P: Slow UI when using Mac and Custom Display Profile

[adamcrowe]

Hello,

Since upgrading to Lightroom Classic v10.0, all UI-related functionality is painfully slow. All editing functions are working correctly and quickly but scrolling through the catalogue or even scrolling a side panel is taking many long seconds to refresh. Unreasonably long.

Disabling GPU Accellaration has no affect on my Lightroom's performance.

macOS Mojave 10.14.6

Mac Pro (Late 2013)

3 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon E5

32 GB 1866 MHz DDR3

AMD FirePro D700 6 GB

[edmundgall]

Hi @ann_chown ! I would be surprised if any software developer of a resource-intensive app doesn't devote some resources to examining how efficiently they use them. The amount of RAM has a significant impact on performance, but it's not the only resource that has impact. One thing to note, though, it that while it may be the nature of current software tech to expand the size of RAM required with the addition/revision of each core feature, the way that computer operating systems & hardware are managing RAM use is changing for the better. As this article shows, it's one of the advantages of the new Apple M1 line (whose basic, entry-level options were released this year):

How 8GB RAM Overperforms in M1 Macs https://www.lifewire.com/how-8gb-ram-overperforms-in-m1-macs-5091929

Depending on your purpose & expectations, you may not need over 8-16GB RAM: performance is always a subjective thing. While others on this thread can't live with less than 32GB RAM, I've been happily using 16GB iMac 5K for nearly 4 years to run LR alongside other apps (e.g. mail, Chrome, etc.) as a hobbyist who did a few paid photography jobs. One of these was done on an old MacBook with 4GB RAM to use the latest LR & PS versions available in Jan 2017: I was forced to use this in an emergency because my main computer's motherboard died the week before I was due to deliver (it was painfully slow, but hey, job done). Tht experience taught me that there are things in LR that PS is much faster or offers a broader flexibility (e.g. cloning & healing).

If photo-processing/retouching is a business-critical element for you, you should have someone either on staff or as a consultant to provide you technical advice about all aspects of your hardware/software setup (from strategy to deployment, acquisition to resilience planning), once you set your subjective expectations (how long a job of a certain size should take to complete).

Worrying (or worse, whinging) about what any software developer is/isn't doing hasn't ever been valuable use of time: we accept what we can't control, plan for the unexpected, and work to suit. This sometimes means avoiding upgrading to the latest version of anything (OS or app) as soon as it becomes available, because one doesn't have the ability to test their impact without being able to withstand the consequences...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I've been having similar issues as some identified. Develop module painfully slow, freezes my MacBook, unusable essentially unless you are doing only minor edits. 

I reverted back to V 9.4 and so far this seems to have "fixed" the problem, although it has created another, ie I can not use my most recent catalogue, LR won't let me open it, says the version is too new so I had to go back to an older catalogue and start the process of reloading my newer images. Bit is a pain, I'd say but at least now I can do my work.

[astrosven]

I just noticed that my system shows a great boost in Library performance on my 4K BenQ SW271 with Adobe RGB color profile (calibrated using i1) when changing the display resolution to "unscaled full 3840x2160" in BigSur. Way better than any scaled resolution which I usually applied before.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@Sven

It's probably the same as running LR in Low-Res (Non-Retina) mode. 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hello everybody! I must also share the problems I face with new Lightroom and some potential "releaf actions" untill a proper update will come out to solve the problem.

My system is:
Apple Mac Pro 5.1 (2012)
x2 CPU Intel XEON x5690 3,45GHz
96GB RAM
NVME SSD for Cataloge and Photos
AMD RX VEGA 56 8GB

My system works great with all other software except the new version of Lr Classic. It is so laggy I cannot work with it at all.

Before I share my potential releaf solutions I should mention that my computer used to work the new Lr Classic great with my previous monitor which was a 28'' 4K (DisplayPort connected).
Once I bought 4 new monitors 32'' 4K in order to review them and keep the best, I realised that all of them found so dificult to work with Lr Classic. So it has to be something about the UI of the software and how it scales itself to work on larger displays.

One releaf solution was to make Lightroom work in "Low Resolution". It seems to increase the performance. I made a video about that:

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SKFWDahyUsY" style="max-width: 100%; max-height: 100%;" width="640px"></iframe>

That way I can work with the new version (because all my cataloges are converted to the new standards and I cannot go back) a little bit faster. Nothing like compared to the snappy experience with my 28'' 4K monitor, but it looks better.

Another work around is if you work with a 4K 30+ inches display, to make Lr work on a smaller window and not full screen. Working Lr as Full HD on a 4K display seems to make the software run better. You can also try to lower the resolution of the 4K display to Full HD dimensions, but what's the point to have a 4K monitor then.

The only way I was able to work the new Lr Classic on Full Screen on my 32'' 4K monitor was with Lr running on low res (video above) and changing the Calibration to sRGB. Of course I am not feeling well working my expensive monitor on a non calibrated profile, but I hope it is just a "buying some time" solution to this problem.

I hope Adobe will come up with something stable next days!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

My system is near identical to yours, so your tip is welcome. Fortunately, I do not rely on Lightroom for my living and even more, fortunately, I was able to roll back to the previous version, so the issue is not as serious for me as for many others.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I just did the latest update for LR and I can barely get the tabs to slide. I’ve never seen it so slow. I get white squares across the picture like it’s still loading. When I logged on my iPad none of the changes were there and it crashed. How do I back this out?  It’s totally useless to me. 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Since I upgraded LRC to 10.1, LRC is running extremely slowly and occasionally crashing on my iMAC (2018) running Mojave 10.14.6. Frequent delays when scrolling and editing.  Even switching from Library to Develop.  And it hangs when I go between FIT and 100% on Navigator. Either LRC hangs, quits or the iMAC crashes. 

[jsknick]

Any news for LR 10.1 and Big Sur 11.1 ?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Yeah, don't go there, yet.

[TheDigitalDog]

@jsknick Absolutely no issues on this end but YMMV.

[Was DYP]

Been configuring the new MacPro which has the W5700X GPU. First off before it arrived I did a clean install of 10.15.7 on the MBP and migrated the production OS 10.14.6 to it. It was my intention to do a clean install of everything which I have a partition started but thought I would go ahead and use the migrated partition if everything was working ok. 

Now to the LR10.1 Library Module test on the migrated partition. An AOC monitor with the display profile was hooked up first and the test showed no slowness. Then hooked it up to my two NEC monitors that I normally use and selected the two display profiles from the old MP5.1 that appeared to cause the slowdowns. Still no change LR10.1 was as fast as before. just as fast 9.4. So I went and did a new calibration of both monitors and still no slow down.

Not sure what to make of this. Was it a clean install of the OS or the GPU making that much of a difference? Surly others have tried this. By the way the GPU history still shows no activity when in the Library Module, in fact what I found strange was compared with the GPU in the MP5.1 there was absolutely no activity in the GPU History. Make me wonder if there is not some not so kosher attempt at using the GPU for some reason going on when the slowness is showing.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@Rikk First of all, thanks for steering me in the right direction.  I dropped from LR10.1 to 10.0 and the problems went away.  Here's some additional details that I learned through repeated attempts to diagnose that might help the coders at Adobe to straighten this out. 1.)  The problem on appeared on my iMac with 27" Retina display.  It did not appear on my MacBook Pro.  Both were running LR 10.1 and Big Sur 11.1.  2.)  I was able to determine that the problem was the cursor display point on the iMac, specifically when the cursor was providing input such as moving a slider, changing the size of the crop box, etc.  The cursor indicator on the screen would stop moving, but it appeared the system was still recognizing the position of the trackpad or mouse.  (I tried both.)  When the cursor indicator briefly unfroze it would jump to a new position where the input had been, and then freeze again.  Hope that helps.

[zobeleye]

seriously ADOBE, what are you guys doing with LR ???

why is this not being fixed ? first 10 and then 10.1 ??? and still the same ???

At least some info on your progress would be appreciated...

[eschhols]

same here, went back to 9.4 and did the move to 10.1 today, just to realise, no change. STILL SUPER SLOW... it unusable (and even 9.4 is too slow - by the way)

MacPro 5.1

AMD Radeon 580RX

46 GB RAM

System on 1TB NVME2 SSD

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Same. Mac Pro 5,1, Mojave, 2x 6-core 3.46GHz, 96GB RAM, Radeon 580RX, Samsung EVO SSD driven on an ACHI controller.
Three screens, the main 4K display running at 3840x2160 and two 1920x1080.
No matter the setting LR 10 is CRAWLING.

One would think it's a decent computer and Lightroom 10 brings it to its knees – no, it makes the machine unusable... Every move in LR takes eons to complete.

Activity monitor shows hardly any processor use & any setting regarding GPU performance or resolution makes no difference. Photoshop performance is a-OK, but it's not my main tool anymore. I'm seriously considering a.) switching to Windows b.) Ditching Adobe altogether (unfortunately we don't have many options in our industry.)

The same software runs OK on another 5,1 with High Sierra and lesser RAM, processing and graphics power and on a little MacBook Air & Mojave with an HD monitor. Go figure. 

Edit: the other machine maxed out on 9.4 w/ High Sierra and I'll try to downgrade on my main machine. Not happy.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi Markus, hope you’re well. I did a workshop with you in NYC a good few years ago when I was visiting from Scotland. Itching to come back. 

[nitin.chandra]

Just curious @eschhols, what is slow in 9.4? Just generally slow or any comparison to some?

[eschhols]

Easy to explain: goto grid and move from one picture to the other an wait for the spinning beach ball… for ages.. its damn slow just to display the pictures. Okay, I’ve got a couple, bit is 10.000+ really an issue for a professional app? - this relates to 10.1 - 9.4 is okay-ish but could be faster..

Best

Sven

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

So glad I had a chance to read that you liked his workshop! 😜 Not the correct venue for personal messages.

[COBill]

*Markus Hartel

Some reading this forum will identify temporary solutions as your machine has plenty of power. I'd start with comparing your slow and fast systems to find the differences:

• plugins 
• monitor calibration 
• monitor color space
• ... 

Yes we windows users have experienced very few problems with V10 and even fewer with V10.1 but I assume that you have a good business reason for choosing Apple products. 

[nitin.chandra]

I have around 30k+ images in one catalog and have all the previews built (I leave it overnight to build previews on a fresh install). Works fine on my iMac and MacBook Pro. Maybe having the catalog and previews on a SSD helps...

This is not applicable to LR 10 though...9.4 works fine.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Yeah... None of these hot fixes bring sufficient relief. I downgraded to 9.4 and I'm working with an older catalog for now – until –or if– this can be resolved. Sometimes updating just does not make sense & the older version performs exactly as it should.

[TheDigitalDog]

SSD: This is kind of old but I believe still pertinent and very well researched and written:

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

You can scroll to the conclusions if you want it 'quick and clean'.  

[Was DYP]

From my experience I would guess it is probably the GPU and/or its drivers.

I would make a test clean install partition on the machine that has the problems and see if it makes any difference. If not then it is probably the GPU and/or its drivers