Lightroom 4.1 Running SLOW!

[Enthusiast]

Lightroom 4.1 is much faster than the Release Candidate but feels slower than 3.6. I doesn´t bring you forward to discuss this because the image quality increase a lot with the new process versions and that´s what we all want, isn´t it?
Lightroom performance is related to two factors:
1. CPU performance
This is relevant for rendering the previews and the export.
LR scales very very good in nearly all functions to all available cores and is much faster in that than most other programs.
2. HD performance
Even the preview are on the HD and the catalog have to load back the data when you switch to next pic.

I´m running LR 4.1 with 5 year old quadcore phenom but I use 2 SSDs since I upgraded to the Mark 3:
1. SSD: All programs
2. SSD: Lightroom catalogue and preview data

The SSD is fast enough to use the previews rendered in a 100% version. You can chose this in the import dialogue in the right upper corner. Wwhile zooming in, the CPU don´t have to render the image again. It´s just rendered once when you import the image. It takes more time to import, but you don´t need to spend this time in from of your PC and saves a lot of time while you work with.

Catalog size is not the factor here. My main catalog is 45000 images and it´s not significantly slower than smaller catalogs I´m working with from time to time.

 

[wtlloyd]

Hope it helps, Chris.

Regarding efficiencies, the best thing you can do is have the fastest internal HD or (far better) SSD you can afford.

Enjoy this definitive article concerning program/cache/data location combinations in Lightroom:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/blog/will-an-ssd-improve-adobe-lightroom-performance/

Regarding your second point, it sounds like some heavy action is occuring under the hood....possibly in Lightroom, which will automatically generate additional previews in the background or write XMP metadata to the sidecars as you work. I prefer to force all that addtional HD activity at one time, rather than take the performance hit. Or, you may have some system activity that is slowing Lightroom performance. Best to minimize programs that may make calls to the data or system drives.
In win7, I have the cpu/mem "gadget" on my desktop - not to be taken seriously, but rather as an indicator when the hamsters are pantin'.....

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.

 

[EvaCasado]

The only solution is to create a new catalog, since the upgrade it is the only fix that currently works.

 

[RFreier]

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.

I had to join this forum just so I could thank you for your post! I took a look at your link and decided to try the "Trash Your Preferences" suggestion first, because it seemed to make the most sense to me. I can't thank you enough because the issue I had with Lightroom 4.2 running slow for me was solved with that one suggestion! Thank you!
RFreier

 

[crasher8]

Upgrade to 4.2, it sure sped things up for me.

 

[hhelmbold]

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.

Sorry guys but I have to disagree... I know a lot of people preach converting to dng but I found that DNG IS the problem for Lightroom being so slow. I run an i7 processor with 24GB of RAM and when I convert to dng, I will click on the crop tool, wait 10 seconds... crop... wait 10 seconds... adjust a slider... wait 10 seconds etc etc. All my other catalogues are in CR2 format, so it made me think and I came across this article : http://www.foto-biz.com/Lightroom/The-case-against-dng

I kept the dng files I already worked on, deleted the rest from the catalogue and re-imported the CR2 files from the memory card... Suddenly Lightroom was working the way it is supposed to again. So my experience tells me that the dng file is indeed the problem.

 

[Marsu42]

So my experience tells me that the dng file is indeed the problem.

Did you use LR4's dng version with "Embed Fast Load Data"? That's exactly made to speed up rendering, though at the cost of a bit larger filesize - and still smaller than the original cr2.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I've run tests on DNG converted files with my D800. The time to render them is faster, but not by much.

 

[JMA]

I’ve only noticed LR 4.3 running painfully slow just recently, I’ve done heaps of searching but nothing people were recommending was fixing it, so I thought, what have I changed in the last month, then I remembered that I installed a new anti-virus, (bitdefender), where previously I was using AVG, so I uninstalled it, LR is now running perfect.
Not sure if this will work for everyone, but it might be worth a try.

 

[Etienne]

My LR 4.4 is soooo sloowwww on import, that the program has become useless to me
I have about 50,000 images

Any suggestions?

 

[Marsu42]

My LR 4.4 is soooo sloowwww on import, that the program has become useless to me
I have about 50,000 images Any suggestions?

Get LR5 which is speed-optimized - and I just split up my 60k image catalog into 2x 30k, big improvement, watch out in task manager (Windows) for lr using virtual memory ("commit size") which slows down lr to a crawl.

 

[Etienne]

My LR 4.4 is soooo sloowwww on import, that the program has become useless to me
I have about 50,000 images Any suggestions?

Get LR5 which is speed-optimized - and I just split up my 60k image catalog into 2x 30k, big improvement, watch out in task manager (Windows) for lr using virtual memory ("commit size") which slows down lr to a crawl.

Thanks!... what do youdo about the virtual memory? can you clear or delete it?

 

[Marsu42]

Thanks!... what do youdo about the virtual memory? can you clear or delete it?

If LR maxes out your "real" memory and swaps to the hard drive, you're sunk and the program slows to a crawl. Try these:

* upgrade your memory (unfortunately my laptop only accepts 4gb)
* split up your catalogs, good idea for bulk operations anyway
* close background programs
* disable windows superfetch except for boot (use google for step-by-step) if your computer after some time sometimes slows down significantly for no apparent reason

 

[mackguyver]

That's exactly why I gave up on Lightroom. It's SO SLOW. I use Photomechanic for previews, and then DxO or ACR in Photoshop to process.

If you just need a fast way to view your photos (pre-editing), check out the FastpictureViewer Codec Pack. It's $15-20 and integrates with Windows 7 & later. It runs in 64-bit and creates thumbnails from CR2 files insanely fast. It also generates full previews of CR2 files with Windows Picture Viewer extremely quickly as well. They have a free trial, which sold me on it.

http://www.fastpictureviewer.com/codecs/

Before Photomechanic (and back when DxO was also really slow), I would use it to select the photos I wanted to edit.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Lightroom has always been fast for me. However, there are some ways to speed it up.
1. Put the catalog on a SSD, preferably the main drive. You can put your images on a separate drive. SSD's are now relatively cheap.

2. Make sure you have enough memory installed, 8GB is often not enough to edit large files efficiently. try to get 16GB or more installed.

 

[terminatahx]

You need better hardware.

I run the intel i7 3770k overclocked to 4.5ghz, win7 x64, 16gb ram , dual evga gtx670s. This config let's me run above apps with amazing speed. Upgrading to ssd provided another huge speed benefit as well. You need cores, ram, ssd and fast gpus.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

My LR 4.4 is soooo sloowwww on import, that the program has become useless to me
I have about 50,000 images

Any suggestions?

Can you determine if its lightroom, or a card issue? Try copying image files to a folder on lightroom , and then importing them from that location. If still slow, then lightroom or the computer needs work. The lightroom catalog is a first target when there are issues, so rebuild it first.
Secondly, I'd create a new catalog for test purposes and import images into it to see how that works.

Then, I'd start checking my computer hardware, test the memory, test the hard drive, since one of those could be a issue. Be sure to install the latest video card drivers, they cause a huge amount of trouble.

Finally, reinstall Lightroom with a new catalog. if that fixes things, then switch to the old catalog and verify its working. Then remove the test catalogs.

 

[Marsu42]

You need cores, ram, ssd and fast gpus.

And with the money left after these purchases, shoot with a Rebel 550d and a 50/1.8 :-> ... nothing against helping the economy, but for my money I'd first split large catalogs, allocate catalog & data on different disks, turn off sharpening/nr until exporting - lr5 also has smart previews to prevent working on the full resolution.

 

[Etienne]

You need better hardware.

I run the intel i7 3770k overclocked to 4.5ghz, win7 x64, 16gb ram , dual evga gtx670s. This config let's me run above apps with amazing speed. Upgrading to ssd provided another huge speed benefit as well. You need cores, ram, ssd and fast gpus.

I have an i7 920 processor, Windows 7 64bit, 12 GB RAM
Lightroom is the only thing that runs slowly now. It ran fine a year ago

 

[Marsu42]

I have an i7 920 processor, Windows 7 64bit, 12 GB RAM
Lightroom is the only thing that runs slowly now. It ran fine a year ago

In that case, it also could be a bug - to debug: a) try disabling all plugins, b) use a new catalog (write all metadata to files, new catalog, read metadata)