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Lee Jay
Inspiring
May 22, 2011
Open for Voting

P: Better Library Module performance

  • May 22, 2011
  • 24 replies
  • 871 views

The Library module in Lightroom doesn't perform all that well in several ways. I used to think this was because of my ancient hardware, but now that I have brand new very fast hardware, it's still slow:

The thumbs are rendered in the import window very quickly, and some metadata is collected as well. This should be virtually instantly transferred to the main Library module once you hit import so the thumbs pop up right away and the rest of the import proceeds in the background.

No matter what rendering options you select in import, the thumbs should be fully rendered up to at least the default (middle) size and should be able to be recalled very quickly from the thumbs cache. Right now, it's often necessary to page through the thumbs and wait for rendering and for the three-dots to go away on each and every thumb.

Even if standard or 1:1 preview rendering is complete, grid searches aren't very fast and thumbs don't come up very fast unless the catalog is on an SSD. This indicates to me that there are inefficiencies in the way these thumbs and metadata are called up (lots of hard drive thrashing).

Even once the grid is available, grid scrolling isn't smooth even on fast hardware. This seems to be largely because of the application of the "other stuff" like drop shadows, borders, metadata, badges, and so on, but I'm not really sure about that. Once all these thumbs are in memory (after the previous call-up step is complete), scrolling on modern hardware should be buttery smooth, as it is on other applications, including the OS (I use Windows Explorer).

The main request here is to go through the Library module and improve its efficiency wherever possible, such as the way sync got around 1000 times faster after a rewrite during the last cycle.

    24 replies

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    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    May 23, 2011
    I get around 4-5 frames per second, on a smaller screen (1440x900) and with smaller files (6 MP). Of course our fps figures will also differ because of different (default) image adjustments. I find my rate too slow. Yours seems OKish but I guess ideally you'd want it higher (e.g., 16fps) as well, so that it would appear smooth (as it does when the image display size is reduced).
    L
    Lee JayAuthor
    Inspiring
    May 22, 2011
    When using exposure adjustments on a 5D raw image, even with spots, brushes, and lens corrections, the response is around 6-8 frames per second on a landscape image occupying most of a 1920x1200 screen. That's on an i7-2720QM.
    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    May 22, 2011
    Lee, I fully agree that scrolling in the Library grid mode should be smoother and that the problem seem to be the decorations rather than the thumbnail images. Did you notice that "grabbing" the grid with the mouse cursor (you need to find the right spot between images) results in smoother scrolling? Not a solution as it does not support a large range but an indication that it is not a hardware problem. Picasa does a much better job scrolling image grids on my hardware.

    Although I agree that initial display of the thumbs after import could be quicker, this is not my main problem as it occurs only once. Grid scrolling is always unpleasant but it shouldn't be. If it could be improved I think it would do loads for perceived LR performance.

    Lee, with your new hardware do you find that the Develop module could use a performance boost? Or are exposure adjustments in the presence of other adjustments, such as sharpening, performed with a good refresh rate? On my hardware the refresh rate when using the exposure slider and full screen mode, is not good (much worse than when using LR in window mode and making the window as small as possible). I'm wondering what it is like on very performant hardware.

    Don't mean to hijack your FR, though, which I support.
    john beardsworth
    Community Expert
    john beardsworthCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 22, 2011
    "The thumbs are rendered in the import window very quickly, and some metadata is collected as well. This should be virtually instantly transferred to the main Library module once you hit import so the thumbs pop up right away and the rest of the import proceeds in the background. "

    Indeed!
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