P: AI blob storage size should be limited and automatically cleaned up (like previews)

[thomas5CED]

As discussed in the other thread, LrC 14.4 will store AI denoise/super resolution data in .lrcat-data. This storage seems to be permanent: once AI denoise is enabled for a photo the blob will be stored indefinitely.

The proposal is to limit the amount of AI blobs stored in .lrcat-data by some threshold size and automatically clean up old blobs. If a user opens a photo with a deleted blob again, it needs to be recomputed by running AI denoise again. So this basically trades storage space for additional processing.

I know that this means that opening a photo with a missing blob the first time will result in a significant delay. Users might still want this behavior. Standard size preview generation could use the non-AI-enhanced version of the photo since AI enhancements (except adaptive color profile) are probably not visible on small previews anyway.

This would make AI blobs work the same way was preview storage works.

[johnrellis]

I like the idea of managing denoise data in the catalog like previews, giving users the option of pruning older, unused denoise data to save on catalog-folder space, at the expense of having to Update AI Settings if you want to export or edit the photo. This would help people who keep their catalogs on internal laptop drives with limited space.

(By "denoise" I mean everything in the Develop > Detail panel -- Denoise, Raw Details, and Super Resolution.)

"once AI denoise is enabled for a photo the blob will be stored indefinitely."

If you remove the photo from the catalog, the denoise data will disappear after you do File > Optimize Catalog.

Alternatively, if you clear the Develop History step for Denoise on a photo, the denoise data will disappear after doing File > Optimize Catalog.

[Camagna]

A good one would be an option to remove Denoise data from lrcat-data files upon request. Often, if not always, we don't need to save this data forever, as it's easy to regenerate it.

Backups are a pain in the ass now. My lrcat-data file is about 100GB of denoise data that I don't need anymore, and I can't delete. Precious SSD/HD space is also lost.

Please Adobe!! Do something.

Thanks

Maurizio

[Camagna]

We need something to manage the absurd size of lrcat-data files. We're using Denoise, but we don't need to archive it forever, it's something that can easily be (batch or not) regenerated if needed. Backups are gigantic now (mine is way above 100GB!!) and precious SSD/HD space is wasted. We need an option to batch remove Denoise data from folders, selection, catalogs, whatever. Simply going back in history and delete everything after denoise is NOT an option if you have done something to images (and always is the case) after the Denoise, and it's not really possible on hundreds, thousands or even (in my case) 200,000 and more photos. Adobe! Please help!!

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Sameer K, please merge with this existing idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-ai-blob-storage-size-should-be-limited-and-...

[ZappaJul]

So that's why my Lr CAT is suddenly so huge! I agree we need a way to reduce the file size.  (My 1TB internal SSD is choked, and I don't even store files on it).

I like the idea of being able to manage the size of this data in the Lr CAT, but rather than simply deleting it, I'd like an option to store AI blob on an external drive; if deleted, I can see trouble ahead with accessing old files a few years down the line, but forgetting the De-noise data has been removed. Recommended workflows also recommend running De-noise before all other edits to prevent ghosting, (rather than having to update  Ai edits and masks after De-noise) so deleting the data would not only require De-noise to be re-run, it would also require AI edits and masks to be updated, which is doubly/triple time-consuming, especially on files with complex masking.

[Bentley B]

My blobs, there is 89 files adding up to 19.5 GB which averages to 219.1 MB per file. The RAWs are from a Canon R6 so not that large to start with. Now many I have edited in LrC mainly noise, tone and color adjust then send to PS to do other edits and upscale. Then back in LrC I save as a jpeg. so these images with blob files don't have upscale in them, so does that mean if I upscaled in LrC the blobs would be even larger?

To delete the history of the RAW file edits after a jpeg is saved of the edited image maybe good but if you want to go back and do further edits to that image you start over. Now I have gone back in previous years and delete all RAW edits of images then reedit with the new LrC tools, so to delete the history maybe ok for me I am just a hobiest but people with 10's or 100's of thousand images might be an issue.

[clang88]

Quite honestly, I think the old "create separate dng file" solution was more manageable. Alternatively, it would be nice if it was just some binary sidecar file. That way, deleting the extra space is as easy as deleting all side car files and space is generally less of an issue, as the "denoised" or "scaled" image would be on a NAS or larger storage than the catalog itself for most power users.

[johnrellis]

@clang88: "Alternatively, it would be nice if it was just some binary sidecar file."

Denoise and Super Resolution are already stored in binary .acr sidecars when you do Metadata > Save Metadata To File or enable Automatically Write Changes Into XMP. So the core mechanism is already there -- Adobe just has to allow users to stop have the data written into a file that gets included in LR backups (the .lrcat-data file).