I agree... I've been playing with this as well and while I first thought the price tag was pretty steep I've now managed to justify this as a soon to be purchase ;-)

I love the idea of this plug-in. I love the interface. I love the technology behind it... BUT,
I have installed it twice into Aperture and I can not believe how slow this thing is. I suspect the reason people are playing with it for hours is because that is how long it takes to edit one image.
I have also installed the Photoshop version and while it is markedly faster it is still slow enough as to be an annoyance.
Is anyone else experiencing this or is it just me and my slow 8 Core Mac with 9 GB of RAM?

200 dollar for the plug in. Aperture and some plug ins such as this one and Tiffen filters etc and you are getting in to the 1.000 dollar range quite quickly. I think it starts to get expensive.

I'm using the Silver Efex trial on a 4-year-old PowerBook G4 (that's a single 1.5 GHz core, folks) with a measly 2 GB of RAM and I don't find it particularly slow at all. Takes a few seconds to write and load the TIFF, but it's runs fine. No spinning beach balls. I don't sit around waiting for things to happen. It's great fun.

Maybe that newfangled multi-core Intel technology isn't what it's cracked up to be.

@ Ian Eisenberg
im having the same issues with performance

MacPro 8-Core 2.8 6GB RAM

my originals are RAW, but i guess it builds a TIFF before sending to the plugin

Hmm... just to address the performance issue: I'm using this on a 2.1 ghz 24in iMac (non-aluminum) with 2gb ram and the performance is pretty much instantaneous - faster than the built-in bricks actually. This is with 12bit RAW images from a D300. Odd...

This quote plug-in looks fun. Like all Aperture quote plug-ins from the resulting file it is nothing more than an external editor round-trip making a new larger tiff file for me to manage. While I enjoy the idea of plug-ins for Aperture I am incredibly frustrated with the poor implementation of them at this point. One of the advantages of aperture is that all of my adjustments are nothing more than data calls new versions more data calls go to a plug-in big fat files. These will truly be plug-ins when the file size can be majored in kilobytes instead of multiple megabytes.

@ Craig
i do agree with you, but as hard drive space is cheap, i can see the benefit of this approach.

again to update the perfomance issue, this is unusable on my machine. i am not getting the film-type previews either no mater how long i leave the mouse over the choice.

with only a 15 day trial, this is very frustrating as by the time it is fixed, i will be up for a $200 buy to really test it out.

Does this thing use the GPU do to its magic? If so, an 8-core machine with tons of RAM could still be slow if it's got a weak video card.

Does anybody know if it's possible within the plug-in to ease off on the black and white effect so that some of the original color shows through? If it's there, I'm not seeing it.

Just poking around reading reviews on Silver Efex - I'm on Windows and using photoshop and conversion / looking through presets is basically instant - maybe a problem with Aperature and the plugin.

@ Mark Thomas
yes aperture uses the GPU, but i have a ATI 2600 XT, which is a pretty decent card for so called 'pro apps'. im am thinking there is a bug with this card. is anyone else having problems with Silver Efex, and the 2600XT?

@ R Douglas
if you read Mark Thomas and Patrick's responses above, you will see this problem is not aperture-wide.

@ Ian Eisenberg
what card are you using?

i sent an email to support, and am yet to get a reply (3 days now). im hoping to be able to actually use the plugin before my 15 day trial runs out...

I have to say I'm really pleased by the quality and speed of this plug-in, especially considering how old and anemic my hardware is. I have, however, once or twice had an image load very slowly in the plug-in. Most of the time it's fine. So I think, yes, maybe it's just a new software bug, and certain hardware configurations are more sensitive to it.

Incidentally, the support site says that the software watermarks images during the trial period, but I'll be damned if I can detect any watermarking so far.

I am using the Quadro FX 4500... so I seriously doubt it is the graphics card.
While I can understand the delay in writing a TIFF, I can't understand why the delay is this long. I will try making a screencast to show the performance and see if I am just being too picky in what I expect.

i received a reply from support, see below my text. ok so we can probably rule out graphics cards as an issue. this should be very snappy on our systems. i love this plugin, but its unusable on my machine. i have been searching for other people with this same problem, but am guessing its probably early in its discovery, or limited to a small audience. ill be awaiting the screencast Ian. thanks

" Dear Rhys,

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately we are unaware of any problems with the Aperture version of Silver Efex Pro. We do know that hovering over the film types presets and toning presets will not update the image, this is a limitation in the Aperture version.

One thing that can drastically reduce the speed of the Aperture version is if Aperture is still creating thumbnails or running any backgrounds processes, it can slow down the performance of Silver Efex Pro.

While we are unaware of any problems, we will continue to look into the performance of Silver Efex Pro.

If there are any other questions, please feel free to contact us again.

Thank you and best regards,
Sean
Sean Dyroff
Product Specialist
Nik Software, Inc. "

i tried making sure i had no background tasks, and it is the same. we need more people with 8-core macpros to let us know their experience.

Its like a drug you cant stop using. What happens is that you browse through old shots and figure... Can this be good in B&W.. I downloaded the trial yesterday and have spent like 8 hours on it already. Still... Its an expensive plug-in.

millberg, i agree with you 100%. great plugin, but needs a little work. fingers crossed for a 1.1 release soon

Here is a screencast of the performance on my system.
http://www.digit-training.com/images/SilverFX.mov

This was actually the second time I did a screencast of it and it was actually faster opening by a full minute. The first time it was 9 minutes for the session, the second was 8. But 8 minutes to open an image and perform one minor tweak is just not acceptable.
I am also disappointed with the response posted above...

"Unfortunately we are unaware of any problems with the Aperture version of Silver Efex Pro."

No, you have been informed of a problem and now you are refusing to acknowledge it. Big difference.
I really hope this gets ironed out because I want to like this and purchase it.

OK .. Having played with this excellent and quite expensive plugin, i must say that i am impressed .. The following is what i found re performance issues i have a 2.2 MacBook with 3G memory, thats all

1. If you apply some corrections on a raw file in Aperture and then open the file for edit in Silver Efex, it takes ages, but never the 8 minutes quoted above. It is pretty quick, lets say 10 secs per image if now adjustments applied to the raw file

2. Saving of tiffs as above - much slower if adjustments in Aperture at 1st place, 2-3 secs per image if no adjustments.

What i also noticed and like a lot is that my athetic performance of level and crop to the raw image, is lightning fast when working on the output tiff file after Silver Efex

ian thanks for the screencast. im assuming you fired the link in an email to support straight away!

@ Ilko, i tried an edit on an untouched RAW, and it peformed no better than one with Aperture edits. it shouldnt make any difference, as aperture builds a TIFF from the RAW before sending it to a plugin, and this happens at the same speed as other plugins. the lag comes initiating the plugin, loading the pre-built TIFF, and working within it.

Rhys, just retested it all to make sure :

Apply some corrections in Aperture to 1 raw file, and then edit in SE - the tiff preparation took 45 secs ! No corrections in Aperture - 3-4 secs.

I can imagine of why this could be happening - Aperture is physically applying the corrections to the output, ie the tiff file - have a baseline apple hardware like my Mac and wait forever

Anyone else seeing this ?

As a test I installed the demo of Nik Color Efex Pro 3.

It flies. SO what is the problem here, why does ColorEfex scream and Silver Efex crawl?

Now ith crtin raw / dng file - it's ok, with LC1 raw though it takes ages when corrections applied .. i give up What i managed to achieve with this gem though is so big - check below - the background was pinkish and bright :

http://nightlight.zenfolio.com/p753124185/

You are not alone - I am also having the acute slowness with the trial version - it literally drags my system to a halt on opening and then repeats the process on adjustments.

I am on an old (not alu) iMAC and 1.8 GHZ with 2GB RAM. I also installed the trials of Viveza and Cefx3 and thye fly so there is definitely something that Sfx does not like

There is definitely something wrong with the plug-in. Not sure the cause just yet. Works fine on my macbook pro but slows to unusable on my MacPro with 8 cores and 3 times the ram. If I figure it out before the trial ends I will let you know what I find.

I run the Aperture version on my MacPro 2x3GHz with 4GB RAM and using RAW file from Canon 1Ds Mark II and it's extremely slow.

I have Viveza installed and the Viveza runs fine.

Has anyone heard from Nik yet ?

I've been running the demo version on a late 2007 dual 2.66 Mac Pro with the ATI 1900 graphic card and 9 gigs of RAM. It takes 4-5 minutes to fully open a Nikon D3 compressed RAW (NEF) file. I de-installed and re-installed the demo and found no difference in speed. Many adjustments take minutes to rebuild the preview image. On jpeg images the software is workable, but no speed demon. I would buy this software in a minute, but unless there is just a problem that is specific to the "demo" version, this would simply be unusable for me on my Nikon D3 NEF files which is most of my work. Too bad, because this is one really nice piece of software that I could really use except for the intolerable slowness.

I'm really hoping that Nik Software can do something soon to correct this problem with the Aperture plug-in version.

I've just come around to give SilverEfex a try. I already knew I wasn't going to purchase it given the price, but after a quick try I think the price is even less justified, for the following reasons :

- performance is indeed disappointing. While I did not experience the same kind of slowdowns as others reported, simply being able to see the progress of the refreshes once I had released a setting cursor is just not acceptable (I have a macpro, 2x4 cores, 6Gb ram). For every other setting in aperture, you see the result as you move a cursor. Not there. You click on a cursor, drag it (nothing happens), and only when you release it can you watch the refresh happen. Come on.

(and the refresh is slower than with Bibble + the 'Andy' plugin, which pretty much does the same thing except for the control points)

- apparently the UI is written using their own home-made toolkit (probably because it's a multiplatform software). It's definitely not Cocoa, and the mouse wheel doesn't work for scrolling.

Sorry, indeed an interesting plugin, but I wouldn't recommend buying it.

I was having the same performance problems on my 8-core with 8GB RAM. I changed my Export Edit File Format from 16bit PSD to 8bit PSD and the performance is dramatically improved. While not the ideal solution for those who prefer to stay in 16 bit mode it does make the plug-in more usable.

With Viveza 16bit PSD exports to the editor don't seem to be a problem at all.

Hope this helps.

tried the same as daniel did.
changed the export preset from 16 bit psd to psd. silver efex pro now runs 10 times as fast- no joke!
working on a mbp with 2,33 ghz and 2 gb ram should be enough. i'm not working for the nasa, just playing with some pictures...
so, this new export preset helps!
results are great, but better we wait for v 1.1

Have to agree. Noticed the incredible slow-down white I was trying out the demo. Wonderful product but this performance issue is a show-stopper for me. I read somewhere else it may be tied to 16 bit psd export settings in aperture and someone else suggested it was 14 bit raw files from the 40d but since this is happening w/ 1DsII 12 bit files, that can't be it thought they are large files. Nik really needs to address this if they want to sell this fine product. I had pretty good performance on 1D Mark 2 files as well as Canon 30D files but horrible performance on 40d files. Nik, I will buy this fine product, but not till you fix this problem.

I had the same unusably slow performance problems with the Aperture addin, but it looks like Nik have released a new version 1.001 which, for me at least, runs super fast in Aperture now-- much faster than the PS addin in fact!

Hi,

I can see that Efex Pro has a lot of sympathy here.
But I wonder whats the added value if you alreday use Viveza, you can use the U Point technology there. You ll be missing the grains but is that worth 200 $ ?
Any suggestions ? Do I forget something ? (hope so)

J.