The first report was from building the album after I changed the dimension from 4,000 x 4,000 to 40,000 x 4,000 (so my panoramas look better).

Now I was compiling the album again, much faster:

"Norge" erzeugt in 4m 35,939s
 
                       Process compiled expression:   879 calls   4m 6,586s
                                 predir processing:   876 calls   4m 3,797s
                       AlbumBean.registerVariables: 96905 calls  3m 27,161s
                     AlbumObjectImpl.getXmpManager: 88181 calls  1m 50,849s
                       AlbumObjectImpl.getMetadata: 90110 calls  1m 45,882s
                     AlbumObjectImpl.getProperties: 92635 calls     52,584s
                        AlbumObjectProperties.load: 92637 calls     51,592s
                     FileFilters.getBasicImageInfo: 89929 calls     16,863s
                          AlbumBean.makeIndexPages:   876 calls     11,109s
                                 AlbumBean.popVars: 73886 calls      5,407s
                      Executing compiled scriptlet: 116389 calls      4,849s
                     AlbumBean.getFolderProperties: 90347 calls      3,734s
                                   Create MediaRSS:   876 calls      3,719s
                   JAlbumUtilities.countCategories:  7977 calls      3,324s
                                              init:     1 calls      3,076s
                                        Make views:     1 calls      3,052s
                   Executing interpreted scriptlet: 120414 calls      2,049s
                                AlbumBean.pushVars: 73887 calls      1,672s
                JAlbumUtilities.getDeepCameraDates:   876 calls      1,507s
             Reading: jAlbum Windows Native Reader:    25 calls      1,218s
                        Writing: AVIF Image Writer:     5 calls      1,084s
                                     Writing pages:  2671 calls       0,96s
                           JSONMaker.makeDataPages:   876 calls      0,926s
                                JSONMaker.makeTree:     1 calls       0,91s
                             Making deep-data.json:     1 calls      0,901s
            Reading: GeoSolutions TurboJPEG Reader:   100 calls      0,827s
                           Reading file attributes:  7512 calls      0,561s
                              Compiling scriptlets: 110935 calls       0,48s
                                   WinDecoder.open:  7368 calls       0,27s
                        HardwareSmoothScaler.scale:     6 calls       0,18s
                         AlbumBean.countTotalFiles:     1 calls      0,149s
        JAlbumUtilities.countWebLocationCategories:   992 calls      0,111s
                                  Compiling script:     4 calls       0,11s
                                       Clone image:     5 calls      0,078s
                  AlbumImage Scale to fit 1200x900:     1 calls      0,064s
                  AlbumImage Scale to fit 1240x698:     1 calls      0,047s
                  AlbumImage Scale to fit 1600x720:     1 calls      0,037s
                  AlbumImage Scale to fit 3760x720:     1 calls      0,036s
                   AlbumImage Scale to fit 800x360:     1 calls      0,034s
                  AlbumImage Scale to fit 1880x360:     1 calls      0,019s
                                Process expression:     1 calls      0,004s
                                     Listing skins:     6 calls      0,003s
            Writing: GeoSolutions TurboJPEG Writer:     1 calls      0,003s
                           FileFilters.getMetaData:     1 calls      0,001s
                                    Copy res files:     1 calls      0,001s
                 RotationSupport.adjustOrientation:   125 calls          0s
                  WinImageReaderSpi.canDecodeInput:     2 calls          0s
                          AlbumBean.processFilters:    12 calls          0s
                                             Total: 1168339 calls  18m 7,826s

I agree completely. I think I can state it simply: "If you can't explain to a user why he should choose one setting over another, you should figure out the best choice, make it the internal default, and get rid of the setting."

Presenting a user with 47 different things he can adjust, and then telling him to experiment, and see what combination works best, is just lousy marketing. You've given them no rational basis for making the choices, and the permutations and combinations are almost limitless.

The "readers and writers" settings are totally useless, as well as the AVIF codec choices. No one understands what they are, or why he should, or should not, use any of them. Get rid of the settings.

Even the basic scaling options are overly-complicated. Given the speed of processing, I'd get rid of all of those, too. Internally, just use Smooth/Standard. Let the user tinker with sharpening. No one knows whether he should choose Windows Fant or Blackman-Sinc or Mitchell. And I'll wager that in a double-blind test, no one could tell which was which. And now, there's no reason to take a chance on lousy quality by choosing Fast or Medium scaling. I haven't used anything other than Smooth in 20 years, and I'm using a seven-year-old desktop that's no longer a speed demon.

Can anyone explain to me the difference between Medium scaling with 85% JPEG Quality and Smooth scaling with 75% JPEG Quality? I didn't think so.

These are the things that lead to users saying, "Oh, this app is just too difficult for me to figure out. I never know what I'm doing. I'll just use Google Photos." Commercial suicide.

I can give a defence for the Preferences - Advanced - Readers / Writers section:

• It's under Advanced, so should't bother ordinary users
• The defaults are reasonable
• These settings allow for introducing new readers / writers and allowing people to revert to previous ones, should they encounter problems with the new reader/writer. The world out there of odd JPEGS is really complex.