POTN Digital Photographer's Photoshop Speed Test

The Stickied threads about Photoshop speed tests seem to be decent tests for Photoshop, but is it really a decent test for us digital photographers?

That is, I'm pretty darn certain that I'm not about to use the Stained Glass filter on one of my photos.

So is this a valid, real world test for a digital photographer?


I think we should develop the POTN Digital Photographer Photoshop Speed Test. (Or maybe a few of them, to address some specialties, like HDR or Panos). I'm volunteering to create the script and supply a test image.


So, what would be relatively common set of steps for us? I will have to admit that many steps might be "common" but not done on every single photo.

Each step would have to be scriptable - for instance, I find that the brush used for creative sharpening often "stutters" and lags for me. This must be CPU/graphic intensive for some reason, so it seems like a worthwhile thing to measure. I use creative sharpening on every image - but is it the brushing part scriptable?

Also, can an action call an action? That is, such a POTN test might be best served by doing capture and creative sharpening using a TLR sharpening script. But if a script can't call a script then we might have to reproduce it somehow.

Also, it can't use plugins that might not be available to everyone, like a specific noise reduction program. Is there a way to do a "generic" NR using Photoshop alone? Is it worthwhile if it's not the real thing?


So, the steps I'd like to see in a POTN Photoshop Speed Test (Feel free to comment on this list so that we can get a consensus).

Open a 15? megapixel, 16-bit TIFF with ProPhoto color space
Duplicate background layer (to save an untouched copy)
Hide background layer (and work on layer 2 from now on)
Convert layer 2 to a Smart Object
Apply Shadows & Highlights
Apply Noise Reduction (Gaussian Blur with an Edge Mask to limit the blurring)
Apply Creative Sharpening (at least the masks, brush if possible)
Apply Curve adjustment layer
Apply Vibrance adjustment layer
Save as new name, with ZIP compression on image and layers
Crop to 12 MP (whatever)
Flatten
Apply output sharpening for print
Save as new name, with ZIP compression on image and layers
Undo output sharpening
Reduce size to 800x600-ish
Convert to sRGB
Convert to 8-bit
Apply Smart Sharpen for small JPG image
Save for Web, quality 65
Close image without saving


Well, that's more or less my more common PP steps. If that's not long enough to accurately measure (we don't want 10-second timings), then just have the action copy the image x times with a new name for each, then run the above steps on each image.


Thoughts anyone?

NR without a plug in would be edge masks and Gaussian blur,. (I mention Gaussian only because it stresses CPU pretty hard,. at least it used to when we were running old athlons and PIII's

I think it's a great idea, but we might want to add some RAW batch conversions first... ?

We'll also need a reference PSD file. Something with a representative amount of texture/edges. Wildlife/bird subject would be complex enough, I should think.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #8211896
NR without a plug in would be edge masks and Gaussian blur,.

Ah, yes. That's a blast from the past, for sure.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #8211896
I think it's a great idea, but we might want to add some RAW batch conversions first... ?

I thought about that, but I'm not so sure that ACR is scriptable. I'll have to run some tests and see what can be done, like ACR and the brushes.

I'm sure that I have something along those lines that I won't mind being "in the wild" as a raw file. A 15-megapixel raw file is about 21MB though. If we can script the ACR, perhaps we should cut it down to a 10-megapixel raw?

Nice idea.
For the sharpening / NR steps, TLRs scripts might be usable?

Yeah, I was thinking TLR for any sharpening. Does Mitch have any NR actions? And can an action be called from an action?

Stuff to test and learn...

It might be an idea to ask about any potential licensing issues in using TLR's actions. It's probably ok for people to download them from TLR's site, but I don't know of POTN can distribute them as part of "our" Photoshop benchmark.

Good point. But for this test, I can simply do an appropriate but specific sharpening action. TLR gives you all the options you'd ever need for any photo. This will use one specific photo. So it's easy enough to do the steps (edge mask, blur the edge mask, invert, USM, whatever) specific to the test image.

It's also more representative (since not everyone has the TLR actions).

Plus, Photoshop will do everything that the 3rd party plugins do (only in a more roundabout way).

OK, here it is.


Downloads
A 20MB, 15-megapixel raw image from a Canon 50D: http://www.itsanadvent​ure.com/postimages/IMG​_100312.CR2
The action set: http://www.itsanadvent​ure.com/postimages/POT​NDPPST.atn


Installation Instructions
Create a directory named C:\POTNDPPST (It must be named this and it must be on your C: drive). Download both of the above files to this directory. Load the action set by going into the Actions flyout menu and choosing Load Actions.


Running The Action
Start a timer (I used http://www.online-stopwatch.com/) and run the action. When the image is gone from your screen, note the time.


Disk Drive Notes
This test *seems* to be *extremely* disk intensive. It opens a raw file, does some stuff (see below), and saves a 5-layer, 15-megapixel TIFF with 2 extra channels. ZIPping the file *and* layers and saving that to disk takes about 2/3 of the total time. The action also saves the file twice more - once "for print" and once "for web display."

This is, however, realistic for us digital photographers. We save a copy of the edited image in a way that allows us to make changes layer, we save a copy to print a version, and save a small JPG for posting in a Share forum.

If you feel adventurous and want to remove all 3 file saves, expand the action and uncheck the 3 times it says "Save" for the step.


As a note, I said that this "seems to be extremely disk intensive" but the tests say otherwise. I created identical versions to run against my C, D, E, and H drives, and the action ran within 2 seconds of each other. The drives have wildly different speeds - SSD versus slow SATA versus very fast SATA. The SSD wasn't even the fastest!! (Again, it was within 1 or 2 seconds of the fastest time, so it may have been my human accuracy of checking the timer.)


CPU Notes
Most of the time my quad-core system ran between 26% and 53% CPU utilization, with a couple very short drops to 6% or thereabouts. So it's fairly CPU-intensive. It does tell me that I wouldn't be doing much multi-tasking if I only had a dual-core.


Disk Space Note
NOTE: The file saves result in 500 MB of images! You probably want to delete them from C:\POTNDPPST ! ! !
Note: You can run the action again and again - it will overwrite any existing files.


My Results
On my quad-core Q6700 2.66 GHz with 8 GB RAM and an Intel 80 GB SSD drive:
Full action, with all file saves: 2 minutes 13 seconds (The first file save took 1:31 all on its own!)
Action without any file saves: 28 seconds.


What the action does, the nutshell version
Opens a raw file with ACR
Makes some adjustments
Opens image into PS as 16-bit ProPhoto color space
Duplicates background layer (to save an untouched copy) and hides it
Converts the duplicate to a Smart Object
Runs Shadows & Highlights
Performs Noise Reduction (the old-time PS-only way)
Applies Creative Sharpening (not really, since you can't record brush strokes, but it does everything else)
Applies a Curves adjustment layer for contrast
Applies a Vibrance adjustment layer
Saves this full file, all layers and masks, as a ZIPped 16-bit TIFF
Crops the file to 12 megapixels
Flattens all this
Convert to sRGB, 8-bit
Sharpens for printing (USM)
Saves as JPG, quality 10
Resizes to 800x600
Saves To Web JPG, quality 65
Closes the image


The full blown, all-details description of the action
Opens a 15-megapixel RAW
- Set White Balance to Auto
- Adjust Exposure +0.50
- Clarity +25
- Vibrance +40
- Fill +6
- Curve: -11, -3, +3, + 11
- Sharpening & Noise Reduction Off
- Camera Profile: Adobe Standard
- Set output to ProPhoto Color Space, 16-bit, 300 DPI
- Open Image
Duplicate background layer (to save an untouched copy)
Hide background layer (and work on layer 2 from now on)
Convert layer 2 to a Smart Object
Apply Shadows & Highlights: 11, 20, 0 : 11, 53, 0 : +3, +3, 0.01%, 0.01%
Apply Noise Reduction (Gaussian Blur with an Edge Mask to limit the blurring)
- Duplicate Green channel as "Edge Mask For NR"
- Filter... Stylize... Find Edges
- Filter... Blur... Gaussian Blur with Radius 3.2 pixels
- Image... Adjustments... Curve to adjust contrast of mask
- Select RGB channel
- Command-click "Edge Mask For NR" to load as selection
- Ctrl-H to hide marching ants
- Filter... Blur... Gaussian Blur with Radius 1.0 Pixels
- Deselect
Apply Creative Sharpening (at least the masks, brush if possible)
- Duplicate Green channel as "Edge Mask For Sharpening"
- Filter... Stylize... Find Edges
- Image... Adjustments... Invert
- Filter... Blur... Gaussian Blur with Radius 5.0 pixels
- Image... Adjustments... Curves to adjust contrast of mask
- Select RGB channel
- Command-click "Edge Mask For Sharpening" to load as selection
- Ctrl-H to hide marching ants
- Filter... Sharpen... USM: Amount 215%, Radius 1.5, threshold 5
- Deselect
Apply Curve adjustment layer
Apply Vibrance adjustment layer
Save as new name, with ZIP compression on image and layers
Crop to 12 MP
- Marquee, fixed size 4000x3000
- Select
- Image... Crop
- Deselect
Layer... Flatten
Convert to 8-bit
Convert to sRGB
Apply output sharpening for print
- Load "Edge Mask For Sharpening"
- Ctrl-H to hide marching ants
- Filter... Sharpen... USM: Amount 75%, Radius 3.0, threshold 2
- Deselect
Save as new JPG, quality 10
Undo output sharpening
- Edit... Step Backward
- Edit... Step Backward
- Deselect
Reduce size to 800x600
- Image... Image Size... 800x600
Apply Smart Sharpen for small JPG image
Save for Web, quality 65
Close image without saving

For the sake of consistency, how many History States does this action require? I had it set to 1 (for max speed) and it popped up errors stating it couldn't complete.
I got it to complete with 4 History States and 4 Cache States.

3:02 (full action, with all saves)
Intel E4500 Core2Duo 2.2ghz 2MB L2 cache
4GB Ram
320GB 7200rpm HDD
Vista 32bit

The only thing I find slow is batch processing performance, so any test that'd be useful for me would involve 50 or so RAW files, with adjustments, batching to jpeg.

One problem, those of us running older versions of Photoshop with no ACR RAW support for the 50D can't run it.

Have you got a file from something a bit older we can use instead?
Or prehaps convert the file to DNG, and we can use that instead.

I think this needs to start from a PSD file to be truly consistent. And I use Lightroom as my RAW converter.

Also, a fair amount of us have Macs, so how will the script will cope with not being able to create a folder on the C: drive?

Yip, a PSD or DNG file, and two scripts, one for a Mac and one for PC.

Pete, maybe you can modify the script for a Mac that will open and save the file, since opening and saving is an important part of the process?