Why does opening a file in Photoshop from Aperture double the file size?

So as I have been doing a lot of heavy editing, I've noticed for awhile now (maybe a year) that my computer has been sucking serious wind. Beachballs whenever I try to edit, hanging between switching programs (like going from Photoshop to iChat..) just generally being a pain in the ass. I decided to do some investigating and realized that the files I was working with were much, much larger than I anticipated. Before I open a file in photoshop, if I view the exif in aperture, the file size is around 12-15 mb (using a 5d classic). As soon as I open it in photoshop, the file size in aperture shows 34+ mb per photo before I even edit it! This is outrageous, and considering that I am usually editing photos with 15+ layers, file sizes quickly approach 1gb.

What the heck is going on? Is there a way to reduce file sizes when editing in aperture? I am using the right click - edit with - adobe photoshop command, aperture version 2. I have trouble believing that a late 2009 17" MBP with 4gb ram and 2.93ghz core duo processor would be failing so hard editing files from an almost 7 year old camera.

The RAW file is being converted to a TIFF file during export. TIFF files are much larger. You are getting 34+ mb without layers. If you were doing heavy editing and saving the file with many layers, the file size could grow to 100 mb.

Options to reduce file size are to use compression when saving, flatten image before saving, or save as a JPG once your edits are complete and delete the TIFF.

Alternately, if your main problem is with processing power and not disk space, you could just export the pictures you want to edit to your desktop, close Aperture, then manually open Photoshop. This would greatly reduce your CPU/memory usage.

are they 16bit TIFFs?

The only options are tiff and psd. it's about the same size with both. is there no way to edit the cr2 file to keep it reasonable?

To add a little bit here...

RAW files on a 5d classic are 12bit, while your tiffs are likely 16bit, which is a large difference. Adding to this RAW files are compressed using lossless compression in most cases(unsure about the 5dC, but I would imagine so) While some types of tiffs are compressed, the ones aperture is sending out are not. There is the bulk of the file size differences right there.

Now for the problem solving part, which is a bit tricky. And the question comes down to size, performance, and quality. Knowing that you do alot of stacking and post work on your photos(which are great btw ) I will assume that you dont want to change from 16bit to 8bit. Doing so would reduce file size and increase performance.

If you want to purely save space then you can save the image as a tiff with LZW or ZIP compression, both are lossless, support layers, and will reduce file size quite alot.

If you want performance than just saving as a psd will likely be the best option, but will also take up more space. Turning off maximize psd compatibility when saving will reduce the file size, but aperture wont be able to view the psd file then.

You can edit the cr2 file in photoshop technically, by loading it as a smart object. The problem here is two fold. One you will lose all settings from aperture since the raw file will be processed by abobe camera raw(though you can change the raw processing any time through your edit, which is a plus). The second issue is this will be the largest file size form all the solutions here because photoshop saves the raw file inside the psd, saves the settings to process it via adobe camera raw, and saves an uncompressed render over what the current layer state is(if you have "Maximize psd compatibility" on).

So what do you want most? To save space, or increase performance? Maybe there are some other things to help with either of those if we have a target.

TheLostVertex wrote in post #12727279
To add a little bit here...

RAW files on a 5d classic are 12bit, while your tiffs are likely 16bit, which is a large difference.

The tifs are 48 bit (3 channels X 16) which is an even larger difference.

However, that will do nothing to speed up PS because the first thing PS does is to decompress the image data and restore it to its full size (12.7 MP X 6 bytes = 72.7 MB).
BTW, the OP mentioned having tif/psd files of 36 MB, so apparently he is working in 8 (24) bit.

I have 527 TIFF files in my Aperture library.

mikekelley wrote in post #12726037
I have trouble believing that a late 2009 17" MBP with 4gb ram and 2.93ghz core duo processor would be failing so hard editing files from an almost 7 year old camera.

The 5D came out in 2005, shortly before the Core 2 Duo came out in 2006.
At the time the 5D came out it made for a heavy work load on desk top computers, it is no wonder your laptop from the same era has problems.


You can either put up with the slow performance, shoot and edit JPEG, or buy a current generation computer.

Beachballs when switching programs generally indicate disk swapping. Get more Ram.

http://macperformanceg​uide.com/Mac-Ways.html

My ancient stock XP COMPAQ computer has very little trouble processing 200MB files with a lot of layers, but I've added a 2nd hard drive & don't make it keep track of other open programs at the same time.
Have you checked to see what legacy software crud is running in the background?

You need more RAM, 4GB is not enough while working with 1GB PS files, while also using Aperture and maybe having Safari or Mail open all at the same time. Closing all apps beside PS and A3 should help. Also make sure, that if you have a dual video card, you are using the faster one in your System Prefs>Energy Saver as both PS and Aperture (at least Aperture 3, not sure about 2) rely on GPU for faster processing.
And I don't think starting with 15MB file or 30MB file will make that much difference, it's the layers that add up to 1GB and higher. And the reason why they are bigger has been mentioned, they have either twice (24bpp) or three times (48bpp) the bit depth of a 12 bpp raw file. There is no way to avoid this once you convert the image from raw into a bitmapped file for doing your layer work in PS.

TheLostVertex wrote in post #12727279
To add a little bit here...

RAW files on a 5d classic are 12bit, while your tiffs are likely 16bit, which is a large difference. Adding to this RAW files are compressed using lossless compression in most cases(unsure about the 5dC, but I would imagine so) While some types of tiffs are compressed, the ones aperture is sending out are not. There is the bulk of the file size differences right there.

Now for the problem solving part, which is a bit tricky. And the question comes down to size, performance, and quality. Knowing that you do alot of stacking and post work on your photos(which are great btw ) I will assume that you dont want to change from 16bit to 8bit. Doing so would reduce file size and increase performance.

If you want to purely save space then you can save the image as a tiff with LZW or ZIP compression, both are lossless, support layers, and will reduce file size quite alot.

If you want performance than just saving as a psd will likely be the best option, but will also take up more space. Turning off maximize psd compatibility when saving will reduce the file size, but aperture wont be able to view the psd file then.

You can edit the cr2 file in photoshop technically, by loading it as a smart object. The problem here is two fold. One you will lose all settings from aperture since the raw file will be processed by abobe camera raw(though you can change the raw processing any time through your edit, which is a plus). The second issue is this will be the largest file size form all the solutions here because photoshop saves the raw file inside the psd, saves the settings to process it via adobe camera raw, and saves an uncompressed render over what the current layer state is(if you have "Maximize psd compatibility" on).

So what do you want most? To save space, or increase performance? Maybe there are some other things to help with either of those if we have a target.

Wow, great post. Thanks so much. Ideally I'd like to increase performance - I have plenty of space as it stands, so I don't mind a bigger filesize if it helps performance.

Moppie wrote in post #12729028
The 5D came out in 2005, shortly before the Core 2 Duo came out in 2006.
At the time the 5D came out it made for a heavy work load on desk top computers, it is no wonder your laptop from the same era has problems.


You can either put up with the slow performance, shoot and edit JPEG, or buy a current generation computer.

For some reason I don't think these are the only solutions.

René Damkot wrote in post #12729186
Beachballs when switching programs generally indicate disk swapping. Get more Ram.

http://macperformanceg​uide.com/Mac-Ways.html

I've been pondering more ram for awhile now - this might push me over the edge.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #12729254
My ancient stock XP COMPAQ computer has very little trouble processing 200MB files with a lot of layers, but I've added a 2nd hard drive & don't make it keep track of other open programs at the same time.
Have you checked to see what legacy software crud is running in the background?

That gives me some hope. I've used activity monitor to see what's going on in the background, and there doesn't seem to be too many shenanigans.

frenchconnector wrote in post #12729748
You need more RAM, 4GB is not enough while working with 1GB PS files, while also using Aperture and maybe having Safari or Mail open all at the same time. Closing all apps beside PS and A3 should help. Also make sure, that if you have a dual video card, you are using the faster one in your System Prefs>Energy Saver as both PS and Aperture (at least Aperture 3, not sure about 2) rely on GPU for faster processing.
And I don't think starting with 15MB file or 30MB file will make that much difference, it's the layers that add up to 1GB and higher. And the reason why they are bigger has been mentioned, they have either twice (24bpp) or three times (48bpp) the bit depth of a 12 bpp raw file. There is no way to avoid this once you convert the image from raw into a bitmapped file for doing your layer work in PS.

Good advice again, thanks! I will look into upgrading my ram to 8gb or so.

Thanks to everyone who offered helpful advice I'm going to see if I can look into a RAM upgrade and try to cut down on background program 'loitering' so to say. Hopefully this helps.

I have a mid 2008 iMac that is having similar issues trying to edit files between lightroom and photoshop. And I am just starting out, not nearly doing the work that Mike is doing. Playing around with 3 image merges and luminosity masks.

After looking at the Activity Monitor, it is definitely more of a RAM issue than a processor issue.

I am trying to figure out if I spend the money on more RAM for a 2008 iMac, or whether I buy a new iMac.

Edit: Just looked, and my version of the iMac will not take more than 4GB of RAM, which is what I have. Any suggestions or am I out of luck and need a new machine.

2008 supposedly supports up to 6Gb of Ram: http://www.everymac.co​m …ly-2008-penryn-specs.html

Don't know if it will help much though.

New iMac will be *much* faster. (as will any 2011 MacBookPro)

mikekelley wrote in post #12730228
For some reason I don't think these are the only solutions.

Really? Based on experience I think you'll find they are.

Ram is cheap, and will improve the performance: http://www.newegg.com …00-_-20-233-179-_-Product

But, your moving very large files from disc, to memory to CPU to memory back to disc.
In order to do that quickly you need a fast disc, fast BUS, a fast CPU and lots of fast memory.
Your laptop, being a laptop, and using technology that is now 3 generations out of date, has a comparatively slow disc, slow memory, slow BUS and slow CPU.