[geeks] Mac memory falling in price

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Nov 24, 2007, at 2:14 PM, Joshua Boyd wrote:

> On Nov 24, 2007, at 1:00 PM, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>> Right now I have 5GB, and I'm trying to decide if I should upgrade or
>> just wait.  I just happened to notice the price had dropped by nearly
>> a third and was commenting on that.
>>
>> Since I'm "on the fence" at the moment, the price is more of a factor
>> than need.
>>
>> $210 to stop minimal swapping is pretty borderline value, so another
>> big price drop would certainly be a factor.
>>
>> The thing which will probably push me to update will be in a few  
>> weeks
>> when I start doing more photo editing and document processing.
>>
>> I'm amazed at what a hog even Pages can be.  It evidently doesn't
>> flatten images when you import them.  If you work with Photoshop
>> files, it keeps the entire file with all layers internally.
>>
>> I created a 12 page server inspection report with Pages this week  
>> with
>> photos of a machine I was testing, and the document was 148MB, and  
>> the
>> PDF file generated by Pages was 75MB.
>>
>> To make it smaller, I printed to PostScript, and used Adobe Distiller
>> to bring it down to 3MB, with no perceptible quality loss.
>
> You say no perceptible quality loss, but did you look at it printed
> very closely on a good printer?

Yes, it looked identical.

Flattening a file doesn't reduce quality, it just removes all of the  
layers that aren't needed in an output file.  In this particular case,  
flattening the images was the biggest factor in reducing the file size.

A 3MB image file can easily be 90MB when stored as layers, depending  
on how much editing you've done, and what software you used.  I've  
gotten a lot of images with a dozen or more revisions stored as layers.

There is almost never a need for that information in your output.

Assuming you used high quality images as input, the quality if a PDF  
file is mostly dependent on what you optimized for.  You can optimize  
for display, printer, film, WWW, and other devices.  Generally  
optimizing for WWW makes the smallest and fastest files, but doesn't  
look very good on paper.  Usually optimizing for print means a 300dpi  
optimized output file.  Film is usually 240dpi.

You can also choose to optimize for everything, which results in  
larger and slower files.

I told Distiller to optimize for print because I can always downgrade  
that for WWW use later, and 3MB isn't bad at all.

Telling Distiller to optimize for WWW brought the file down by half or  
more, but it looked bad on my laser printer.

One thing I'm not totally sure about is what it means if you optimize  
for high resolution, say 300 dpi, but then check the box that says to  
optimize for fast WWW use.

It works, even though the file is large.  I assume that somehow the  
PDF file stores a WWW version in the same file, and when you download  
with a browser, you only get that part, or something like that.

> Your project might not call for that level of quality, but I  
> certainly appreciate that it isn't making the decision for me.

I'm not talking about a quality decision.

I'm talking about removing information the program in question doesn't  
make use of.

There is no point in having that in there.

I *WANT* it to keep the full quality image in the file.  The fact that  
most Apple apps let you instantly go back to the original without re- 
importing is very cool.

However, Pages can't use the layer information, so it doesn't need to  
be there.

It would seem wise to strip it upon loading.

I think the library hides this from the programmer and they've just  
never bothered to optimize this.

>> I guess I will have to start adding a flattening step to my workflow,
>> it's just easier if that is automatic in the destination app.  Once I
>> commit layout, I'd really like the program (Pages or whatever) to
>> convert data to a format which matches desired output.  Clearly a WP
>> doesn't need to maintain layers, for example.
>
> You could easily automate the flattening step.  Create a finalize
> folder and set up a folder action (right click on folder, select
> Configure Folder Actions) to run a script that does the flattening.

That's good for me since I often do professional work.

iWork was created for end users though, so it seems like it should  
throw away information it will never use automatically.

Not a big deal to me, I was just noting that it happened and wondering  
why.

>> I thought you said you should buy memory when you need it... :)
>
> Sure, but there is such a thing as determining what monetary
> threshold determines when you need it enough to justify the cost.

That's the basic thought behind "should I wait?" when the prices start  
falling.  It was a subtle joke based on my observation that people  
waste tons of time and money trying to save time and money.





-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com