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2017 iMac Pro: Real World Photoshop: Make Multi-Res Image Series

2017 iMac Pro

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This scripted task creates a range of output JPEGs of varying resolutions for each layer, typically to 8 layers, with a dozen image sizes for each of those layers, from 432 pixels to full image resolution, which is typically 42 or 45 or 50 megapixels.

This test is as real world as it gets: it is my most-performed photography job, and one that idles further activity while it runs*. The task is long-running (minutes), so it is the #1 bottleneck to your Lloyd’s photographic workflow, that is, preparing multi-resolution image series in a layered Photoshop document, typically aperture series or ISO series or similar.

I would love to get more speed out of the iMac Pro here for this frequent workflow task, but the 2017 iMac 5K rocks it. On the other hand focus stacking is substantially improved with the iMac Pro, and I do that a lot also. Still, it is disappointing that no iMac Pro configuration can beat the 2017 iMac 5K.

This test is a great example which shows that fast clock speed wins when the operation is largely serialized, this case a javascript.

* Photoshop runs scripted tasks without much optimization. It is not even able to run in the background without glitches, constantly forcing itself to the foreground, making it impossible to do anything else. Running a script in Photoshop essentially idles the machine for other uses while the job runs.

Results below with macOS 10.13.3 including the Apple Supplementary Update. See the results from more systems with macOS 10.12.2 further below.

2017 iMac Pro 18-core vs 2017 iMac 5K: output multi-res output image series in Photoshop
Make multi-res output image series in Photoshop
2017 iMac Pro vs other Macs
2017 iMac Pro
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