Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 3.x

[laurencec]

Hi

I just upgraded from lightroom 2.7 to lightroom 3. I then proceeded to import my old catalog. this all went fine but lightroom is so slow, the thumbnail previews take forever to load if I manage to have the patience to wait  for them.

is there a quick solution?? How can it be sped up?

thanks

Laurence

Message title was edited by: Brett N

[peterberra]

I'm not sure if this has been already addressed, is your Lightroom catalogue stored and accessed on an external USB hard-drive?  If so you might want to try making a copy of it on to your computers internal hard-drive instead which should help the performance.  I run Lightroom 3.0 on my machine using windows 7 64-bit and have no problems so far.  However I did encounter slow performance when one of my my catalogues was stored on a USB external hard-drive, and when after copying it over to my internal drive I no longer had any performance issues.

[john Nall]

Peter, I do store my pictures on an external hard drive, but that's because if I store them on my internal drive, I'll exceed its capacity. But thanks for the tip.

John

[Agnus1]

John, in my opinion it doesn't make sense to have to move your images to your main hard drive. Yes I understand how it would improve performance. BUT there were no such speed or performance issues using external hard drives and Lightroom 2.7 etc. Many photographers keep their catalogs on external drives as part of their work flow between partners/associates etc. I could have two catalogs and sync them so I can bring one to my associate and keep one on my main hard drive just so Lightroom would perform better. But should I have to do that? I don't think so.

[areohbee]

The main reason to try a different drive is to see if it makes a difference - to help Adobe identify problems so they can fix them for you.

Once upon a time I was having problems with ram leaks and performance anomalies - just optimizing my catalog fixed it. Most others who tried it had no such luck, but for a few like me it solved their problems too.

Recently, I moved my ACR cache and that fixed a problem. Somebody else who had the same symptoms (I think) tried it and no such luck.

Neither of these things should have been necessary nor made any difference, but they did. I wouldn't blame you if you don't want to bother - I certainly gave up on 3.0 after a while. But now that 3.2 is out and is working better, I've got a second wind...

Anyway, probably moving your stuff do a different drive won't make any difference, nor should it, nor should you have to... - but just maybe, much to yours and Adobe's surprise, something could be learned from it!

Rob

[thewhitedog]

External USB hard drives are very popular these days (because they are relatively cheap), but on the whole they are not as efficient as FireWire drives. Though they are rated around the same speed as FireWire 400, USB 2 doesn't handle bi-directional traffic nearly as well. So performance may suffer with a USB drive.

In my case, I have my actual images on a separate drive in my Mac Pro (having four internal drive bays is sooo nice). But my Lightroom catalogue is in the Pictures folder in my user folder on my boot drive. However, even with just previews in the catalog, it can get quite large, depending on the quality settings you use for previews. What's more, if you let the backup catalogs accumulate they can take up gigabytes of space before you know it. On a big internal drive this generally won't be much of a problem (unless it's your only hard drive); but in a laptop computer this could really be an issue. If you want to winnow this collection of backups, the first thing to do is check to see which backup Lightroom is currently working from: in Catalog Settings, under the General tab click the Show button at the end of the Location line. Then from the Lightroom>Backups folder this reveals you can either copy all but the currently active and the latest backup(s) to another drive, or delete them, plus any backups preceding the one Lightroom is currently using. Having upgraded Lightroom several times, both the number and names of my catalogs were a source of some confusion. From time to time a catalog has been corrupt so Lightroom switched to another one.

What I finally did was change the name of the latest backup (to Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat from Lightroom 2 Catalog.lrcat-2) and then double-click it to start Lightroom from this catalog. However, when you do this you will find that your thumbnails and previews will have to be redrawn, which can take some time. The preview file is a separate item next to the catalog file, called Lightroom 3 Catalog Previews.lrdata, in my case. This file will grow in size as your previews are redrawn. After starting from this backup, I changed the Back up catalog setting in the Catalog Settings to When Lightroom next exits, quit Lightroom and let it create a new backup file. When this was done I had two backup files, the one Lightroom is currently using and a current backup. I then felt secure enough to delete the dozens of other backup files, saving myself over ten gigabytes of space (my entire drive is backed up elsewhere in case I had mucked this up somehow).

However, even with my Lightroom catalog on my boot drive and the actual files on another internal hard drive, Lightroom 3 is still slower than Lightroom 2 with the same setup. Some of this may be due to the fact that I have the Camera Calibration Process set to 2010 Current for the pictures I'm working on and have made some noise reduction and sharpening adjustments. Noise Reduction in particular is both more effective and more processor intensive in Lightroom 3. On images where I have not changed the Process to 2010 the images render about the same as they did in Lightroom 2 - which is adequate, but does not show the improvement I expected from a 64 bit app.

[ChBr02]

After I tried several approaches to speed up LR3.0 that were suggested on here, preview settings, deleteing preferences file, etc., I did get significant if not totally acceptable slider speed.  I "upgraded" to LR 3.2RC1.  The slider speed is now almost acceptable.  Unfortunatley, a lot of the other rendering became significantly slower.

I know that I'll probably get slammed on here for being so stupid to believe or criticize Adobe, but; I got an email from Adobe on 6/22/2010, with the subject: New Photoshop Lightroom 3 for accelerated performance. 

Then in the body of the email it said, "Create incredible images even faster with the world-class editing tools and intuitive controls included in Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 3 software."

Was it unreasonable to assume that LR3 would be faster, not slower than LR 2.7?

[areohbee]

You are not the only person who was disappointed in the speed due to expectations created by the marketing claim. I have suggested that Adobe "soften" the wording of that (others have suggested getting rid of it altogether). On the other hand, I'm not sure the claim isn't true for some folks, and there is just a multitude of bugs that keep it from being true across the board. Maybe it will be true for everyone by v3.7 (just before 4.0 comes out) - ha-ha.

For me, once I got around a develop-cache bug that exists in 3.2RC, 3.2RC seems about the same as 2.6 - not scientific at all, and in fact I'm not sure I remember very well how 2.6 is - I still run it occasionally for quick tests but never done a side-by-side comparison...

[Keith Reeder]

ChBr02 wrote:

Was it unreasonable to assume that LR3 would be faster, not slower than LR 2.7?

It's faster than 2.7 for me...

[areohbee]

Keith,

Would you mind elaborating which things are faster?

Is anything slower?

Thanks,

Rob

[Guest]

Keith,

I second your observations.

For me 3.0 and 3.2 RC are faster than 2.x as well. This refers to library grid view and display of images in full preview. The develop module is reasonably quick, preview rendering only slightly slower than in loupe mode, albeit sharper. Sliders are responsive enough. So far I had no issues with brushes, spot tools, gradients etc. They all are snappy, although I have never used more than 5 or so in one image. Occasionally, there is a delay when switching between library and develop (loading data), but this seems to be only when using the develop module for the first time in a Lightroom session or when you haven't used an already opened Lightroom for some time.

So in general, Lightroom works as advertised, although it is not the fastest (Bibble 5 is quicker in many respects, but does not provide the same IQ).

Kind regards

Thomas

Intel I5-750

4GB RAM

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

21,000 images in catalog

images on eSata external drive

catalog on internal hard drive

1600 x 1200 monitor, calibrated

[ChBr02]

@Thomas

Wow!  Your system doesn't look all that hot, and 3.0 is still faster than 2.7?  What attracted you to this particular forum?

You said that sliders were responsive enough.  Specifically, do sliders, adjustment brushes, etc. work faster than 2.7?  LR 2.7 sliders worked just about instantaneous for me, so I would be happy to get at least as good performance in 3.0.

[JayS_In_CT]

ChBr02 wrote:

@Thomas

Wow!  Your system doesn't look all that hot, and 3.0 is still faster than 2.7?  What attracted you to this particular forum?

You said that sliders were responsive enough.  Specifically, do sliders, adjustment brushes, etc. work faster than 2.7?  LR 2.7 sliders worked just about instantaneous for me, so I would be happy to get at least as good performance in 3.0.

One thing I notice about Thomas' system is that he is running at a lower screen resolution than where some known problems exist.  Many have noticed that making LR a smaller window enhances performance anyway, but in particular, there are some rendering issues on some systems running at 1920x1200 and above.

It is simple enough to try..  Make the LR window smaller by either resizing the entire LR application or by making the side panels larger, etc.  Anything that will shrink down the space in which the image is drawn.

Jay S.

[ChBr02]

@JayS

"...there are some rendering issues on some systems running at 1920x1200 and above."

Jay, I am only at 1680x1050 on twin 22" wide screen monitors.

BTW, I normally just shoot in the highest res jpeg available.  I just tried a "NEF".  It loaded immediately with no hesitation.  There are a ton more lens correction profiles for raw than jpg.  Now I just opened back on the NEF and it has been "Loading..." for over 10 minutes.  Does that have anything to do with all the brush corrections?  YIKES!!!

Appears that the "Loading..." is a false notice.  I can still do anything I want with the photo.  Oh... well!

[JayS_In_CT]

ChBr02 wrote:

@JayS

"...there are some rendering issues on some systems running at 1920x1200 and above."

Jay, I am only at 1680x1050 on twin 22" wide screen monitors.

BTW, I normally just shoot in the highest res jpeg available.  I just tried a "NEF".  It loaded immediately with no hesitation.  There are a ton more lens correction profiles for raw than jpg.  Now I just opened back on the NEF and it has been "Loading..." for over 10 minutes.  Does that have anything to do with all the brush corrections?  YIKES!!!

Appears that the "Loading..." is a false notice.  I can still do anything I want with the photo.  Oh... well!

There is a very large difference between RAW and JPEG processing, not the least of which is the file size.  RAW files assume no camera intervention, while Jpegs are already compressed and have whatever camera settings you've selected applied.  Most of the discussions around performance folks are talking about involve RAW processing.  RAW allows you a far far greater ability to impact the final image, everything from Tonality, Noise and Sharpening, color, etc. etc. ...

Try taking some RAW photos, import those into LR and see if you see similar or different performance to your jpeg processing.  I'm guessing it will be different than what you're currently seeing, BUT the trade off is everything it opens up to you as far as the images..

Jay S.

[Guest]

ChBr02 wrote:

@JayS

"...there are some rendering issues on some systems running at 1920x1200 and above."

Jay, I am only at 1680x1050 on twin 22" wide screen monitors.

BTW, I normally just shoot in the highest res jpeg available.  I just tried a "NEF".  It loaded immediately with no hesitation.  There are a ton more lens correction profiles for raw than jpg.  Now I just opened back on the NEF and it has been "Loading..." for over 10 minutes.  Does that have anything to do with all the brush corrections?  YIKES!!!

Appears that the "Loading..." is a false notice.  I can still do anything I want with the photo.  Oh... well!

This "Loading..." message pops up longer from time to time, most notably, after going the first time into the development module in a LR3 session or after Lightroom is running idle for a while (hours). "Loading..." can last for a maximum of 10 seconds (I guess) in my case. However, as it happens only rarely, I don't bother. To my observation, when switching to develop or loupe, the image renders quite quick, but "loading" occurs, when metadata or edit data has to be fetched.

Kind regards

Thomas

[JayS_In_CT]

All,

Well a pleasant surprise in that exporting to DNG for working in Adobe CS is about half the time as JPEG or TIFF, etc.  and it carries with it the edits.  Of course this only works if you are going to do some final editing with CS, but it is interesting that the exports go so much faster.

Now, it there anyway to open a bunch of DNG files in CS without having to go through the Open on the Adobe RAW dialog box.  I'd like to be able to run my Actions, normally set up for a folder full of JPEGs?

Again, exporting to DNG is pretty quick... even with a lot of edits including Lens Correction, 2010 Process, etc.....

Jay S.

[dorin_nicolaescu]

Now, it there anyway to open a bunch of DNG files in CS without have to go through the Open on the Adobe RAW dialog box.

I think ACR may be configured to not pop up by default, just open

files with whatever settings are there in them. Holding something

(Alt, Shift?) while opening DNGs may work too.

[JayS_In_CT]

dorin_nicolaescu wrote:

Now, it there anyway to open a bunch of DNG files in CS without have to go through the Open on the Adobe RAW dialog box.

I think ACR may be configured to not pop up by default, just open

files with whatever settings are there in them. Holding something

(Alt, Shift?) while opening DNGs may work too.

Dorin,

Thanks.  I just haven't found a "preference tab" or something like that that somehow will bypass that "open" button.  A shame as the exports to DNG are so much faster.  I look some more..

Jay S.

[Ian Lyons]

JayS In CT wrote:

dorin_nicolaescu wrote:

Now, it there anyway to open a bunch of DNG files in CS without have to go through the Open on the Adobe RAW dialog box.

I think ACR may be configured to not pop up by default, just open

files with whatever settings are there in them. Holding something

(Alt, Shift?) while opening DNGs may work too.

Dorin,

Thanks.  I just haven't found a "preference tab" or something like that that somehow will bypass that "open" button.  A shame as the exports to DNG are so much faster.  I look some more..

Jay S.

Select the images in Bridge, hold down Shift key then hit Return. The images will open directly into Photoshop. Shift+double click does the same

[JayS_In_CT]

Ian Lyons wrote:

JayS In CT wrote:

dorin_nicolaescu wrote:

Now, it there anyway to open a bunch of DNG files in CS without have to go through the Open on the Adobe RAW dialog box.

I think ACR may be configured to not pop up by default, just open

files with whatever settings are there in them. Holding something

(Alt, Shift?) while opening DNGs may work too.

Dorin,

Thanks.  I just haven't found a "preference tab" or something like that that somehow will bypass that "open" button.  A shame as the exports to DNG are so much faster.  I look some more..

Jay S.

Select the images in Bridge, hold down Shift key then hit Return. The images will open directly into Photoshop. Shift+double click does the same

Ian,

Thanks.. I'll see if I can somehow work that in.  What I was trying to do was an input/output folder automation, but with the DNG files vs. jpeg (File->Automation->Batch)..  There are some "finishing" actions I have that I will run groups of photos through for different purposes.  I just noticed that there are some "suppress open" options to click there, so I may try that.  Thanks again..

Jay S.

[Guest]

Anyone else noticing that LR is running SLOWER with 3.2 than it was in 3.0 - as much as it is hard to believe I'm now wishing I was back on 3.0, and may well do that.

Any word on when the official release of 3.2 will come out?

When I upgraded it was running slower. I wondered if part of the problem might be that I was using the same cache folder as I was using in 3.0, so I purged the cache. Now it's not rebuilding the cache and it's only letting me go 1 or 2 slides and then it's locking up. All I'm trying to do is go through images and cull and it is so incredibly slow it's painful....

[areohbee]

LydellPhoto wrote:

Anyone else noticing that LR is running SLOWER with 3.2 than it was in 3.0

When I first started using 3.2RC it wasn't using the ACR (Develop) cache properly and so rendering for develop mode was always taking the full time. Actually, I may have been having the same problem in 3.0 and just didn't know it - there were so many bugs in 3.0 for me that I stopped tracking them after a very short while. So, 3.2RC has been a net improvement in my case. If Lightroom is locking up then you have an usual problem - something is catty-whompus. Not sure what you should do other than try some of the many things already mentioned (delete prefs & previews & caches..., re-install, new catalog (if optimizing old one doesn't help), ...). Or, of course, roll back to the version that works best...

Sometimes people ask me which software is best for... and I say: "the one that runs best on your machine" - people hate that answer, but sometimes it really is the best answer. Before Lr3.2RC came out, I got so fed up with 3.0 that I entertained switching to Aperture (which would have required a machine switch as well). But, when I tried it, it was way-way-way slower (read: minutes not seconds) and just as buggy as Lr3.0 (often bringing the whole OS down with it) so it just wasn't viable. Presumably not everyone has so bad an experience with Aperture.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

PS - Dorin mentioned that 3.2RC expires end-of-September, so a new release will definitely be out before then.

Rob

[JayS_In_CT]

dorin_nicolaescu wrote:

Now, it there anyway to open a bunch of DNG files in CS without have to go through the Open on the Adobe RAW dialog box.

I think ACR may be configured to not pop up by default, just open

files with whatever settings are there in them. Holding something

(Alt, Shift?) while opening DNGs may work too.

Dorin,

Have it working.  There is a selection to bypass the Open when using the Automation dialog.  Works very well.  I'm able to take a selection of photos from LR, export to DNG (which is nice as well), run it through the actions I have and save as jpegs.  The upside is that in LR 3.2 exporting to DNG is twice as fast as jpeg or tiff (at least here) and that I get a bit more to work with in PS with the DNG file as opposed to exporting jpegs as I had been doing.  The only "downside" per se, is having to clean up the DNG files afterward.. or maybe keep those as smaller representations of the original RAW files, of course after modifications.

Jay S.

[thewhitedog]

@Jay S.: given that Photoshop still has to flatten DNG files to open them, is the batch open slower than opening a comparable group of JPEGs or TIFFs? Also, since you are not opening the files in Photoshop directly from Lightroom, copies won't be auto-saved to your Lightroom catalog, which fails to take advantage of the tight integration of Lightroom and Photoshop now available. I suggest you skip the DNG conversion altogether, select a group of (presumably RAW) images in Lightroom, Option (right-click) one of them (a thumbnail, not a preview, in either the Library or Develop module) and select Edit In Photoshop from the contextual menu. This will open all the selected images in sequence in Photoshop, skipping ACR. I prefer opening multiple images in tabs in Photoshop to avoid the clutter of Tile or Cascade view, but that's a matter of personal taste and work habits. You can then run your batch processing and save the files as you like (by the way, don't overlook the Close All option in the File menu, which will save you a lot of time when you're working with a large group of images - though it will only save to TIFF or PSD format, depending on your settings in the External Editing tab in Lightroom preferences). Not only will the edited images be added to your Lightroom catalog automatically when you save them, but you won't have all those extraneous DNG files to deal with. For some reason this procedure won't work using the Edit in... option in the Photo menu (as it won't when clicking on a preview image); from there you can only open one image at a time in an external editor. The number of images you can open simultaneously could be limited by the resources of your graphics card. You may get a warning message if you exceed that limit - though I found the images opened just fine anyway. And I notice that Photoshop CS5 can handle more images simultaneously in this process (without the warning message) than CS4 on the same machine (a quad-core 3GHz Mac Pro with OS X 10.6.4 and 8GB of RAM - tested on the same group of images). The speed hit in this scenario is the length of time it takes Photoshop to open the RAW files, which is longer than opening JPEGs or TIFFs. But if you aren't using that intermediate and unnecessary conversion procedure I doubt it will take any longer altogether. This method has the additional advantage of being simpler to use.

By the way, when opening a group of RAW files, all four of my CPU cores were engaged (as shown in MenuMeters) for each image. And I noticed only a modest difference running PS CS5 in 32 and 64 bit modes, even though in 64 bit mode I have twice the RAM allocated to Photoshop (4GB).

On a side note, if you are concerned about preserving image data when you convert them from RAW or DNG, a TIFF file will retain more than just about any JPEG because it uses a lossless method of image processing and compression. There's also the issue of bit depth. You can save a RAW, DNG, TIFF and PSD file in 16 bit color. Of these even a compressed TIFF is by far the largest. You cannot save a 16 bit image in JPEG format. In order to use JPEG you will need to convert the image mode to 8 bit RGB - losing some image detail in the process, at least theoretically (if you don't convert it to 8 bit before saving as a JPEG, it will be down-sampled by Photoshop as it is saved - without warning you). Naturally, these 8 bit files are smaller than the 16 bit TIFF and PSDs - though the 16 bit PSD is sometimes slightly smaller that the 16 bit TIFF; interestingly, the 8 bit TIFF is smaller than the 8 bit PSD. The RAW file, in my tests at least, is smaller still. And an exported DNG is the smallest of all (other than the JPEG). Thus, in any workflow, saving to JPEG should be your absolute last step.

You might, then, in a complete workflow, keep the original RAW file, save a PSD or TIFF version with your Photoshop edits in order to preserve the maximum image detail; and have a JPEG version which, even at maximum quality and minimum compression, will be your smallest file, suitable for previewing with clients, for instance. For e-mail and web use you will probably want to use greater compression to make the file even smaller and more portable.

[JayS_In_CT]

thewhitedog wrote:

@Jay S.: given that Photoshop still has to flatten DNG files to open them, is the batch open slower than opening a comparable group of JPEGs or TIFFs? Also, since you are not opening the files in Photoshop directly from Lightroom, copies won't be auto-saved to your Lightroom catalog, which fails to take advantage of the tight integration of Lightroom and Photoshop now available. I suggest you skip the DNG conversion altogether, select a group of (presumably RAW) images in Lightroom, Option (right-click) one of them (a thumbnail, not a preview, in either the Library or Develop module) and select Edit In Photoshop from the contextual menu. This will open all the selected images in sequence in Photoshop, skipping ACR. I prefer opening multiple images in tabs in Photoshop to avoid the clutter of Tile or Cascade view, but that's a matter of personal taste and work habits. You can then run your batch processing and save the files as you like (by the way, don't overlook the Close All option in the File menu, which will save you a lot of time when you're working with a large group of images - though it will only save to TIFF or PSD format, depending on your settings in the External Editing tab in Lightroom preferences). Not only will the edited images be added to your Lightroom catalog automatically when you save them, but you won't have all those extraneous DNG files to deal with. For some reason this procedure won't work using the Edit in... option in the Photo menu (as it won't when clicking on a preview image); from there you can only open one image at a time in an external editor. The number of images you can open simultaneously could be limited by the resources of your graphics card. You may get a warning message if you exceed that limit - though I found the images opened just fine anyway. And I notice that Photoshop CS5 can handle more images simultaneously in this process (without the warning message) than CS4 on the same machine (a quad-core 3GHz Mac Pro with OS X 10.6.4 and 8GB of RAM - tested on the same group of images). The speed hit in this scenario is the length of time it takes Photoshop to open the RAW files, which is longer than opening JPEGs or TIFFs. But if you aren't using that intermediate and unnecessary conversion procedure I doubt it will take any longer altogether. This method has the additional advantage of being simpler to use.

By the way, when opening a group of RAW files, all four of my CPU cores were engaged (as shown in MenuMeters) for each image. And I noticed only a modest difference running PS CS5 in 32 and 64 bit modes, even though in 64 bit mode I have twice the RAM allocated to Photoshop (4GB).

On a side note, if you are concerned about preserving image data when you convert them from RAW or DNG, a TIFF file will retain more than just about any JPEG because it uses a lossless method of image processing and compression. There's also the issue of bit depth. You can save a RAW, DNG, TIFF and PSD file in 16 bit color. Of these even a compressed TIFF is by far the largest. You cannot save a 16 bit image in JPEG format. In order to use JPEG you will need to convert the image mode to 8 bit RGB - losing some image detail in the process, at least theoretically (if you don't convert it to 8 bit before saving as a JPEG, it will be down-sampled by Photoshop as it is saved - without warning you). Naturally, these 8 bit files are smaller than the 16 bit TIFF and PSDs - though the 16 bit PSD is sometimes slightly smaller that the 16 bit TIFF; interestingly, the 8 bit TIFF is smaller than the 8 bit PSD. The RAW file, in my tests at least, is smaller still. And an exported DNG is the smallest of all (other than the JPEG). Thus, in any workflow, saving to JPEG should be your absolute last step.

You might, then, in a complete workflow, keep the original RAW file, save a PSD or TIFF version with your Photoshop edits in order to preserve the maximum image detail; and have a JPEG version which, even at maximum quality and minimum compression, will be your smallest file, suitable for previewing with clients, for instance. For e-mail and web use you will probably want to use greater compression to make the file even smaller and more portable.

Phew..  First thanks ..  Long note theWhiteDog..  🙂  Perhaps I wasn't clear (or at least clearer).  I'm talking running an action against several hundred photos at a time, which I can do with automate and selecting the action, input and output folders.  If I were to open all the images, I'd have to run the action against each one individually.  I will typically do all my edits in LR, but have some finishing actions I use before I'll post them out or burn them to disk for a client.  The issue I was trying to solve, was the slow export times out of LR 3.2 for JPEG and interestingly enough TIFF (8 or 16) which took the same amount of time to export as the JPEGs, which is what I reported to Adobe and they are looking into.

Exporting to DNG, and check the option on the automate panel to ignore the Open command request allows me to get the images out of LR faster and to a place where I can then run the final set(s) of actions I have for finishing.   Given the number of images I'm working with, selecting them and doing an Export In PS isn't practical.  I need that internediate step of getting them to JPEG or DNG so that they can be handled by the batch automation, without any internverntion from me.

Jay S.