Silver Efex slow to update preview on 30 inch monitor

[tolsen]

I use and greatly enjoy Silver Efex Pro for Photoshop and Aperture. However, when I use it with full screen preview on a 30" NEC LCD3090 I find that every redraw (following adjustment) is quite slow: The photograph gets updated in many steps - this looks like tiles scrolling across the window. The redraw is definitely faster when the display is connected to my quad core Mac Pro than when connected to my older Macbook Pro, but it is still not instant.

Does anyone have the same experience and would someone have an idea if upgrading the graphics card, the memory, or performing some other tweak might make the redraw faster?

Regards,
Tore

PS: I use the latest versions of Silver Efex.

[PeterAit]

I use and greatly enjoy Silver Efex Pro for Photoshop and Aperture. However, when I use it with full screen preview on a 30" NEC LCD3090 I find that every redraw (following adjustment) is quite slow: The photograph gets updated in many steps - this looks like tiles scrolling across the window. The redraw is definitely faster when the display is connected to my quad core Mac Pro than when connected to my older Macbook Pro, but it is still not instant.

Does anyone have the same experience and would someone have an idea if upgrading the graphics card, the memory, or performing some other tweak might make the redraw faster?

Regards,
Tore

PS: I use the latest versions of Silver Efex.

I have some recollection that the slow tiling occurs in PhotoShop when Open GL is not enabled. Could it be something similar with Silver Efex?

By the way, how do you like Silver Efex? I am trying the demo and like it but several people have commented here that it is buggy. What's your experience?

[tolsen]

I have some recollection that the slow tiling occurs in PhotoShop when Open GL is not enabled. Could it be something similar with Silver Efex?

By the way, how do you like Silver Efex? I am trying the demo and like it but several people have commented here that it is buggy. What's your experience?

Peter,

Thanks for your reply. While both Aperture and Photoshop are OpenGL enabled, perhaps you are right that Silver Efex is not OpenGL enabled. I don't see a setting to enable or disable OpenGL in Silver Efex. Perhaps I am expecting too much to have instant redraws on a 30 inch screen. What is your setup - do you see the tiles updating or are redraws instant?

In general I find Silver Efex Pro to be a fantastic program. It makes me achieve the effects I want in a fraction of the time it would take me to create similar effects in Aperture or Photoshop.  The first verison of Silver Efex Pro for Aperture was awfully buggy but was quickly fixed. Outside of the redraw speed, I don't find any bugs with the current version of the software.

There are a few things I wish Nik would improve in the user interface, however:

1) the compare window compares the current image settings with the (color) image the settings are being applied to. It would be much more useful if one could compare the adjustments to the neutral setting without having to click back and forth.

2) A (multiple-) undo function would be very useful.

Overall, this is the best and most used plug-in I own. It has been worth every dollar spent.

Regards,
Tore

[Clearair]

Peter,

Thanks for your reply. While both Aperture and Photoshop are OpenGL enabled, perhaps you are right that Silver Efex is not OpenGL enabled. I don't see a setting to enable or disable OpenGL in Silver Efex. Perhaps I am expecting too much to have instant redraws on a 30 inch screen. What is your setup - do you see the tiles updating or are redraws instant?

In general I find Silver Efex Pro to be a fantastic program. It makes me achieve the effects I want in a fraction of the time it would take me to create similar effects in Aperture or Photoshop.  The first verison of Silver Efex Pro for Aperture was awfully buggy but was quickly fixed. Outside of the redraw speed, I don't find any bugs with the current version of the software.

There are a few things I wish Nik would improve in the user interface, however:

1) the compare window compares the current image settings with the (color) image the settings are being applied to. It would be much more useful if one could compare the adjustments to the neutral setting without having to click back and forth.

2) A (multiple-) undo function would be very useful.

Overall, this is the best and most used plug-in I own. It has been worth every dollar spent.

Regards,

I use a duel core intel Mac Pro and 24 inch monitor. Silver Efex pro works fine and seems faster and with no bugs compared to the competition both in PS and Apples Aperture.
I would want an option to have different shapes to the U point and a border option.

Regards

[tolsen]

I use a duel core intel Mac Pro and 24 inch monitor. Silver Efex pro works fine and seems faster and with no bugs compared to the competition both in PS and Apples Aperture.
I would want an option to have different shapes to the U point and a border option.

Regards

Clearair,

Thanks for your reply. Good suggestions. I hope Nik Software follows this forum.  

What graphics card are you using and how much memory do you have? how long does it take from you make an adjustment till the whole preview is updated when you extend the Silver Efex Pro window to fill the whole screen?

Regarding performance, Silver Efex Pro definitely works, just that I would like the redraws to be quicker. I went to the Apple store today and had them download demos of Silver Efex Pro on both a Mac Pro (quad-core 2.66 with 3 GB RAM and Nvidia GT120 graphics card) and an imac 27" (3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, ATI 4650 graphics card). Running Silver Efex Pro for Aperture, redraws when the plugin was maximized took about the same time on these machines - I could count to 4 or 5 before the screen fully updated after each adjustment (~3.5 seconds). Pretty slow in my opinion.

The Apple store did not have a Mac Pro with more memory, more cores or an ATI 4870 graphics card, so I was not able to identify exactly what the cause of the slow redraw is. As far as I could tell from the activity monitors CPU history, not all cores were fully used during the redraws. I suspect suboptimal programming is ultimately the cause and will hopefully be addressed in future updates/upgrades.

Regards,
Tore

[PeterAit]

Peter,

Thanks for your reply. While both Aperture and Photoshop are OpenGL enabled, perhaps you are right that Silver Efex is not OpenGL enabled. I don't see a setting to enable or disable OpenGL in Silver Efex. Perhaps I am expecting too much to have instant redraws on a 30 inch screen. What is your setup - do you see the tiles updating or are redraws instant?

In general I find Silver Efex Pro to be a fantastic program. It makes me achieve the effects I want in a fraction of the time it would take me to create similar effects in Aperture or Photoshop.  The first verison of Silver Efex Pro for Aperture was awfully buggy but was quickly fixed. Outside of the redraw speed, I don't find any bugs with the current version of the software.

There are a few things I wish Nik would improve in the user interface, however:

1) the compare window compares the current image settings with the (color) image the settings are being applied to. It would be much more useful if one could compare the adjustments to the neutral setting without having to click back and forth.

2) A (multiple-) undo function would be very useful.

Overall, this is the best and most used plug-in I own. It has been worth every dollar spent.

Regards,
Tore

Now that I look closely, I see the tiles when Efex refreshes an image - but they are very fast, perhaps 1/10 second for the entire image (24" monitor).

Thanks for describing your experience with the plug-in.

[Clearair]

Clearair,

Thanks for your reply. Good suggestions. I hope Nik Software follows this forum.  

What graphics card are you using and how much memory do you have? how long does it take from you make an adjustment till the whole preview is updated when you extend the Silver Efex Pro window to fill the whole screen?

Regarding performance, Silver Efex Pro definitely works, just that I would like the redraws to be quicker. I went to the Apple store today and had them download demos of Silver Efex Pro on both a Mac Pro (quad-core 2.66 with 3 GB RAM and Nvidia GT120 graphics card) and an imac 27" (3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, ATI 4650 graphics card). Running Silver Efex Pro for Aperture, redraws when the plugin was maximized took about the same time on these machines - I could count to 4 or 5 before the screen fully updated after each adjustment (~3.5 seconds). Pretty slow in my opinion.

The Apple store did not have a Mac Pro with more memory, more cores or an ATI 4870 graphics card, so I was not able to identify exactly what the cause of the slow redraw is. As far as I could tell from the activity monitors CPU history, not all cores were fully used during the redraws. I suspect suboptimal programming is ultimately the cause and will hopefully be addressed in future updates/upgrades.

Regards,
Tore

Tore
Less than a second to re draw an action. 12-14 seconds to see new master in Aperture. 2*quad Xeon 2.8ghz, 6gigs ram. ATI Radeon HD  2600.

Ezio monitor 24 inch

HD internal WD green

Regards

[Clearair]

Tore
Less than a second to re draw an action. 12-14 seconds to see new master in Aperture. 2*quad Xeon 2.8ghz, 6gigs ram. ATI Radeon HD  2600.

Ezio monitor 24 inch

HD internal WD green

Regards

And it's running 10.5.8

[tolsen]

And it's running 10.5.8

Clearair,

Thanks for your reply. That is really a lot quicker. I'm running 10.6.2, Quad 2.66, and Nvidia GT120. The images I process are primarily from the d700 so not that many megapixels. I am at loss what is causing the difference. Perhaps my larger screen resolution, perhaps my nvidia graphics card or fewer/slower cores. I'd be interested in hearing other peoples experience as I process a very large number of photos in Silver Efex Pro and am very eager to speed it up.

Regards,
Tore

[tolsen]

And it's running 10.5.8

Clearair: Just a follow-up. I changed the resolution to 1920x1200 and it roughly sped redraws up by a factor of 2. So resolution is part of the difference. Thanks for your input.

Regards,
Tore

[tolsen]

Now that I look closely, I see the tiles when Efex refreshes an image - but they are very fast, perhaps 1/10 second for the entire image (24" monitor).

Thanks for describing your experience with the plug-in.

Peter: a 1/10 of a second is fantastic. What Mac/monitor/resolution are you using and are you making the Nik Silver Efex window fill the whole screen so the preview has the maxium size?

Regards,
Tore