Photo saving time on Lumia 950

vhl71

New member
Nov 10, 2015
307
0
0
Visit site
So took my new Lumia 950 to the Xmas party and took some great pictures. Everyone was surprised to see the quality of the photos. - had people using iPhone 7 plus and Samsung note 5.

Only issue is it takes a while to save the pictures. Still get the applying finishing touches message for a few seconds. Anyway i can reduce the timing of this? I dont need to save raw images ..would switching this off make any difference?

Overall great camera on this..
 

milkyway

New member
Apr 16, 2014
764
0
0
Visit site
I got my Lumia 950 on the Friday before Christmas eve so it gave me enough time really put it to the test as a whole especially the camera and I was quite impressed myself with the quality, occasionally ill still get that blurry shot. As far as the saving time its due to the 1gb of ram and the snapdragon 212 processor. With that being said I dont think the saving time is overly long. It's worth that small wait for the surprising results that this phone gives. Anyways keep enjoying your device.

That's the specs of the Lumia 650. The 950 has a SD808 and 3 GB RAM.

The saving time is because of the use of HDR. If you can accept lower picture quality you can turn it off
 

Ariel Takom

New member
Aug 9, 2015
386
0
0
Visit site
Basically what @milkyway said. Additionally, you can also do the following to greatly reduce the "Applying finishing touches" (AFT) waiting time..

1) Set to save your photo to your phone's internal memory, instead of saving it to your SD card. Reason? Because the Read/Write (R/W) speed of your phone's memory is just faster than your SD card's R/W speed.

2) Turn off taking Living Images. From my experience, photos that doesn't take Living Images automatically finishes the AFT waiting time quicker than ones that does take the Living Images.

3) Yes, you should turn off the RAW image saving, but in my experience, it didn't really had that much of an impact. Turn it off to save storage space, if you prefer so.

4) If you're fine with manual mode, then take pictures manually. It saves photos faster for me. YMMV.
 

obakir

New member
Nov 9, 2013
153
0
0
Visit site
read/write time for a modern SD card is fast enough to be trigger happy. it's the processor that becomes not-responding, or there's something fundamentally wrong how the phone handles an SD drive.

What does not make sense is that when you go to pictures app to view pictures, it still says applying finishing touches. Both in camera app and picture viewer app in the background phone tries to process these images. In camera mode priority should be to take raw data, fast, snappy every second, switch to video bang, done. Nope it doesn't work like that, not so bright manager must have decided, hey let's process these huge images immediately so that the users don't get to enjoy this magnificent hardware.

A logical user experience manager would say, hey these huge files take time to process. Since we cannot finish them on the fly lets do this when the user exits the camera mode.

Microsoft has a fundamental misunderstanding how a smartphone is used. This projects itself on every app possible. They manage projects as if this is an 80s software business. That's all. there's no coherent user experience management.

Just like the first time the phone restarted in the middle of a phone conversation last year these times. There's no logic. Kill all the apps, free all the memory, keep the phone app alive. what we have is a windows 98 PC as a phone.
 

mattiasnyc

New member
Nov 20, 2016
419
0
0
Visit site
read/write time for a modern SD card is fast enough to be trigger happy. it's the processor that becomes not-responding, or there's something fundamentally wrong how the phone handles an SD drive.

I agree with that.

What does not make sense is that when you go to pictures app to view pictures, it still says applying finishing touches. Both in camera app and picture viewer app in the background phone tries to process these images. In camera mode priority should be to take raw data, fast, snappy every second, switch to video bang, done. Nope it doesn't work like that,

I just tested this and I had the higher res image capture (or save) turned off, and I had no issue at all taking one photo in the included camera app and then quickly taking another. So it seems to me that it is the increased processing (or saving) of the raw file that takes time. I would however wager that most people don't really care about that level of quality 95% of the time, so for most people it should be a non-issue.
 

CraigCole

New member
Nov 5, 2015
193
0
0
Visit site
The Windows 10 Mobile photos experience, at least on the Lumia 950, is completely unacceptable. Sure, the phone's shooter generally produces great images but IT TAKES FOREVER to complete "finishing touches." Making matters worse, the camera will choke if you take more than about 10 shots in rapid succession, which happens quite frequently for me and results in the dreaded "Saving" message popping up on screen. Adding insult to injury, the photos app is a steaming pile of garbage; you seriously have to wait about five seconds before you can zoom in on a picture, even one you've taken months ago. If you don't wait for the system to finish twiddling its thumbs the image you try to zoom in on will get stuck and freeze.
 

mattiasnyc

New member
Nov 20, 2016
419
0
0
Visit site
The Windows 10 Mobile photos experience, at least on the Lumia 950, is completely unacceptable. Sure, the phone's shooter generally produces great images but IT TAKES FOREVER to complete "finishing touches."

No, it doesn't. I really dislike blanket statements like that because they apparently only apply in certain circumstances.

Making matters worse, the camera will choke if you take more than about 10 shots in rapid succession, which happens quite frequently for me and results in the dreaded "Saving" message popping up on screen.

Rather than just make a blanket statement without any testing, I just did the above: I took "10 shots in rapid succession", and the pohne did not "choke". My settings in order of appearance in the camera app:

disabled
4:3
rule of 3ds
jpeg 19mp
use flash
off
off
1920x1080p/60
off

photos stored on SD card which is 64GB and fast.

What settings are you using when you have the above described problematic experience, and what are the specs of the memory you use?

Adding insult to injury, the photos app is a steaming pile of garbage; you seriously have to wait about five seconds before you can zoom in on a picture, even one you've taken months ago. If you don't wait for the system to finish twiddling its thumbs the image you try to zoom in on will get stuck and freeze.

Again, I just tried this myself by opening that default photo app, scrolled down to photos I took in August and immediately selected one and then immediately double tapped it to zoom in. It did not take five seconds, and it did not get "stuck and freeze".
 

CraigCole

New member
Nov 5, 2015
193
0
0
Visit site
No, it doesn't. I really dislike blanket statements like that because they apparently only apply in certain circumstances.

Rather than just make a blanket statement without any testing, I just did the above: I took "10 shots in rapid succession", and the pohne did not "choke". My settings in order of appearance in the camera app:

disabled
4:3
rule of 3ds
jpeg 19mp
use flash
off
off
1920x1080p/60
off

photos stored on SD card which is 64GB and fast.

What settings are you using when you have the above described problematic experience, and what are the specs of the memory you use?

Again, I just tried this myself by opening that default photo app, scrolled down to photos I took in August and immediately selected one and then immediately double tapped it to zoom in. It did not take five seconds, and it did not get "stuck and freeze".

Sorry, but I respectfully -- and completely -- disagree. I just took seven photos in a row as fast as the camera would shoot them before “Saving” popped up. Curiously, the shutter sound didn’t work for three of them since something ALWAYS goes wrong with my 950. After a timed 12 seconds of waiting the “Saving” text went away and I was able to take two more photos before “Saving” returned for 15 seconds. After that annoyingly long wait I was allowed to snap an additional three pictures, which was followed by – and I’m not lying here – a TWO-AND-A-HALF-MINUTE delay courtesy of the “Saving” text. This performance is somehow acceptable? iOS exhibits none of this BS. Unless my 950 is a complete piece of junk and totally not representative of the device or W10M, I don't understand why more people aren't as irritated as I am...

All photos are saved locally to the phone and backed up on OneDrive; I’ve never put an SD card in it. Also, I'm running whatever production software build and firmware combo AT&T has allowed. As for my camera settings, they are as follows:

Press and Hold Camera Button: Disabled
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Framing Grid: Rule of thirds
Image Size for Main Camera: JPEG (16 MP)
Focus Light: Auto
Time Lapse: Off
Capture Living Images: Off
Video Recording: 3840x2160p/30 fps
Digital Video Stabilization: Auto


Also, anytime I zoom in on a photo without waiting at least five seconds the image will get stuck and I won't be able to move the zoomed image around. This happens every time with any picture. The photos app will only allow me to swipe to the next or previous images, which is beyond annoying when no other phone I've ever owned has exhibited this behavior.
 

mattiasnyc

New member
Nov 20, 2016
419
0
0
Visit site
Sorry, but I respectfully -- and completely -- disagree. I just took seven photos in a row as fast as the camera would shoot them before “Saving” popped up. Curiously, the shutter sound didn’t work for three of them since something ALWAYS goes wrong with my 950. After a timed 12 seconds of waiting the “Saving” text went away and I was able to take two more photos before “Saving” returned for 15 seconds. After that annoyingly long wait I was allowed to snap an additional three pictures, which was followed by – and I’m not lying here – a TWO-AND-A-HALF-MINUTE delay courtesy of the “Saving” text. This performance is somehow acceptable? iOS exhibits none of this BS. Unless my 950 is a complete piece of junk and totally not representative of the device or W10M, I don't understand why more people aren't as irritated as I am...

Well, I just told you what my experience was. So, clearly there is something going on that separates our experiences. Just because you have one experience doesn't mean that it's representative of all users, and that's why "more people aren't as irritated" as you are. And just to be clear; if I had the same experience as you do I would be super-annoyed as well.

So, I'm actually not just being a contrarian and wanting you not to say what you say, I'm actually also trying to figure out just what the problem is and see if there's a solution. So let's go back to your device and comparing it to mine and see what we can come up with....

All photos are saved locally to the phone and backed up on OneDrive; I’ve never put an SD card in it.

Very valuable information. So to try to find the problem I switched from the SD card to internal memory, and this is what I experienced:

1. Taking pictures was pretty much as fast as before
2. Pictures did NOT show up immediately when switching to the photos app. When they did the phone gave a message that I partially missed because I was looking away, but it said something about creating new photo set or album or whatever.

So, right away we can see that something is up, right? Perhaps your issues are related to the speed of the internal memory, and/or how much is used and/or how fragmented it has become (if that's an issue on this technology.

Also, I'm running whatever production software build and firmware combo AT&T has allowed.

Ok, so again, in order to help each other, let's make sure we know which ones we're on (Settings - System - About (-more info)) . I'm on:

10.0.14393.576

As for my camera settings, they are as follows:

Press and Hold Camera Button: Disabled
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Framing Grid: Rule of thirds
Image Size for Main Camera: JPEG (16 MP)
Focus Light: Auto
Time Lapse: Off
Capture Living Images: Off
Video Recording: 3840x2160p/30 fps
Digital Video Stabilization: Auto

Great. So another difference is that you're saving 16:9 photos whereas I'm currently saving 4:3. Thus, I have changed to 16:9 to further test your procedure (still using built-in memory, not SD).....:

- Pictures still were taken quickly
- This time they appeared immediately in the photos app!

So, that was obviously curious.

Also, anytime I zoom in on a photo without waiting at least five seconds the image will get stuck and I won't be able to move the zoomed image around. This happens every time with any picture. The photos app will only allow me to swipe to the next or previous images, which is beyond annoying when no other phone I've ever owned has exhibited this behavior.

Still not seeing the above.

So, perhaps check the OS version, and then let's figure out if there are any other issues. For example, I'm not having many apps open in the background. We're talking Edge, Outlook Mail, Settings, Messaging and maybe a couple more. Nothing 'heavy' running in the background. I also don't have a large amount of apps installed. So let's compare Settings - Storage:

"This Device 7.96 GB used out of 29.1 GB"

As mentioned earlier, until I switched back today all data saves to SD card except for installed new apps.

Thanks for being patient with my crappy mood (too little coffee....) and trying to solve it. I'm obviously invested in this phone, in the eco system etc, and I'd love it the better it works for everyone. I really hope your phone isn't a bad device and that we instead can maybe figure out a solution....
 

anon(50597)

New member
Sep 28, 2014
2,209
0
0
Visit site
OK, though I don't take a ton of pics I tried this myself.
10 pics as quickly as possible.
No significant delay between pics.
All saved to my sd card.
All opened without delay.
950 on latest slow ring with 64gb Samsung sd card.

Sent from mTalk
 

Kunal Dudwadkar

New member
Nov 7, 2013
156
0
0
Visit site
The Windows 10 Mobile photos experience, at least on the Lumia 950, is completely unacceptable. Sure, the phone's shooter generally produces great images but IT TAKES FOREVER to complete "finishing touches." Making matters worse, the camera will choke if you take more than about 10 shots in rapid succession, which happens quite frequently for me and results in the dreaded "Saving" message popping up on screen. Adding insult to injury, the photos app is a steaming pile of garbage; you seriously have to wait about five seconds before you can zoom in on a picture, even one you've taken months ago. If you don't wait for the system to finish twiddling its thumbs the image you try to zoom in on will get stuck and freeze.

Exactly my problems but with my Lumia 650. Yes i agree that it has just GB of ram compared to the 950's GB, but the camera problems seems to me like a never ending issue. So so so many builds after builds and it just doesn't get any better. Even i can click like 10 pictures back to back before getting that huge "SAVING..." message on the screen non stop for some seconds. Most of the time when i want to click like many pictures, the camera simply freezes for a minute and then goes back to home screen or the phone restarts. If I open the camera app, it again shows Saving.....Photos app, yes it is a complete garbage. i open a photo, it shows up as a small rectangle somewhere in the middle of the screen and then 2-3 seconds later shows up normal, but i still can't zoom on it at that point. Another few seconds after which one can zoom. I scroll to see my very old pictures and the app simply quits. It is impossible to see old pictures. Not to forget the non stop processing, adding finishing touches to the images, after which the images look even horrible. I have been a Lumia fan since a long time and I am still sticking to it. But it is getting harder and harder to stay on the platform with never ending issues. I cant keep on hard resetting my phone every now and then.

I am on the latest production ring with lots of space on my phone and SD card. tried saving photos on the phone but same issue.
 

Tejas Javery

New member
Mar 19, 2014
366
0
0
Visit site
So took my new Lumia 950 to the Xmas party and took some great pictures. Everyone was surprised to see the quality of the photos. - had people using iPhone 7 plus and Samsung note 5.

Only issue is it takes a while to save the pictures. Still get the applying finishing touches message for a few seconds. Anyway i can reduce the timing of this? I dont need to save raw images ..would switching this off make any difference?

Overall great camera on this..

If you select lower quality images to be saved, that is non hdr pics, the loading time will reduce. Also make sure that pictures ate stored phone and not sd card. It will help a lot.
 

milkyway

New member
Apr 16, 2014
764
0
0
Visit site
Guys, you list all of your settings but the most important is missing everywhere: HDR!
Is it on, off or auto? HDR takes (at max.) 3 pictures in rapid succession. If you shoot 7 pictures in reality you create (at max.) 21 pictures. That's the main culprit here
 

mattiasnyc

New member
Nov 20, 2016
419
0
0
Visit site
Guys, you list all of your settings but the most important is missing everywhere: HDR!
Is it on, off or auto? HDR takes (at max.) 3 pictures in rapid succession. If you shoot 7 pictures in reality you create (at max.) 21 pictures. That's the main culprit here

Yikes!

Yes, of course you're right - I thought I had mentioned that already, but I haven't. HDR is off in my case.

Thanks for pointing that out!
 

CraigCole

New member
Nov 5, 2015
193
0
0
Visit site
Well, I just told you what my experience was. So, clearly there is something going on that separates our experiences. Just because you have one experience doesn't mean that it's representative of all users, and that's why "more people aren't as irritated" as you are. And just to be clear; if I had the same experience as you do I would be super-annoyed as well.

So, I'm actually not just being a contrarian and wanting you not to say what you say, I'm actually also trying to figure out just what the problem is and see if there's a solution. So let's go back to your device and comparing it to mine and see what we can come up with....



Very valuable information. So to try to find the problem I switched from the SD card to internal memory, and this is what I experienced:

1. Taking pictures was pretty much as fast as before
2. Pictures did NOT show up immediately when switching to the photos app. When they did the phone gave a message that I partially missed because I was looking away, but it said something about creating new photo set or album or whatever.

So, right away we can see that something is up, right? Perhaps your issues are related to the speed of the internal memory, and/or how much is used and/or how fragmented it has become (if that's an issue on this technology.



Ok, so again, in order to help each other, let's make sure we know which ones we're on (Settings - System - About (-more info)) . I'm on:

10.0.14393.576



Great. So another difference is that you're saving 16:9 photos whereas I'm currently saving 4:3. Thus, I have changed to 16:9 to further test your procedure (still using built-in memory, not SD).....:

- Pictures still were taken quickly
- This time they appeared immediately in the photos app!

So, that was obviously curious.



Still not seeing the above.

So, perhaps check the OS version, and then let's figure out if there are any other issues. For example, I'm not having many apps open in the background. We're talking Edge, Outlook Mail, Settings, Messaging and maybe a couple more. Nothing 'heavy' running in the background. I also don't have a large amount of apps installed. So let's compare Settings - Storage:

"This Device 7.96 GB used out of 29.1 GB"

As mentioned earlier, until I switched back today all data saves to SD card except for installed new apps.

Thanks for being patient with my crappy mood (too little coffee....) and trying to solve it. I'm obviously invested in this phone, in the eco system etc, and I'd love it the better it works for everyone. I really hope your phone isn't a bad device and that we instead can maybe figure out a solution....

No, no, no; you're not the crabby one, I am, LOL! I hope I don't come across as being some sort of jerkoff, I'm just severely annoyed by my phone and want to prevent others from making the same mistake I did. For me, this message board is as much a way of troubleshooting and learning about technology as it is for venting frustration.

Anyway, I've been on the same build as you, .576. Right now I'm doing what I didn't want to: hard reset the phone. Spending hours getting it configured the way I want it isn't my idea of fun, but if it might help I'm finally willing to give it a try, though I've already done this once before (early last year) and it didn't seem to do much. I've decided to try this because the phone has been EXTRA unreliable the last few days, randomly restarting twice, not sending notifications from WhatsApp and other applications, dropping WiFi connectivity (and needing to be restarted to get it back again), not allowing me to access Facebook Messenger and more... Needless to say I'm frustrated... :)
 

obakir

New member
Nov 9, 2013
153
0
0
Visit site
totally of topic but still applies to experience management I was talking about. After a long day at work, I come home to find my windows 10 laptop to pop up every single notification I get all day on my windows 10 phone which are already marked as viewed/cleared. The laptop is in sleep mode during the period. I am guessing it is waking up occasionally getting new notifications. Which is not the same as synchronization. When I wake up the laptop, I am bombarded with so many notifications, I press clear all immediately because it is annoying. I am not sure if they would be cleared after a while if I let them be. Even though the wake up time so short now with windows 10, it still needs 2-3 minutes to stabilize because of this.
 

Tejas Javery

New member
Mar 19, 2014
366
0
0
Visit site
My dad has lumia 950xl btw. Lovely phone, but sadly, as mentioned above, it lags. The saving thing pops up after 7 or 8 images, and it applies finishing touch to the pictures. It takes so much time that you get used to the raw image and start liking it. And as soon as the phone is done applying the finishing touches, the image changes drastically, mostly to worse. I dont like it. But in general, it is an amazing phone.
 

mattiasnyc

New member
Nov 20, 2016
419
0
0
Visit site
My dad has lumia 950xl btw. Lovely phone, but sadly, as mentioned above, it lags. The saving thing pops up after 7 or 8 images, and it applies finishing touch to the pictures. It takes so much time that you get used to the raw image and start liking it. And as soon as the phone is done applying the finishing touches, the image changes drastically, mostly to worse. I dont like it. But in general, it is an amazing phone.

And have you tried toggling HDR on/off?
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
322,906
Messages
2,242,872
Members
428,004
Latest member
hetb