Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.3 or later

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Since the original Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.x thread is now a whopping 43 pages long, and many of the original 4.0-4.2 performance issues have since been resolved, it's impossible to figure out who is still having problems, and what they can try.  I'm therefore locking that thread to new posts, and putting a link to this one. 

If you're having problems in 4.0 - 4.2, please update to 4.3.  Here are the links: Windows - Mac  You may also be interested in these Performance Hints, many of which were gathered from the long thread.

If you're still having problems with 4.3, please then go ahead and post below.  Don't forget to include details such as your system specs (OS, processor, RAM, graphics card, etc), camera model and whether you shoot raw or JPEG, and what specifically you're finding slow (and ideally some timings on how slow).  It's also useful to include notes of things you've tried to fix it.,

[danjpohl1]

The biggest change I have seen has been turning off the Detail Section until all rest of my adjustments are complete.

I have been making the Lightroom window small so I would get some responsiveness.

Turning off the Detail Section I can now do my adjustments with Lightroom full screen on a 30" monitor and get near instant screen refreshes.

With Detail section on changing white balance would take 2-3 seconds to update screen.  Detail Section off less than half a second.

This will work for me, I just hope I do not forget to sharpen when I am done!

I have a quad core Core 2 processor q9550 with 8 gigs of ram on Windows 7 64 bit.  Catalog has its own HD, Windows and Lightroom each have their own dedicated cache drives.

[D Fosse]

Someone in that other thread reported 4.3 RC solving his slowness problems - only to have them return full force with the final 4.3 release. That made me jump, because that's exactly what happened here too. Of course I have no clue why that should be. He was on Mac, I'm on Windows (Vista 64).

Then someone else reported that a full reformat seemed to fix it - until he added ColorEyes Display Pro and 16 bit LUT monitor profiles. Switching to matrix profiles cleared that up. I also use CEDP, so I looked, and sure enough, my monitor profiles were LUT based. I've now recalibrated to matrix based profiles, and everything runs much smoother. Not snap-of-the-fingers instantaneous like Photoshop, but workable. I can live with this.

Incidentally, I also have another system which has performed well all along, so I know it's possible. If monitor profiles are involved in this, it's notable that this machine has two Eizo Flexscans connected, both hardware calibrated to monitor LUT with Eizo's EasyPix. This machine runs Win 7 pro, but otherwise the two systems are very similarly configured.

[getho]

danjpohl1 wrote:

The biggest change I have seen has been turning off the Detail Section until all rest of my adjustments are complete.

I have been making the Lightroom window small so I would get some responsiveness....

I've just created a preset that has only detail, lens correction, effects, and another that has my default settings but with those 3 switched off.

Using LR4.3 full screen on a 27" monitor (2560x1440), with Detail etc switched on (DETAIL etc SWITCHED OFF)

in develop mode

switch to a new pic takes time until the full res version loads:  7-8 seconds (4 seconds)

update exposure slider 7fps (9fps?)

Rotating a simple exposure grad: 5fps (7fps?)

Manual lens correction tranform vertical: 2-3fp (5-6fps)

So theres a small speed benefit for not having detail on - it makes lens corrections usable - just.

My main issue is that I can still work much quicker than lightroom.  waiting 4 seconds to work on each pic feels like forever. I've now given up on lens corrections and have gone back to useing free transform or ptlens in photoshop.

I'm just about to process a job, I'll try it with detail off until the last step and report back

EDIT: i7 920, 12gb ram, asus p6td deluxe, nvidia gtx275

Changing workflow improved things slightly but lightroom is still the only piece of software I own (and the first for about 10 years) where I can watch the interface be drawn - like its written in java.

[jessicat500]

Now that is interesting. I've got a lot of backlog to sort today and LR4.3-final is being dog slow, but simply my rolling up the 'detail' panel it's making it a lot more responsive. Very very interesting. Not a solution, but a sticking plaster for today. Thanks.

(MacBook Pro 2.66GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, dual monitor, running 10.7.5)

[ChristianDembowski]

Now that is an interessting an helpful suggestion: For some reason the "slowest" slider (i.e. most laggy) for me is the White Balance slider. By turning off the Detail panel it becomes as responsive as it used to be. So for now my workflow will include switching off all Detail settings while adjusting the color balance.

[jessicat500]

Christian: Ta for the suggestion.

Interesting note: I have started using a brand new Macbook Air (8GB RAM, i7 2GHz CPU, 256GB SSD) for quickly running pics into Lightroom and running a tethered shoot from my 5D Mark III. A completely new catalogue, no history, nothing. It worked brilliantly for about a week then started slowing down - the catalogue has about 500 images in it, in 4 folders. Shutting the Detail panel off helped for a short time, but now it's almost unusable. So, er, I'm pretty sure it's not history related now.

Shutting off the Detail panel makes a very slight - but not life-changing - difference on my big LR4.3 catalogue on the i7 Macbook Pro with 115,720 photos in a hierarchical structure (which is also dual-screen). Worked fine on LR3 of course.

[alphakamk]

Why does it sound like a caching issue to me? Even if it is, I am not sure how to fix it. I can't believe that this program crashes on me - literally shuts down my entire system - after about 15 minutes of work. WTF, Adobe?? Fix this, please!!!

Sent from my iPod

[jessicat500]

Sorry, I was saying I don't think it's a caching issue. I was musing out-loud I suppose - I've spent the past 4 months trying to work out how to mitigate it and how best to deal with it, because going back to LR3 isn't an option for me (my workflow incorporates GPS and uses a 5D Mark III whose RAW format isn't supported on LR3).

The fact that my brand new Macbook Air with a totally fresh install and no 'cruft' has the same issues says to me that it's a program issue and nothing to do with what's in the prefs files, etc.

Interesting to note that if I connect a second screen up to the Air, the problem becomes a lot worse.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

alphakamk, if it's shutting down the whole system, it sounds like you have a hardware problem.  LR pushes the hardware more than other programs, so it finds issues that don't show up elsewhere.  I'd be thinking power supply and RAM as the first ports of call.  Any blue screen that might offer clues?

[bmphotography1]

Victoria Bampton wrote:

alphakamk, if it's shutting down the whole system, it sounds like you have a hardware problem.  LR pushes the hardware more than other programs, so it finds issues that don't show up elsewhere.  I'd be thinking power supply and RAM as the first ports of call.  Any blue screen that might offer clues?

I agree that this is a 100% system/hardware problem with alphkamk's machine. I dont agree with your diagnosis. This wouldn't be the first place I would look. Total shutdowns, i.e. power off scenarios are sometimes associated with ram errors but a BSOD is more likely or a message saying: 'the memmory at xxxxxx can not be 'read''. Its easy but tedious to check; remove all ram and re run LR with each individual stick until the shutdown happens. Im not saying a total shutdowmn wont happen, its just that its a less common manifestation of ram erros. I suspect if the user was seeing PSU issues, it would bee seen elsewhere. Yes LR is CPU intensive but its not especially video card intensive which can be very hungry when they get going. CMOS issues can also cause a shutdown.

Having a badly fitted/broken heatsink/heatsink fan will do this, first you will get thermal throttling and then if it gets totally out of order then it will shutdown. Download a copy of RealTemp and see what your temps are like at idle, report back here with your CPU type and idle temps. I would not recommend stressing your computer too much as you could end up damaging your chip.

Victoria could be right but there are a lot of things to go wrong on a computer and in my experience RAM erros often manifest differently and PSU failures can cause system wide horror stories. However, if I suspect that a PSU is failing/underpowered/dodgy, it goes immediately with no questions asked. When PSU's fail or start to fail, they can take out many system components in one go. They can also be subtle so it could have already failed and damaged the board. What PSU do you have?

My approach would be:

• Open case and clear out all dust from everything with a hoover.
• Verify temperatures at idle.
• If OK, verify temps at load.
• If problem persists, make a note of the CMOS settings, clear and reset CMOS.
• If problem persists, remove all your ram and replace one stick at a time until the the problem comes back (tedious but you got to if you want this fixed). If this is a RAM error, it is unlikely to be on all sticks. Ram errors that persist with all sticks are ususally memmory controller erros (on mainboard or CPU).
• If temps and RAM  check out OK it is either board, cpu or psu or all three. Less likely to be video card or discs. Take it to a shop to get it serviced.

Without knowing anything about your computer its hard to got further. What I do know is that this is nothing to do with lightroom.

[ChristianDembowski]

Quick update on my issues (mainly with the sluggishness of e.g. the White Balance slider): 4.4 improved things quite remarkable - as long as I don't mess around with the noise reduction sliders performance is improved and I'd say acceptable rigt now.

I'll hope things remain this way - I will hold back upgrading to 5 for as long as I can.

[danjpohl1]

Looking at the changes for Lightroom 5 and I was particularly interested in the ability to edit with smart previews.

Wonder if this may help solve some of the performance issues or at least provide a good work around.

Thinking I could take all the images from a big shoot, create the smart previews and work with them.   After sorting and touchups are done apply the changes to the original raw files.

I know now that if I make the Lightroom window smaller or work with low resolution images it is much more responsive.

Sure I would rather just have it faster with my raw but at least there is possibly a work around coming.

[Pixel Squish]

i have terrible slowness issues with LR 4.3, 4.4 and 5 Beta. My rig is very high end (i53570K, 16gb ram)

has anyone solved them with a fresh re-install of the OS? i've tried fresh preferences, uninstalling LR and reinstalling..... i'm starting to get more paid gigs, but the slowness of LR is making the time hit unreasonable. it's at least doubling my Post Processing time.

[RikkFlohr]

I would also recommend including your Camera Models

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Thanks Rikk, I've added that to the initial post.

[Colorado Joe]

I upgraded to Lightroom 4.3 this weekend and subsequently uploaded a batch of photos from my memory card. On the library screen (where the images are seen after import), all of the images turned out to be gray squares in the thumbnail grid. If I'm not mistaken, I changed the specs of the metadata so I could see where and when the photos were taken for my records but I cannot recall much of what else I did aside from upgrading from 4.2 to 4.3. I also removed Lightroom 4 and reinstalled it in the hope of getting this matter resolved. (I am not sure exactly what aspects of Lightroom should have been uninstalled and which ones should have stayed.)  The photos were taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-150 camera, whose images worked fine with the previous version of Lightroom.

I had earlier installed Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 along with Premiere Elements 11 and tried to use the former package, but that package was running a bit slow. I also tried to install some of my Nik Software packages (such as Nik Dfine and Silver Efex Pro 2), but those did not work because it was apparent that I did not have the latest upgrades.

As of today, I still cannot see the thumbnail images on the screen or when they are enlarged to full size. However, if I open an image in the edit mode, that image will come up, albeit slowly. I was able to edit a group of photos that way, but I was reluctant to move them to Photoshop Elements as I was doing before I upgraded to Lightroom 4.3.

I would appreciate your input on my problem. Thank you for your help.

[bmphotography1]

Thanks for new thread

Neither 4.3rc or 4.3 have solved my problems re noise slider lag. It is a reall issue for me:

Using the luminance and detail sliders are fine as long as neither hilight or shadow are adjusted. With either of these adjusted, the performance of the luminance slider drops to ~1 second between adjustment and render, this makes it much harder for me to find exact and satisfying balance points between noise amnd image detail.

I do not accept that it is because of the complexity of the new raw engine because looking at the thread utilization shows veruy clearly that without shadow highlight, all cores are being used for noise adjustments but the opposite is true (less cores being used with less activity on those cores) when using noise sliders if shaodw/highlight = +/- anything. More work to do seems to translate to less CPU activity.

Something in the program is clearly throttling CPU useage in this scenario. I have demonstrated it on 4 different hardware platforms and 3 different OSes. Its pretty bad that I have a hexacore 3930k, now overclocked to 4.5Ghz and it still spends most of its time twiddling its thumbs. I have also verified it with other users in other forums.

I do turn off all sharpening and noise slider until I use them at the end. I have reduced the viewing window as much as will be allowed. I have also tried on a much smaller monitor.No difference.

I posted the bug with Adobe but have no real idea if they noticed/read/cared.

Sorry to be negative but I have thrown a lot of money and even more time at trying to fix this.

[bob frost]

From: "bmphotography

Using the luminance and detail sliders are fine as long as neither hilight

or shadow are adjusted. With either of these adjusted, the performance of

the luminance slider drops to ~1 second between adjustment and render,

this makes it much harder for me to find exact and satisfying balance

points between noise amnd image detail.

For a change, I can confirm this lag after adjusting the luminance slider.

Never noticed it in practice, but it is there. Also using a 3930K.

bob Frost

[D Fosse]

Victoria Bampton wrote:

Don't forget to include details such as your system specs

Not to sound too negative, but people have been doing that since day one of 4.0, and still nothing even remotely resembling a pattern has emerged. Hardware-wise, it's just completely random. Yes, PV 2012 is CPU-intensive, but old single core laptops churn happily along while high-end octo-core workstations choke.

I have two systems, one has performed well ever since 4.0, the other one (although older) has had problems in varying degrees with the different versions. Two things that helped were updating video card driver and swithing from LUT to matrix-based monitor profiles. Still, there is something odd going on, and those two things were clearly relieving symptoms but not curing the disease.

Good machine: Core i5 750 (the only quad-core i5), Gigabyte UD3 mobo, H55 chipset, 16 GB DDR3. Win 7 pro 64-bit.

Bad machine (old, but still performing as new): Core2Duo E6750, Asus P5K, P35 chipset, 8GB DDR2. Vista business 64-bit.

Video card identical, ATI HD 5850, same driver version.

Software installed identical, the two machines are kept synchronized at all times so that I can work on either. WITH ONE EXCEPTION: calibration software. Good machine Eizo EasyPix, bad machine Color Eyes Display Pro.

---

I'll be replacing the Vista machine in a month or two, and when I do, I'll install Lightroom on a completely naked OS and test for each piece of software added. If time, I'd also like to do the same with the old machine before it's ditched, just out of curiosity.

[bob frost]

From: "twenty_one

Software installed identical, the two machines are kept synchronized at

all times so that I can work on either. WITH ONE EXCEPTION: calibration

software. Good machine Eizo EasyPix, bad machine Color Eyes Display Pro.

I seem to remember someone else with problems was using Color Eyes Display

software. Have you tried uninstalling it and just using a simple sRGB

profile as a test? Or using the Eizo software on both?

Bob Frost

[D Fosse]

bob frost wrote:

I seem to remember someone else with problems was using Color Eyes Display

software. Have you tried uninstalling it and just using a simple sRGB

profile as a test? Or using the Eizo software on both?

Yes, I read the same re ColorEyes a couple of days ago, which is what got me thinking. Up to now I haven't been all that worried since the machine is on its way out anyway.

I know I should test this ASAP, but there's always some urgent work so I keep putting it off...it'll have to be plain old sRGB because the Eizo software won't work with those monitors. I'll see what I can find out. What's certain is that LUT vs matrix made a difference.

[Bob_Peters]

twenty_one wrote:

bob frost wrote:

I seem to remember someone else with problems was using Color Eyes Display

software. Have you tried uninstalling it and just using a simple sRGB

profile as a test? Or using the Eizo software on both?

Yes, I read the same re ColorEyes a couple of days ago, which is what got me thinking. Up to now I haven't been all that worried since the machine is on its way out anyway.

I know I should test this ASAP, but there's always some urgent work so I keep putting it off...it'll have to be plain old sRGB because the Eizo software won't work with those monitors. I'll see what I can find out. What's certain is that LUT vs matrix made a difference.

I was the one who found that using a LUT profile was causing my horribly long zooming times in the Library module.  Once I changed to a matrix profile both my computers, a MacBook Pro retina running OS X 10.8.2 and the 2007 MacPro running OS X 10.7.5 were more than a factor of 2 faster when zooming.

I think the problem is due to a bug in Lightroom.

[D Fosse]

Back to ColorEyes Display Pro:

I haven't uninstalled completely, but did disable it from startup, set sRGB as default monitor profile at OS level, and rebooted. I verified in Photoshop that sRGB was indeed the active monitor profile.

No change in Lr.

But actually it's not so bad now, after switching from LUT-based to matrix-based profiles. In Library, 1:1 previews render in about a second. In Develop, switching between images likewise takes about a second until the image snaps and the sliders become active. The sliders themselves are still a bit jerky, but basically follow the cursor and the image updates accordingly.

I guess this is as good as it gets. With the LUT profiles, 4.3 was really, really slow. Still, it baffles me why the RC apparently handled that while the final didn't...

[bob frost]

twenty_one wrote:

Back to ColorEyes Display Pro:

But actually it's not so bad now, after switching from LUT-based to matrix-based profiles. In Library, 1:1 previews render in about a second. In Develop, switching between images likewise takes about a second until the image snaps and the sliders become active. The sliders themselves are still a bit jerky, but basically follow the cursor and the image updates accordingly.

I guess this is as good as it gets. With the LUT profiles, 4.3 was really, really slow. Still, it baffles me why the RC apparently handled that while the final didn't...

Strange, indeed, since my Eizo ColorNavigator software produces LUT profiles which seem to work fine. Perhaps it would be even faster if I used matrix profiles?

Bob Frost