use that works best is the Imation FlashGO for USB 2.0. The problem with all the CF readers is that you have to put the CF or Microdrive in the thing then plug it in and it works fine. To change CFs you have to go to the remove ikon and shut down the CF reader, then unplug the thing. Then change the CF while it is unpluged and plug it back in. If I follow that sequence then the things work fine. I also DO NOT load the Iomegaware software on Win2K. It will recognize the disks and they can be used but you cannot read and write protect the things. This is all very strange but it is true for my particular computer (No brand name on the computer, made the thing myself from scratch).

[Swampy]

With both Windows 2000 and XP Pro here on my two machines, with either my Dazzle CF/SM reader or my SanDisk 5 in 1 reader, I just close the window to the drive and remove the media and replace with the next media and it works fine. Windows XP will come up and ask me what to do with it, windows 2000 just doesn't do anything for you, but open up your favorite file manager and the drive is there and up.

I would have to say that anything regarding the S2 camera and accessories would work the same or better in Windows 2000 over Windows 98, and in XP, even better. Although, I don't like XP for other reasons, however, the power toy from MS in XP for resizing photo's for slide shows is real nice and handy. :)

Bryan

[Wichita Wayne]

When I hook the S2 directly to the computer, firewire or USB it always works fine. And the above problems I mentioned are probably unique to my particular setup. I have two other readers (Lexar and a Zio) that will not work at all. I get the blue screen of death with a memory dump. Not good on a PC. However, with the FlashGO and the above sequence I don't have any problems. If I don't observe that sequence with the SmartMedia adapter in the FlashGO I also get the blue screen. This all might seem to be unworkable to some, but to me it is just learning what will work and doing it that way each time. I never have any trouble with my laptop and PCMCIA/PC Card readers. In fact they seem to be the most trouble free readers that I use.

[Swampy]

Have you service packed your Windows 2000? Should be running Service Pack 3. If you haven't, install it and see what happens then... There's a bunch of compatibility updates. You can grab it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/servicepacks/sp3/default.asp

[Wichita Wayne]

It is probably just some kind of hardware conflict between my SCSI card and USB card. What ever it is, to me, it is not worth spending a lot of time or money to find out and correct. I just follow the above sequence and all is fine.