Downloading from memory card & opening raw images

[linda carlson]

I want to speed up the process of downloading images from a memory card and subsequently opening the images. I

am using a sandisk Image Mate 8 in 1 card reader for downloading. Using ACDsee Pro to then open the Raw

images. It's taking a very long time to download and then open the image folder on my laptop. My laptop is about 3

years old, Windows XP operating system. I have an external hard drive for image storage hooked up to the laptop.

 

Please give me any suggestions for speeding up the process.

[victorwei]

There are a number of factors that affect the speed of your image download from the memory card - type of the card, type of the card reader (some readers are faster than others), size of your images, speed of your computer, program you use to open the RAW images. A few questions for you before I can offer you any specific solutions: What type and speed of cards do you use? CF, SD (Class 2,4,6 - the higher the number the faster?) What size of images/MP? What kind of camera? I have Nikon myself and find NXView to be quite fast in opening the RAW images after downloading. What processor and memory do you have in your laptop?

[bill_clark___minnetonka_mi]

I use Bridge CS3.

 

Takes about 3 min. for a 4 gig card.

 

I'm 100% RAW capture.

 

Use Apple computers and will sometimes munch on an Apple during the process as they are in season now in MN.

[r_johnston]

One of the worst situations which slows down downloads is too many programs in memory that show in the task bar

you are not even using. VIrus checkers can really slow things down as they check each file downloaded.

 

If you do a right click on the Icons you are not using you can close or exit those you do not need. Your cards

are very unlikely to have any viri on them, so you can even close the virus detector, especially if off line at

the time.

 

Then, you can do a CTL-ALT-DELETE and bring up the task manager, look for the name of the program you use to

download or ACDsee.... Highlight that program by clicking it with the cursor.

 

Then, Right click, and you will see the menu set cursor on "set priority" then click at least "above normal" or

"high" preferably. This gives precedence in your computer to this program, and it will run faster.

 

When finished click start, shutdown, and restart. It will reset everything back to the way it was.

 

Personally I do this with Lightroom, and Photoshop, setting both high also when using them, even setting several

programs to high still speeds them up, as they do their thing before any others can cycle....

Otherwise, the computer goes through the registry, and gives equal time for operation to every other program or

system, and slows you down... Used a sticker on the monitor to remind me each time I used a program that needed

more speed.

 

Also do it to speed up the browser when surfing the Internet.

[karen_murphy]

<p>Excellent advice, Robert. Thank you for the tips!</p>