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Question

8 Seconds to switch between images

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
August 29, 2025
6 replies
4095 views

Oh my goodness. I want to bash my head in. I'm 100 photos away from finishing a wedding, and Lightroom is being so so slow that I can't even stand to work in it right now. I've tried adjusting preferences, upping cache size, disabling parallel previews, turning GPU on and off, resetting all preferences, using only Smart Previews, etc. All it's done is make it even more sluggish and given me more grief with editing. It takes at least 8 seconds to switch between edited images, preview presets, and forever to sync edits...I just want to rip my hair out!!

Here's my computer stats:
Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-11900K @ 3.50GHz (3.40 GHz)
Installed RAM 64.0 GB (63.6 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Edition Windows 11 Home
Version 24H2
Installed on ‎2024-‎12-‎17
OS build 26100.4946
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.197.0

And I'm running Lightroom Classic 14.5.1 that just updated today. I feel every update makes it slower and slower. With 64gb RAM, shouldn't it be pretty fast?! What am I missing?!

Lightroom_Speed.zip

Windows

ShootingPixelsAndy

Inspiring

I'm seeing the same behaviour with a RTX5080, all drivers up to date. The one thing I noticed is that it's always slow when masks have been applied, especially AI masks, as if each time a non-cached image is opened the mask is being re-calculated from scratch. I see the same behaviour in LR (cloud) too.

johnrellis

Legend

@ShootingPixelsAndy: "it's always slow when masks have been applied, especially AI masks"

Have you set Catalog Settings > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes Into XMP?

ShootingPixelsAndy

Inspiring

Tried it with and without, still slow if the image isn't pulled from the cache (which is set to 64gb). Task Manager shows CPU/DISK/GPU under no real load whilst waiting, CPU seems to take the biggest hit.

The really odd thing is I would bet it's taking longer to load the image than it would to create the AI mask again from scratch. I'll do some testing and try and get a video of it happening.

Edit to add: The images I've been testing with are all using a SKY mask that's been intersected with a linear gradient.

AxelMatt

Community Expert

@emrosedee I don't see any lines and other issues in your screenshots.

Is your system up-to-date? Do you have installed all recent updates and patches for the operating system and the device drivers, especially the graphic driver. If you have a NVidia graphic card installed, make sure that you are using the recent Studio version of the driver, not the Game Ready version.

Please provide a copy of your 'System Info'. This can be get from the LrC Help > System Info menu item. There's a copy button in the System Info dialog. Press this button and paste the info into your next forum post.

Check the Windows Task Manager if and how much Lightroom takes CPU time and memory.

Next try: make sure Lightroom is running, then start the Explorer and goto the folder where the catalog is stored. Check if there are <name of catalog>. lrcat-wal file and if it's continuously growing.

This behavior I have sometimes. In this case LrC react very slow in library's views.

I've tried several steps, but nothing helped. After I restored the latest backup LrC in working ok again.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

emrosedeeAuthor

Participating Frequently

That one was harder to see, for sure. Here are the others I was having issues with. Weird thing was, it was JUST a handful of images. The rest were fine.

AxelMatt

Community Expert

Do you have updated your GPU driver as I wrote in my former post?

And have you checked if you've buildin a CPU with a integrated GPU?

Try also a reset of the preferences of Lightroom Classic: How to reset Lightroom Classic preferences (adobe.com)

It's recommended to backup your preferences before you reset the preferences to the default settings:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/preference-file-and-other-file-locations.html

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

What gpu do you have in that computer? Lightroom nowadays is very dependent on having a strong gpu. It will run slow even on machines with a fast processor and lots of memory if the gpu is underpowered. This is especially true if you use any of the ai features.

emrosedeeAuthor

Participating Frequently

The crappy thing is that before I reset the preferences on Lightroom, I had no issue whatsoever with colour or stippling. I didn't have problems with image preview or export before the reset, and I was using my GPU.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

That sounds like a gpu driver issue as others noted. The GPU you have should be fine but driver might need to be updated.

emrosedeeAuthor

Participating Frequently

So now I'm getting weird orange lines with blue stippling all over parts of my images. What the heck is going on?!

johnrellis

Legend

"weird orange lines with blue stippling "

Try updating your graphics driver by going directly to the manufacturer's web site, rather than relying on Windows Update or a manufacturer's update utility:
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/troubleshoot-gpu.html#solution-4

If that doesn't help, please copy/paste here the entire contents of the LR menu command Help > System Info -- that will let us see exactly which versions of hardware and software LR thinks you're running.

emrosedeeAuthor

Participating Frequently

Here's the whole system info attached.

I've turned off GPU use for image handling for now.

Show_System_Info.txt

KR Seals

Community Expert

Have you tried just closing and restarting Lightroom Classic when it gets slow?

A couple of things to check:

Any other apps running? Try using your computer with only Lightroom Classic running. In my case, I have similar specs, even with chrome and Photoshop running, I see no noticible slowdown.

Is your anti virus set to ignore Lightroom Classice file access?

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.

emrosedeeAuthor

Participating Frequently

I have, yeah. When I reopen, it's just as slow if not worse 😞

I sometimes have Google Chrome open to do some random stuff while waiting for AI adjustments to do stuff, but I try and keep it pretty minimal.

I'll double check my anti virus, thanks for suggesting that!!

kglad

Community Expert

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

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