Lightroom 4.1 Running SLOW!

[jrsforums]

4.1 RC2 has been the business for me... The speed difference between it and LR 3.6 (but I think there was a problem with 3.6 on my comp) is just incredible. I haven't updated out of it yet, because it goes alright.

Suggest you move to the final 4.1. Amazing speed up of sliders response and rendering after adjustment brushes.

The Adobe team did a great job.

 

[Marsu42]

Suggest you move to the final 4.1. Amazing speed up of sliders response and rendering after adjustment brushes.

It's true that bashing a product based on betas and release candidates is not appropriate. However, even if LR4.1 does show some improvement, the inexplicable slowdowns forcing a restart still happen - to catch up with LR3 stability, I guess we'll have until LR4.3.

 

[jrsforums]

Suggest you move to the final 4.1. Amazing speed up of sliders response and rendering after adjustment brushes.

It's true that bashing a product based on betas and release candidates is not appropriate. However, even if LR4.1 does show some improvement, the inexplicable slowdowns forcing a restart still happen - to catch up with LR3 stability, I guess we'll have until LR4.3.

I saw a dramatic improvement. I don't have the fastest system, but I have tried to tune it to LR needs...i.e. fast processor, Win7-64, >8GB memory, SSD for OS, RAW cache, and LR Cat.

With 4.1RC2, I only had...significant...problems when doing lots of adj. brush work....which did cause, at times, the need to restart as processing time and memory usage increase...a lot.

LR 4.1 final has clear all this up. I know only see minor delays with LOTS of adj. brush work....no problems with NR on, second monitor active, nor, really, anything else. Have never needed a restart.

You seem to be aware of the current things to do with 4.1 to reduce processing issues. If you are having the problems you say, I suspect other issues in your system. What config and setup do you have?

John

 

[RonQ]

I purchased a new I7 quad core, 3.6GHZ, and loaded 32 GB Crucial Ram. I have 3 HD's, first is a 560 GB SSD to run programs, 2nd 1TB to hold all cache and catalogs, 3rd 2TB to finalize my photos and storage. Even with this set-up and when running LR 4.1 it still lags A LOT.........
I think no matter how fast your PC is and try to optimize LR the SLOWNESS and LAG issues will be there until Adobe decides to update the issue with their next realease (4.2 or 3 or 4). You get what you pay for, $150 or $99 for a powerfull program like LR will always have issues. My copy of Photoshop CS5 $799 performs so much faster that I can't keep up sometimes.

My 2 cents!!

 

[Marsu42]

You seem to be aware of the current things to do with 4.1 to reduce processing issues. If you are having the problems you say, I suspect other issues in your system. What config and setup do you have?

I've got the same setup LR3 worked with - 4GB w/ 2ghz core2duo & win7x64. Certainly not bleeding edge, but it used to work even with my 800mb 40k pictures catalog. LR4.1 certainly works better than RC2, but it's still useful to restart LR when the lags start appearing after working about 1h+ and rendering a lot of pictures - and a software that needs a restart to work like after 10min is simply buggy. But apart from that, maybe LR4 will never be as fast as LR3 because of the added functionality or because PV2012 is slower to render than PV2010 and/or I'll have to split my catalog into multiple smaller ones.

You get what you pay for, $150 or $99 for a powerfull program like LR will always have issues.

Maybe that's Adobe's way of saying: Apple forced us to lower LR's price, and now see what you've got

 

[jrsforums]

I purchased a new I7 quad core, 3.6GHZ, and loaded 32 GB Crucial Ram. I have 3 HD's, first is a 560 GB SSD to run programs, 2nd 1TB to hold all cache and catalogs, 3rd 2TB to finalize my photos and storage. Even with this set-up and when running LR 4.1 it still lags A LOT.........
I think no matter how fast your PC is and try to optimize LR the SLOWNESS and LAG issues will be there until Adobe decides to update the issue with their next realease (4.2 or 3 or 4). You get what you pay for, $150 or $99 for a powerfull program like LR will always have issues. My copy of Photoshop CS5 $799 performs so much faster that I can't keep up sometimes.

My 2 cents!!

I suggest you try putting the RAW Cache and Cat. on the SSD.

BTW for LR, anything more than 8GB is currently overkill, unless you need it for other programs....which may effect your LR performance if resident...depends...

 

[jrsforums]

You seem to be aware of the current things to do with 4.1 to reduce processing issues. If you are having the problems you say, I suspect other issues in your system. What config and setup do you have?

I've got the same setup LR3 worked with - 4GB w/ 2ghz core2duo & win7x64. Certainly not bleeding edge, but it used to work even with my 800mb 40k pictures catalog. LR4.1 certainly works better than RC2, but it's still useful to restart LR when the lags start appearing after working about 1h+ and rendering a lot of pictures - and a software that needs a restart to work like after 10min is simply buggy. But apart from that, maybe LR4 will never be as fast as LR3 because of the added functionality or because PV2012 is slower to render than PV2010 and/or I'll have to split my catalog into multiple smaller ones.

You get what you pay for, $150 or $99 for a powerfull program like LR will always have issues.

Maybe that's Adobe's way of saying: Apple forced us to lower LR's price, and now see what you've got

Ya know....I started on a 4KB PC with a floppy disk...it worked well...and was FAST. It was a bit deal when we got a 5MB HD.

What you need to understand is that time changes and, as we want more function, the processing needs and size of programs (and OSs) change...i.e. get bigger and need more power.

I suggest that your processor and memory need to increase. Adobe said that LR4 would run on it, but...

I would fault them on not describing what was truly needed to get good response time....but I will bet that they were not even sure until the final tuning was done....and I suspect it is not really final, as they got most of the big problems, but will continue to look at ways to tune it.

Pricing is a financial decision...NOT a development decision. There is not a developer out there who doesn't want to create the best, fastest, most capable program they can....but there are trade offs. I am glad that

Adobe made the decision to add function to LR. I would not give up the 2012 processing...it is a major step forward. A few upgrades are well worth it.

 

[RonQ]

I purchased a new I7 quad core, 3.6GHZ, and loaded 32 GB Crucial Ram. I have 3 HD's, first is a 560 GB SSD to run programs, 2nd 1TB to hold all cache and catalogs, 3rd 2TB to finalize my photos and storage. Even with this set-up and when running LR 4.1 it still lags A LOT.........
I think no matter how fast your PC is and try to optimize LR the SLOWNESS and LAG issues will be there until Adobe decides to update the issue with their next realease (4.2 or 3 or 4). You get what you pay for, $150 or $99 for a powerfull program like LR will always have issues. My copy of Photoshop CS5 $799 performs so much faster that I can't keep up sometimes.

My 2 cents!!

I suggest you try putting the RAW Cache and Cat. on the SSD.

BTW for LR, anything more than 8GB is currently overkill, unless you need it for other programs....which may effect your LR performance if resident...depends...

I had that set-up on my i5 before this machine and was running LR3.6 same issue.
Actually, I have a program that monitors RAM called ballisticks utility, I have seen LR consume around 12+GB of RAM when processing. Plus I have CS5 master collection and having PS, DW, and LR open I need the RAM power.

 

[Marsu42]

What you need to understand is that time changes and, as we want more function, the processing needs and size of programs (and OSs) change...i.e. get bigger and need more power.bI suggest that your processor and memory need to increase. Adobe said that LR4 would run on it, but...

Adobe made the decision to add function to LR. I would not give up the 2012 processing...it is a major step forward. A few upgrades are well worth it.

I like PV2012, too, that's why I'm using LR4, though it lost some flexibility over PV2010. And I'm aware of the fact that that more features need more computing power - with Word 6.0 you could type a letter w/ 256kb RAM, with Office 2010 you need 4GB to type the same letter, but with a much prettier interface ... no, really, actually I worked as a C++ programmer for some time and looked into .NET, too.

The problem is that it's tempting to cut dev time by using more memory/cpu resources and not optimizing a program, and rigorous in-house testing is a major dev cost so why not let the user do it? And you'll see, LR4.2 and LR4.3 will improve further, even if it's based on lua and some features were added - an issue like slowdown the longer a program runs is simply sloppy programming imho. And there are major bugs left, e.g. for me copy/pasting dev settings always only applies to a part of the selected pictures and I have to do it multiple times.

That being said LR is pretty good at what it's doing, handling such a lot of pictures at this speed at all is more than I'd imagined was possible before I used LR.

 

[CanonCollector]

I have an i7 quad core 3.8 machine with 3 really fast drives and the new LR 4.1 runs much slower than the 3.6 version. I have uninstalled it.

 

[Alik Griffin]

I did a lot of research on this subject. Chances are your preferences got corrupted when you upgraded. Happens all the time to me when with Final Cut Pro as well. I've posted directions as well as a bunch of other things you can try to speed up lightroom here: http://alikgriffin.com/solutions-lightroom-running-slow

Good luck.

 

[fotografiasi]

I read the adobe forums and did those things. they fix different problems that might occur. But what really helped me the most was:
[list type=decimal]
[*]for every job I have a different catalog (800 - 2000 photos)
[*]each time I open a catalog, in Library module, File -> Optimize Catalog
[*]in the Develop module, I minimize the histogram area from the top right - this seems to have the biggest impact on increasing the speed
[/list]

 

[Marsu42]

• for every job I have a different catalog (800 - 2000 photos)
• each time I open a catalog, in Library module, File -> Optimize Catalog

Optimizing surely helps, but w/ different catalogs I find it annoying that there is now way to copy smart filter folders from one to the other (or is there a possibility?)

 

[fotografiasi]

you would be much better with the search function in Bridge

 

[CTJohn]

All aspects of Lightroom work fine for me, except when I switch from one image to another, the program says "Loading" and can take 5-10 seconds to become sharp. This also occurs when I zoom in on an image. I keep all my RAW files in CR2 format, could that be the problem?

 

[RLPhoto]

I love LR 4.1. Its been fine on my machine and tweaks my 5D3 files nicely. Its from 2006 but has had basic upgrades since then.

C2D E6600 - 2.93ghz
4 GB 667 MHz RAM
Nvidia 660TI 3GB Card.
Dual monitors

Perhaps, your machine hasn't streamlined its services and background programs?

 

[Marsu42]

I keep all my RAW files in CR2 format, could that be the problem?

Yes, that's it - the solution is convert them to dng and check the "embed fast-load data" option, that's specifically made for speeding up raw rendering. You can still embed cr2 in the dng if you never ever want to loose the original format, though of course required hd doubles. Personally, I like dng since all programs I ever looked at (except dxo) work with raw dng nowadays.

 

[Chris Burch]

I keep all my RAW files in CR2 format, could that be the problem?

Yes, that's it - the solution is convert them to dng and check the "embed fast-load data" option, that's specifically made for speeding up raw rendering. You can still embed cr2 in the dng if you never ever want to loose the original format, though of course required hd doubles. Personally, I like dng since all programs I ever looked at (except dxo) work with raw dng nowadays.

That's the first time I have heard anyone claim dng files allow LR to run faster. Can anyone else confirm that? I have never converted my CR2 files at all, so this would be a major shift for me.

 

[wtlloyd]

There can be a couple bottlenecks.

At Edit>catalog settings>file handling select the highest preview size, high quality, never discard. This is assuming you are using a 24" or larger monitor.

In catalog settings>Metadata deselect "Automatically write changes into XMP" You'll have to periodically force this as a matter of good housekeeping, on the files you are working on, to keep the XMP current with the catalog.

At Edit>Preferences>File handling set your Camera Raw Cache to 20GB. This is not the same as your previews, and 20GB is ample. You might consider selecting "purge cache" at this time.

Pre-building 1:1 previews can help a lot. More than anything else you can do. There is still some re-rendering in Develop, but the initial view is more accurate. For 60,000 images from 8 to 21 megapixel cameras, my preview cache is around 200GB.

You can choose this on import, or by selecting all photos in the catalog, then Library>previews>render 1:1 previews. It's fairly quick on import and you can start ranking and editing files while the previews are being generated, anyway. To re-generate ALL your photo previews can take hours, best to let it grind away while you are doing something else.

Re-optimize your catalog after.

Lightroom is far more CPU dependent than GPU. Additional memory benefits tail off rapidly after 8GB ram, unless you've got a dozen programs open at once, I'd guess. I typically only have Lightroom and CS6 running at the same time...

 

[Chris Burch]

Thanks wtlloyd...I'll give those a try tonight.

Are there any efficiencies to be gained by using different hard drives for cache or photo storage. All of my photos are their own HDD so I could use that drive or my normal C: drive for cache and such. Thoughts?

I've been building 1:1 previews lately and I haven't seen much of a change. It's so slow that when I try to select a photo, I have to let the mouse hover over the photo for an extra few seconds because if I move the mouse away, it will select whatever I am hovering over at the time, up to 3-5 seconds after I clicked a mouse. That sounds trivial, but it's excrutiating when I am trying to cull through 2,000 images from a shoot.