Mac studio
Looks like I am finally getting to upgrade my late 2012 iMac - Any thoughts on which options for customising Mac Studio should be considered with editing in capture one and photoshop. I just want to edit photos, no video.
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Depends on what you do. How many images do you tend to process at a time, do you have multiple apps working at the same time (e.g. C1 and a video processing app, a bit-level editor like Affinity Photo, streaming, etc.) and how large are your Raw files? Other considerations as well.
Looking at the configurations, I suspect that the base one will be fine for most people. You might want to get a memory upgrade, and you might look at a large SSD IF you plan to store your photo library on the internal drive (I don't, so I'd go for just a 1 TB SSD and 64-192 GB of RAM). These are what I'm looking at. I'm holding off, though, until the rumored Mac Pro is announced, as I'd prefer a user upgradable machine if I can get one.
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Thanks for your comments - I have capture one - almost exclusively in sessions - and photoshop running at the same time and apple mail and safari in the background. Raw files are Nefs around 50 Mb but my photoshop files can easily end up 2-4 gb.
What I would like to be able to do is mask with no holdups and do a lot more retouching in capture one. At the moment either on my 2012 iMac with 32gb ram or on the 13 inch M1 MacBook Pro with16 gb ram I find that trying to retouch is just too laggy and masking is frustratingly slow. I did expect the MacBook to outperform my old iMac in this regard but I am not finding this - maybe I have a lemon. I am wondering if I really do need 128 Ram?
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My 2012 Mac Pro with 64 GB of RAM has no trouble with multiple layers of masks on my R5 Raw files, nor does it struggle with applying adjustments to any number of images. Of course my maxxed out Mac Pro has more compute and GPU power than your iMac, but at least it gives you an idea.
Similarly, I have a 2018 MacBook Pro with 32 GB of RAM and a fast GPU and it also has no problem with edits.
I've noticed that neither machine ever maxxes out its RAM—macOS is pretty good at managing memory and compute cores. I'd guess that what you're seeing is a compute-poor iMac and a memory poor MacBook Pro. Even the minimum Mac Studio has more than you should need. If you want to be safe, there's certainly no harm in going for more memory if you can afford it. But really, any Mac Studio will be significantly more powerful than either of your current machines. Given your sizable PS files, 128 GB and 1 TB SSD may be wise. Good luck!
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Thanks Abbott
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Hi Lotuso,
I have a MacBook Pro late 2013 with 512 GB/16 GB RAM. Very often Capture One, Photoshop, Topaz softwares, Safari, Yahoo Mail,.. are open simultaneously, and I don't have any trouble nor lag. My RAWs are about 80 MB, and I have TIFFs about 300 MB+ that Capture One processes without any issue under these circumstances..... So, very likely, the lowest config would fit if you don't process videos.
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Your main problem, which Capture One is notoriously famous for, will be driving 5K screen if you for for Studio screen as well. Since day 1 with v9, my iMac (back then top spec0 was not enough for CO1 to have a smooth experience CO1 support has always blamed my GPU although one can edit 4K video files, somehow it wasn't strong enough to drive 5K screen for still images. The main reason is, CO insists on using OpenCL to be cross platform compatible instead of Apple native Metal.
I have heard with M1, they use more Metal but still people are not very happy with the speed.
Therefore (which I will do so in future as well), get top spec CPU for sure and possibly top spec RAM as well as both cannot be upgradable due to new architecture.
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Thanks "photo by FA" Sounds like I will be spending more than I had hoped! I am currently using an Eizo CG2730 (CG2730 has a native resolution of 2560 x 1440) and will look for a second monitor with the same res. I am wondering how much performance difference there will be in upping the specs from 24-core GPU to 64-core GPU.
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It would be good to hear from someone representing Capture One on this topic. I can't be the only one weighing up how to go forward without needing to break the bank. And even then - is it going to be fast? There is so much retouching that can be done now without going to photoshop - or there could be if it didn't take so long. I just love being able to do things like brush away unwanted shadows with the skin tone tool and healing along edges is easier than in photoshop but it is just too slow and I end up in photoshop.
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I excitedly unboxed my new Mac Studio last night (M1 Max, 64GB RAM, 2TBSSD) and plugged it into my LG 5k Ultrafine 27" (set to 4k resolution) uploaded a shoot with about 300 R5 files and started playing around. I am really disappointed in the performance of Capture One thus far. Move a slider, 2 second pause, see effects of the adjustment on screen, move slider, pause, see the change.
Of course if I change the display settings to "native" resolution it is a bit quicker, but then have to scroll up and down to see the various palettes. It still is much slower than my 2019 i9 iMac 5k running in low resolution mode.
If you are thinking that the new Mac Studio is the machine for you and you like using Capture One, you might want to reconsider. Even with more power and memory that seems to offer huge speed advantages for most other apps, Capture One is shockingly sluggish unless you run your displays at low resolution, and even then it is still somewhat laggy.
And yes, I have already reached out to C1 support about this, but wanted to share some real-world experience with the new Mac.
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Do you have a lower res monitor to test on ? I am hoping performance will be better on my 2560 x 1440 Eizo and your specs are what I was planning on going for.
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Along with the concerns others have noted, I've always struggled with C1 import speeds and handling 300+ batch changes during edit, but the following really caught my attention... If they aren't using native Metal vs Open CL we'll continue to be playing catchup with hardware.
"At import, there's basically no difference between the three Macs. Whatever is happening behind the scenes, Capture One isn't taking advantage of the extra RAM , CPU, or GPU horsepower between the M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max."*************************************Capture One Pro 22To test Capture One Pro performance, we run the exact same import and export benchmarks as Lightroom Classic, with one exception: previews are generated at the default 2560px, since there is no 1:1 option. Capture One is much faster than Lightroom for both of these tasks, as it relies heavily on the GPU to accelerate both import and export.At import, there's basically no difference between the three Macs. Whatever is happening behind the scenes, Capture One isn't taking advantage of the extra RAM , CPU, or GPU horsepower between the M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max. The MSI Creator 17 pulls ahead here, thanks to its beefy NVIDIA RTX 3080:Canon EOS R6 Import Nikon Z7 II Import Sony a7R IV Import Fujifilm GFX 100 ImportMac Studio 00:43 1:03 1:17 2:04MacBook Pro 00:42 1:03 1:17 2:03Mac mini 00:44 1:05 1:18 2:01MSI Creator 17 00:40 00:56 1:08 1:390 -
Do Capture One people ever comment in this forum? - it would be most helpful for those of us still deciding on a system to have some guidance and it would be good also to know if they expect to improve the user experience with optimisation for the M chips in the near term. It is most unhelpful to be given minimum requirements as guidance. I have been using CO1 since v7 and don't plan on returning to Lightroom; but come on Capture One, give us some feedback and hope! The program is so amazing and with my current system I can't take full advantage but really, do I need to max out on the M1 Ultra when I don't do any video work?
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"The main reason is, CO insists on using OpenCL to be cross platform compatible instead of Apple native Metal."
May I also add that C1 is using OpenCL version from 2011. I suspect this may have a lot to do with crazy sluggish performance on all intel machines (even my highly specced 2019 Mac Pro).
You can check OpenCL version by going to the IMAGE CORE folder and looking up file "ICOCL.XML"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<device>
<Index>0</Index>
<Platform>Apple</Platform>
<Version>OpenCL 1.2 (Sep 5 2021 22:39:07)</Version>
<Device>AMD Radeon Pro Vega II Compute Engine</Device>
<Driver>1.2 (Jan 12 2022 22:21:41)</Driver>
<GlobalMemoryMB>32752</GlobalMemoryMB>
<NumberOfKernels>1266</NumberOfKernels>
<NumberOfCompiledKernels>1266</NumberOfCompiledKernels>
<Benchmark>0.029600</Benchmark>
<Status>Benchmarked:CL_SUCCESS</Status>
</device>OpenCL versions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL
Laimonas / LSdigi.com
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I wonder if those people complaining of poor performance with CO on M1 machines are running the intel version of CO under Rosetta rather than the native Apple Silicon version? Just a thought.
Dave
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Perhaps - I find C1 to be lightening fast on my M1 Max.
Saying that I think my Studio Ultra is about to be shipped so can't wait to see how it performs.
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My Studio Max arrives tomorrow, very interested to see if it runs CO any faster than my basic 14” macbook M1.
Dave
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@Dave R - do let us know how your Studio Max performs with the latest Capture one 22.2.0
Thanks Laura
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I am seeing a speed boost with the 22.2.0 version. I've not had a ton of time to dig into it, but from what I am seeing thus far, it is definitely faster.
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Hi Laura and all
Well my Studio Max eventually arrived yesterday and I have spent a lot of spare time since installing it. Some lessons learnt including if you are going to use the the Migration assistant do not use the default Wi-Fi method - an absolute disaster, I had to crash out of it when it stalled partway through. I then used the restore from time machine backup (which in my case is stored on a Synology NAS) method and all went well. I then found I had no mouse, eventually solved that by unlinking it from my old machine. With that I had Capture One running and have updated it to latest 22.2 version. I have now rebuilt all my 42588 previews in 5.5 hours but this is probably much slower than possible as the originals are stored on the NAS and accessed by 1Gig Ethernet not internally in the Studio Max.
Dave
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If any Studio Max or Ultras get a chance I’d love to hear about performance improvements importing large batch files, e.g., 200+ Raw files, 25-45MB.
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Similarly I would love some feedback from any Studio Max or Ultra users who are using capture one for retouching;
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