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

[DavePinMinn]

Hi Mellissa.......

I can fault Adobe for not having someone detailed to participate in discussions in various forums, but they're CERTAINLY not unique.

IMO, the world has changed drastically in the last few years.  MANY of us now rely on forums and other Internet-based support sources FAR MORE than the traditional "manufacturer tech support".  It may be because so many manufacturers have outsourced their support, which can lead to immense frustration when trying to get a solution from someone not directly connected to the development process, often with limited knowledge and resources, and frequently unable to do much more than quote the manual or fall back on rote diagnostic processes that have already been performed.  It's also because there is SOMETIMES a huge group of knowledgeable users that can offer advice, recommendations, and solutions - YES, you may have to wade through some foolishness, repetitive noise, and get past the folks that are apparently poor at reading comprehension, but I've had FAR BETTER success getting solutions in various forums than I EVER get from manufacturer technical support.

It takes VERY few experiences like this one to ensure you don't bother with Adobe support again:

My laptop went up in flames - LITERALLY, smoke and flames.  Dead.  Clearly, I WAS NOT going to be able to "deactivate Photoshop."

Replaced the laptop in 24 hours.  Installed CS4, and of course, was told that "you can't activate because you've already got two licenses."

Called "support".  EXPLAINED CLEARLY THAT THE LAPTOP BURNED UP AND I COULDN'T DEACTIVATE.  And needed him to deactivate the software so I could reactivate.......  And was told (I'm not kidding) "Well, you should have deactivated Photoshop before installing it on the new computer."

Oh........

Unfortunately, at this point I'm homicidally frustrated, convinced I'm dealing with a complete idiot, and resort to speaking very slowly and clearly, requesting that he deactivate the software...  Again.  Eventually, after sufficient hoop jumping, it gets done, but I'm once again left with the feeling that what Adobe needs MOST is a MAJOR COMPETITOR TO FEED THEM THEIR LUNCH.

As far as I'm concerned ANY manufacturer that charges for technical support to address problems with their product is making a clear statement that they DO NOT want to hear about the problems the majority of their users are having, and do NOT want to be bothered addressing them.  It may be tolerable for a $20 product, but for a tool that sells thousands of licenses and costs hundreds or thousands of dollars, it's attrocious.

[csaager]

Which I"m guessing is why on the THIRD major version of the tool we STILL

don't have things like a

full filespec displaying on the loupe view

sequence number that increments on import and persists across sessions

and many of the OTHER things requested here.....

>

>

Oh yes, this is really missing.

After some frustrating hours:

- Optimzing the catalogs helps.

- Perspective correction to together with correction brush is unusable

(deactivating the brushes during the PC helps a lot)

- The Perspective tool has not even beta quality - performance is

horrible and ratio control is missing

Everything that had been in the beta works fine. The installation experience

of the full version was simply so horrible that I hope there is soon a Lr4

beta... The only thing I had been missing during beta the was a decent

documentation, but what F1 produces is a bad joke.

It is a real shame that such a good product is spoiled by performance

regression and sparse documentation. Adobe should fix that in their own

interest, whoever will give the trail a spin will be driven away from Lr for

good

-Carsten

[Mikkasa]

davepinminn wrote:

Which I"m guessing is why on the THIRD major version of the tool we STILL don't have things like a

full filespec displaying on the loupe view

sequence number that increments on import and persists across sessions

Amen to those two things. This revision (LR3) may have been aimed at performance and image quality but it completely sidestepped digital asset management.

Again.

LR3 is no better at DAM than version 1. For many, this was one of the main attractions of LR: not just a file management tool, it was a raw converter, and good one... but while it promised to eclipse iView, Cumulus, DxO etc in the DAM stakes, it still hasn't delivered.

In fact if you consider the removal (in LR3) of the 'info' display option on the Library toolbar, it's actually worse than v1...

So if you ARE reading, please please Adobe give us asset managers a break next time. Pretty please?

[MelissaJ.G.]

davepinminn wrote:

As far as the LR folks participating in this forum..........

If you're talking about the folks in St. Paul, the last time I spoke to several of them at a meeting, I ASKED how often they go into these forums.  The answer from the entire group was - NEVER.  When asked to elaborte (and I'm not kidding) I was told "Have you BEEN IN THERE.  The people in those forums are MEAN!".............

Oh.

Which I"m guessing is why on the THIRD major version of the tool we STILL don't have things like a

full filespec displaying on the loupe view

sequence number that increments on import and persists across sessions

and many of the OTHER things requested here.....

Hi Dave! Its me - Melissa from Minnesota. There are 3 or 4 of us (from MN even) frequenting the forums. My guess, is someone (likely me, sigh) was trying to be funny.

We have a small team, and we try to get as many user-requested features into each release, but we can't make everyone happy.

-melissa

[DavePinMinn]

Hi Melissa.

I know the response was sort of tongue-in-cheek.  What you're seeing in here (and in pretty much every other forum) is the subset of people that are frustrated, angry, and massively out-of-pocket because they bought a product to improve their productivity, and often bought OR BUILT a special-purpose system at massive expense to optimally use that product.  The other thousands of customers are out there happily doing whatever they do.......  I think there are a couple reasons:

1.  The software should have been tested using "real world" systems and the problems found.  This SOUNDS good but in reality there is so much variability in configurations you can't test every one.  A am puzzled by the Macs having problems though - with a single manufacturer, and very restrictive configurations, I would think there'd be maybe a half dozen different systems in wide use.  Those, it seems like, could have been tested and pummeled so it would be rare for a significant bug to show up there.

2.  Adobe could be up-front and make periodic statements somewhere - perhaps in HERE would be good since this is their forum - that SAYS "We are aware of problem X.  We have assigned resources to find it, reproduce it, and come up with an update that will FIX IT by <pick a reasonable date>.  That would go a long way toward quieting the frustration.  Most folks are aware software has bugs.  And that it can take time to reproduce and fix those bugs.  So if they/we are aware someone gives a damn about fixing the problems, not just extracting the periodic payments to the Adobe annuity, there'd be less frustration...

3.  Publish REAL-WORLD specifications for systems. If you want to keep putting out the "here's the absolute bare-bones it'll run on.  you won't be happy but it'll mostly run most of the time", fine, but give us specifications on the systems it's going to run OPTIMALLY on.  What are the developers and testers actually USING.  If it NEEDS an i7-920, 9GB of memory, 7200 rpm drives on at LEAST three spindles, and an nVidia <whatever the flavor of the week is> with at least 1GB of video memeory, and W7-64bit, TELL US.

So far, I've been pretty lucky with V3.  Other than the intermittent popup that "Lightroom has stopped working" at which point you have kill it and restart, and the total hang when importing an image that's already in the catalog (which the catalog appears to have lost track of and wants to import again) which requires killing LR, going to every directory where such an image exists and removing it from the catalog before importing again, I'm not finding performance too wretched.  Yes, develop operations can lag perceptibly and so on, but it's not as bad as some in here are experiencing.  And, boy, does it like memory!  LR on my system always uses at least 3GB of memory, and since I run CS5 with it, my usage rarely drops below 5.5-6GB for these two products.  It'll go up a lot more depending on what I'm doing...

[camerahans]

gee a psychologist.

I didn't buy/built a special computer. I bought a top of the line graphic workstation. May be a bit oudated now, but certainly not the minimal system. If that system runs the previous version ok, and it doesn't do that with the next version there is a problem with that new version. For the rest of your post I agree: yep do communicate real things of the real world. And do a real test. And if needed enlarge your team.

After this rant... an area certain to be looked at: NVidia driver version. I was using  190.38.  Downloaded the latest for my type (258.49) and that does improve the situation some. Not what it should be, but better than it was. And I surely would have a look at the wacom behaviour.

[TK2142]

areohbee wrote:

I'd like to point you to the online Adobe bug database which gives a complete list of all bugs identified so far so you can check status..., but there isn't one.

Unlike others, I don't think this was a pointless post at all.

I'll create a new thread , asking as to why there is no such a database and list some of the benefits it would bring.

There should be a bug database and pointing out the omission of one is not pointless, AFAIC,

[Drew789]

I've found LR3 to be brutally slow at pretty much everything.  I'm running WinXP with some pretty decent hardware.  I upgraded from LR1.4.  I thought LR1.4 was pretty snappy but find LR3 to be a major step backward in speed.  Manipulating sliders (like Recovery, for example) is painfully awkward and slow, with major lag.  Tools like red eye reduction and brushes are even worse.  This is slowing down my workflow tremendously.  I love LR, but what is going on here?!?  I'm sure hoping this is a bug that can be fixed and not a permanent issue.

[camerahans]

Same here. I am a big fan of LR, but this version is enormous slow in almost anything. Just experienced a crash because of trying to change too often to another pic while it was rendering (?). ANd thaat of pic straight out of the camera with basic processing. No local adjustments, no graduated filters. Pics look great, but the time involved isn't really billable anymore.

I am on Win XP32, prof, 3 Gb, extended physical address, Xeon 3Ghz.

I would like to know if it is just windows users or are Mac users also experiencing these slowdowns?

[J_Simono]

You gotta be kidding me.  I have been waiting for this for so long I built a new highly-specd machine in anticipation.  For my efforts I get a performance decrease from LR 3.

[Guest]

So at this point I will wait to upgrade until we know what % of Win7-64 bit users (my OS) experience these very slow processes. I, too, built a way bigger system to work on images in PS and LR. Well - the old one was way out of date, so the new build was overdue but I was looking forward to a satisfied grin at blazing speed on this app.

The memory comments are interesting: most of you don't think that memory past 4-6 GIG will do anything for LR directly. In PS it has always been described as beneficial. I have 6GIG and was wondering about going to 12.

System:

i7 920 not yet overclocked

6GIG RAM

Gigabyte motherboard with a couple of large-capacity internal SATA 6 Barracuda XT hard drives

GTS250 video card 1GIG video RAM

I use two monitors. I saw a comment in another thread that speculated that people using two monitors were seeing more slowdowns than those using one.

jonathan7007

[areohbee]

Why not just run the trial and see if you get lucky?

PS - I think 6GB is enough (I do fine with 4GB). On the other hand, if you get 12GB, you won't have to wonder whether you've got enough .

PPS - I have 2 24" 1920x1200 monitors and no problems.

win7/64

Rob

[Guest]

Rob,

Wouldn't Photoshop be happier with the higher RAM count? I will start shooting with a Canon full-frame camera now and it has a 21MP sensor - larger raw files, etc. When I last looked it was 170$ to go the extra 6GIG so I am considering it. (My system has banks of three ram slots so jumps by 3's -- 9GIG offers little benefit for about the same $$ and causes a mis-matched sets of ram modules... usually a bad idea.)

There's always something to spend on...

thanks for the idea on the trial. Good idea, too.

jonathan7007

[areohbee]

Hi Jonathon,

Ya know, RAM is one of those VooDoo subjects that separates people into two camps:

1. Those who strongly believe you can never have too much.

2. Those who believe enough is enough.

I fall in the second camp.

The good news is: your ram meter will tell you if you need more. If you're not using all you've got then you don't need more (and when I say you don't need it, I really mean that it wouldn't  do you a bit of good if you had it). If you've max'd out your ram consumption and your machine starts to chug then you do need more.

Obviously you will make up your own mind, but just watching the ram meter and when it starts maxing out, then buy more ram - has always worked for me.

PS - There is one caveat: It is true that if your software has memory leaks (and a lot of software does) the more ram you have the longer you can run before your machine slows down or crashes - this is one reason some people think more is better. Closing and re-opening the guilty apps fixes that problem.

Summary: If I were you, I'd just try it and see - trust your meter - buy more if the meter-boss says to...

And, I really think 6GB will be plenty even for that whopping full frame - but I could be wrong: I'm sure if you created enough layers in Photoshop you could max it out.

Hope you are lucky with the trial,

Rob

[Guest]

Rob,

I like the advice.

Thanks.

Jonathan

[areohbee]

Hi Jonathon,

I had to look a second, but I think I found the post to which you were referring.

I'd be curious to the know how far that 6GB gets you, or if you can't resist going for 12GB, and anyway how you fair with Lightroom 3.

Tah-tah,

Rob

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

areohbee wrote:

I had to look a second, but I think I found the post to which you were referring.

If you click on the name of the quoted person, it takes you back to the message

[areohbee]

Victoria_Bampton wrote:

If you click on the name of the quoted person, it takes you back to the message

How 'bout that? - Learn something new every day .

Rob

[fwampler]

Victoria_Bampton wrote:

areohbee wrote:

I had to look a second, but I think I found the post to which you were referring.

If you click on the name of the quoted person, it takes you back to the message

Wow. Thanks for this tid bit Victoria.

[Guest]

The rapid exchange of info among the users seems to be generating  good experimental data for Adobe. So my guess right now is that - not having upgraded - I  just keep using 2.7  for a few weeks I and others would be better off delaying the move to the newer software. I really appreciate all the hard work  everyone is doing to isolate the issues. I am amazed that the 64-bit  version is slower and that there are speed or memory leak issues that  Adobe didn't see in their run-up to the RTM (release-to-market) version.

I don't think I can wait long enough for a .1 release, though.

I am one of the Win7 64-bit users who built i7 920, 6GIG machines (thought that would hold me for the upcoming LR3) but maybe I'm going to have to over clock it just to stay up with the growth in image file size and growth in the code to handle them in LR3.

Jonathan Rawle

[areohbee]

Hi Jonathon,

If you right-click the desktop and select 'Gadgets' there's a pair of meters (CPU + Memory) you might find ideal (Vista & Win 7).

Congrats on the career change! (I'll send you a PM with some more yap)

Ciao for now,

Rob

[teho59]

I am amazed that the 64-bit  version is slower and that there are speed or memory leak issues that  Adobe didn't see in their run-up to the RTM (release-to-market) version.

I saw in a blog for Premiere Pro an Adobe developer/evangelist showing how fast Premier Pro was and how little cpu the video decoding was using. He had a 12 core computer using 30-40% cpu-load. If the LR developers work on very powerful computers too I am not surprised if they did not discover this. A lot of users became a quite upset when discovering they did not get the same speed and fluid handling running on their own computers (quad and i7) as Adobe was bragging about.

Hopefully it is just a combination of hardware/software that causes this strange sluggishness in LR3. I hope Adobe is working hard on this, else they would loose a lot of customers very fast!

- Terje

[Pascal_O]

I'm using Win7 64bits with a quad-code laptop and 4Gb of RAM. I'm using latest

NVIDIA driver directly installed from NVIDIA web site.

I have no slowness, LR3 is quite fast for every thing I ask him to do.

Are you using the lastest driver for your graphic card? It has been suggested many times

so maybe it is the way to fix this slowness...

Pascal.

[Martin_Ingle]

Hi Pascal

What camera are you using and are you processing raw files or jpeg?