"Alan Justice" wrote in message
m...
I have recently started editing digital files and it is very slow (RAW: 16
MP, 24 MB). (Slides were slow too, but now I end up with many more
shots.)
I have many hundreds of images to edit after a shoot. I use Canon
software
that came with the 1D Mk4 (ver. 3.8.1.0, 2010). It takes about 2 minutes
to
load 1000 images into the display when I click on the folder. This makes
it
impractical to go back and forth between different folders. To best
evaluate
images I display most of them full screen. It takes over 3 sec to load a
single picture to full frame. That's about 1 hour just waiting, assuming
I
only want to look at each full frame once.

Is my computer the slow part, the software, or what? And if hardware will
help, should I worry more about processor speed or RAM?

I also need another 2 TB of disk space and the same for backup, and I
don't
know if this computer will handle it, so I may need a new computer anyway.

I have a Dell with Pentium 4 Processor, 2.8 GHz with 2 GB SDRAM, Win XP.

--
Alan Justice
http://home.earthlink.net/~wildlifepaparazzi/



Generally, adding RAM improves speed. When the computer needs more RAM than
it has, it uses the hard drive as virtual RAM. The hard drive is incredibly
slower than actual RAM- relatively speaking.
You could also bring up the Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL) and see how many
programs are running at the same time. If you have a bunch of background
stuff running, that will slow down your computer. Along that line, here's a
very risky possibility: turn off your anti-virus while editting. If you do
this, I would physically disconnect the computer from the outside world.
Anti-virus software looks at every file you open and compares the contents
to a database of known problems.

But, here's a really wild possible solution: take fewer photos by making
sure that each photo will be good before you fire the shutter. Less time
spent editting. If I had 100's of image after a shoot, it would have been a
very long session. And a very long session ahead in the darkroom.


--
Ken Hart