Inspiring

Question

Adobe Portfolio workflow when working with multiple LRC catalogs that include large files?

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
March 5, 2023
4 replies
1171 views

As the title says.... 🙂

Long time LRC user. My iMac slows down with catalogs over 1TB so I have several catalogs.

I realize Adobe's logic for LRC / LR / Portfolio is to have 1 LRC catalog but that doesn't work with my tech and storage / bkp plan. Also my catalogs are broken up by large projects and for catch all bi yearly.

My current logic is to:

1) In each LRC catalog, create 'select' collections

2) Use the "Export this collection as a catalog' option for each

3) Create a new LRC '4 Porfolio' catalog

4) Use the "Import from another catalog" to add the images from step 2 to the LRC '4 Porfolio' catalog

5) In the LRC '4 Porfolio' catalog, organize images by collections

6) Sync LRC '4 Porfolio' library with LR

6a) This will reduce file sizes automatically and not count against the 20gb allocation correct? See link below.

7) Assign LR folders or collections to Portfolio.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Search attempts for answers lead down different rabbit holes.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/is-it-possible-to-reduce-image-size-when-shared/td-p/12637341

Cross-app workflows

This topic has been closed for replies.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

See Portfolio Help article about integration with Lightroom CC, Lightroom Mobile and Lightroom Web.

https://help.myportfolio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036720853-How-the-Lightroom-integration-works

You can create as many Albums as you wish (500 images max per Album/PhotoGrid page). Although I recommend using far less than that to ensure faster page loads. Site visitors have the attention span of a goldfish. They won't tolerate slow loading web pages, especially if they're on slower mobile data plans.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

ben446Author

Inspiring

For #5 'In the LRC '4 Porfolio' catalog, organize images by collections'

Here are LRC and LR set up to match:

ben446Author

Inspiring

Since no one asked, I thought I would update my progress 🙂

Regarding step #6 ‘Sync LRC with LR’

After much frustration, I watched this excellent youtube vid:

Photography Masterclass | Keeping Everything In Sync - Desktop, Cloud, and Mobile

and learned:

LRC Collections = LR albums

LRC collection sets = LR folders.

These file structures do not sync. Only Collections / albums sync.

So you must manually recreate your ‘folder’ structures in LRC and LR so that they match.

Its okay to drag your LR albums that are now LRC collections from the “From Lightroom’ Collection Set in LRC after sync.

( I guess the UX department was on vacation - I mean seriously)

https://youtu.be/1Xniwcrv53c?t=2460

Regarding #6a

LRC only syncs smart previews up to LR and then Portfolio so no worry about the size of files.

Also note that for pics taken on your phone, LRC / LR sync will download the original sized files to LRC. You can choose where to store them in LRC preferences.

dj_paige

Legend

The Lightroom Classic catalog should not slow down based upon the amount of information in it (exception: making backups will be slower the more you put information into it). If I had to list the top 25 reasons for slowness in LrC, catalog size is not on the list. All the steps you go through seem unnecessary to me. The trick is to indentify the cause of slowness.

Please tell us what actions are slow in your LrC (and be specific). Some actions require faster CPU or faster GPU, other actions require faster disk, other problems could be driven by the video driver or the phase of the moon.

ben446Author

Inspiring

I agree that all this seems silly:

I think the bottleneck on my system seems to be the mass of the source files. At about 1tb, Photo Merge HDR Panorama wil not complete. (40 MB .RW2 - up to 50 files)

In any case, I do not have a raid and bkup solution to have all my images connected at once. (20+TB) Lots of macro stacks, HDR panos etc, I have tried larger external HDD but have yet to find one over 8TB thats not too loud.

Settings:

Camera Raw Cashe Settings: 40 GB (Have tried other sizes but this seems to be the sweet spot)

Import / Build Previews / Standard

dng JPEG Previews are set to Medium Size

iMac 12.6.3

4 Ghz Quad i7

48 GB Ram

Conrad_C

Community Expert

iMac 12.6.3

4 Ghz Quad i7
By @ben446

I think those specs show a major part of the bottleneck: A 4 core Intel i7 CPU.

Tests done by Art on his ArtIsRight channel on YouTube (and others) consistently show that the number of CPU cores correlates directly to speed of Lightroom Classic preview creation. Bulk preview creation is one of the few areas where Lightroom Classic benefits from upgrading to an M1 Max or M1 Ultra Apple Silicon CPU, because they have so many more cores. The M1 Max has 10 CPU cores (8 performance, 2 efficiency), the M1 Ultra has 20 cores (16 performance, 4 efficiency).

Compare that, today’s state of the art — up to 16 performance cores on efficient Apple Silicon — to just 4 cores on an Intel i7 architecture from several years ago. I am reasonably satisfied with Lightroom Classic even with my midrange M1 Pro CPU with just 8 CPU cores (6 performance, 2 efficiency).

The point is, a quad-core CPU is no longer even part of the bottom of the Mac lineup these days. The base MacBook Air and Mac mini, the cheapest Macs available (as low as $599 new), both have no less than 8 CPU cores.

Now, back to storage. Many people ask whether storage speed could be a bottleneck, so just this week, The Lightroom Queen forums has a thread where a couple of users, including the website owner, tested storing original images on a fast SSD vs a slow hard drive and then seeing how quickly Lightroom Classic could load them. The verdict: Load speed was practically the same on both types of storage (just a tiny difference). Conclusion: Storage speed is not the bottleneck for image loading, faster storage for originals doesn’t help. Link to thread:

LR Classic - Storage & Performance

Your iMac has a lot of RAM, storage speed is not the problem, and large catalogs do not inherently slow down, so as long as the system volume has enough free space on it for temp files (ideally over 100GB free), the older quad core i7 is a more likely reason it isn’t keeping up with large files.

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