Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.3 or later

Report · Dec 18, 2012

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.,

_______________________________________________
Victoria - The Lightroom Queen - Author of the Lightroom Missing FAQ & Edit on the Go books.

Report · Jan 08, 2013

Version 4.3 doesn't improve for me. It's even more slower than the 4.2.... Its almost unusable to process raw files (It will takes days to process my pictures).

30 sec to build a 1:1 preview (almost 60 if I enable lens profile/correction).

Scroll at 1:1 preview very laggy

between 45-60 sec to export to jpeg (depends on the details on the picture and without doing anything, If I reduced LR to surf in taskbar its a lot slower)

so when there is 100-200 photos, it will takes me days or weeks to finish them.

Report · Jan 09, 2013

Hi Christian,

Ty this : http://photocamel.com/forum/computers-software/162752-help-lightroom-4-1-slow-performance-problems.h...

And if it doesn't work proceed to a full reinstall of your Windows OS on your PC. It worked fine for me and then it was day and night using LR.

Arno

Report · Jan 09, 2013

Trashing your LR preferences file has long been advocated as a first step in problem-solving. The slight complication with LR is that if you have any prefs files for older versions of LR - LR3, or LR2, then LR4 may/will cannabalise these old prefs files in building a new one for LR4. So either delete all prefs files in the prefs folder, or at least rename the old ones - stick 'old' in front of their name. Then run LR4 and it will create a fresh prefs file. Hopefully this may cure your problems.

Bob frost

Report · Jan 21, 2013

I started fresh when I moved from LR3 to LR4. In fact, I've never used presets, besides a few export presets that I remade when I switched to LR4. I just started using the SLR Lounge develop presets today, and every time I click one, I get a beach ball for 1-10 seconds; similar to certain develop sliders (all of them are very slow compared to 4.2, though). It's ridiculous, especially on a 2.7 GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro Retina with 16GBs of memory. I reinstalled LR4.3 over the top of the old installation, but haven't noticed any improvements. Is there anyway to downgrade back to 4.2?

Report · Jan 21, 2013

Yes, just uninstall 4.3 (and 4.2) and then reinstall 4.2. It's a good idea

to delete any LR preferences files that are present, and let 4.2 make a

clean prefs file. It's often old prefs files that cause problems.

Bob Frost

Report · Jan 21, 2013

Okay, going to try that now. Where are the prefs located in OS X, /User/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom? Those just look like my develop/export prefs.

Report · Jan 22, 2013

http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/preference-file-locations-lightroom-4.html

Bob Frost

Report · Jan 22, 2013

This was of no help at all. I got a link to Adobe support and ended up being told by an Adobe representative to download a link which was supposed to solve my problem (not being able to see the images in the library module). I had to close my internet browser in order to do so. But I lost connection with the person at Adobe and the pictures which I tried to import to Lightroom still are not visiible in the develop module. Are we talking about the same problem?

Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 05:35:29 -0700

From: forums_noreply@adobe.com

To: joenonac@hotmail.com

Subject: Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.3 or later

Re: Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.3 or later

created by bob frost in Photoshop Lightroom - View the full discussion

http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/preference-file-locations-lightroo m-4.html Bob Frost

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Report · Jan 26, 2013

I've just installed a fresh copy of WIN 8 PRO x64 on my laptop, office 2013 and LR 4.3. It takes more than a minute to launch lightroom with an empty catalog!!! 3.x version with 30 thousands of photos was super fast.

Laptop specs:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quard Q9000: 2GH x 4 cores

RAM: 4 GB

HDD: 500 GB 7200 RPM

Video: ATI Radeon 4650 (1024 RAM)

Resolution: 1600 x 900

Report · Jan 29, 2013

I've had LR4.3 installed for a few weeks now and I thought it was a bit slow. I just tried editing some wedding photos and after half an hour I realised it was unusably slow for me. All versions of LR before #4 worked brill with me (4GB RAM PC).

So I've gone back to LR3.3 for wedding photos and of course it's working like a dream. I may use LR4.3 for some landscape work, but certainly not for weddings. I need to be able to use markers like clarity and noise reduction in particular without having to wait seconds for each little adjustment to show up. Unusable!

Report · Jan 29, 2013

Still no response from Adobe?

Report · Feb 02, 2013

i am running Win 7 64 Home Premium on a new build - i53570K at 4.4ghz with 16gbRAM. LR catalog on a separate drive than the C drive, and the camera RAW Cache also on a different drive than that, and everything was running very smoothly for a couple of weeks. Merging 5-7 16MP OM-D EM-5 images to HDR via the Photomatix export, then tonemapping them in LR4 and a lot of editing OM-D RAW images - all going quite smoothly.

Something happened because LR became so unreliable, so stuttery at times, hang-ups, freezes, slider actions taking forever to show up - just general crummy performance and has been driving me nuts since I know this rig is high-end spec wise for LR4.

After going back to LR 4.2, clearing prefs, reading every thread I could find on this and trying whatever I could, it dawned on me the one thing I had changed on this system was when I was importing a bunch of photos that had a couple vids in them, LR could not import them and told me to install Quick Time. So I did. I think ever since then is when my issues started showing up. Since I never use LR to edit video or watch them anyways, I have now uninstalled QT and gone back to LR 4.3 from 4.2 and things feel snappier again. I'll play around with LR for a few hours and if it stays snappy, that will have probably been my issue with LR4 performance issues.

Report · Feb 04, 2013

well unfortunately uninstalling QuickTime and then reinstalling LR 4.3 worked snappy for about an hour. Plenty of RAM free. Nothing runs slow but LR4. I hope they fix this.

Report · Apr 25, 2013

Same here. LR 3 and below worked fine. LR 4 unusable. Don't have the time or interest to become an IT guy. Don't tell me to buy a new system when all my other programs work just fine. Will find new software to manage my photos.

Maybe Steve Jobs (re Flash) was right about Adobe and its bloatware:

LR 3: 101 MB

Photoshop CS6: 514 MB

LR 4: 1.01 GB!!

Report · Apr 25, 2013

Have you tried Lr5b? It's still a big download (mostly due to gobs of templates and video stuff...), and because it includes both 32 & 64 bit versions (duplicated everything...), but performance is somewhere between a little and a lot better (than Lr4), unless you have some wonkification...

Don't get me wrong: use whatever software works best for you, but in my opinion: Lr5 rocks! (I wouldn't use Aperture even if I was on a Mac, but you can if you want...).

Actually, let me rephrase that: I may very well use Aperture in conjunction with Lightroom, there's no rule that says you can't use both. (I mean it's probably best to pick one as the "primary hub", but features of the other can still be used. e.g. some people use Lr for raw processing, but Aperture for books or slideshow...

Anyway, please come back and let us know what new software you find, if you do, or how you feel about Lr5b, if you try it.

Rob

Report · Apr 25, 2013

LR5 for me is still more of the same only _slightly_ faster with the noise bug that I have described elsewhere. I have to do a LOT of editting and I shoot exclusively RAW.

I spend most of my time as a professional photographer in front of Lightroom. The horrible way LR4 and now LR5 reacts has really killed ot for me and I am struggling to find an alternative with as good workflow and output quality.

Its clear now that a suitable fix for this issue is not coming.

Report · Apr 25, 2013

bmphotography wrote:
Its clear now that a suitable fix for this issue is not coming.

I've always said: the best software to use is the one that runs best on your machine.

I used SageTV for a while, because I couldn't get BeyondTV to work right. Then after rebuilding my system, I couldn't get SageTV to work right, but BeyondTV was working fine - go figure, eh? (I'm using BeyondTV now - will keep you posted after next rebuild ).

Granted, there is nothing lost, except for a few episodes, when switching TV software. Truth? - I probably could have gotten BeyondTV to work on my old system, and I probably could have got SageTV to work on my new one (with enough time and effort), but: path of least resistance...

Anyway, I hope you can get Lr working optimally, and if that's still not good enough: find something better - do let us know, OK?

Rob

Report · Apr 25, 2013

It´s

there a way to return to LR 3.4 ?. I lost LR3.4 when downloaded

LR4. I

understand that LR4 has interesting and useful additions but it

doesn´t work. It has irrational glintches and steady

lost of views in Detail. So I want to go back to a program that

was reliable and useful. I always shoot RAW and really, really

need it. Please somebody help!

Alba

Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:11:09 -0700

From: forums_noreply@adobe.com

To: alba_asoler@hotmail.com

Subject: Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.3 or later

Re: Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.3 or later

created by bmphotography in Photoshop Lightroom - View the full discussion

LR5 for me is still more of the same only slightly faster with the noise bug that I have described elsewhere. I have to do a LOT of editting and I shoot exclusively RAW. I spend most of my time as a professional photographer in front of Lightroom. The horrible way LR4 and now LR5 reacts has really killed ot for me and I am struggling to find an alternative with as good workflow and output quality. Its clear now that a suitable fix for this issue is not coming.

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Report · Apr 25, 2013

I agree. Good intentions but pour results. I also want to go back to LR3. It was worked fine. See my post

Alba

Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:12:16 -0700

From: forums_noreply@adobe.com

To: alba_asoler@hotmail.com

Subject: Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.3 or later

Re: Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.3 or later

created by TPub in Photoshop Lightroom - View the full discussion

Same here. LR 3 and below worked fine. LR 4 unusable. Don't have the time or interest to become an IT guy. Don't tell me to buy a new system when all my other programs work just fine. Will find new software to manage my photos. Maybe Steve Jobs (re Flash) was right about Adobe and its bloatware: LR 3: 101 MB Photoshop CS6: 514 MB LR 4: 1.01 GB!!

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Report · Feb 07, 2013

So the slowness for my machine seems to be in the rendering of the files on the screen. I've rendered the 1 to 1 preview, but every time I click to load a new image, there is a delay. During that delay each image go through 3 states as the "loading" is on the bottom of the image. It's initial view, then it changes and gets slightly blurry (and offsets a few pixels sideways and down). And then it renders the full, ready to edit clear version).

So, is it a bottleneck in memory? Is it a bottleneck in drives? I can't figure it out. I'm running LR on an SSD, a 2nd SSD for the catalog and cache and a set of standard HHD (RAID 0) for the photos. I've tried putting the photos on different drives and there seems to be some speed up (so my next step is to move my photos drive). I've started a new cat file but that hasn't changed the speed really.

Anyway - I'm throwing it out there FWIW.

Report · Feb 09, 2013

I'm having issues with blurry images in library view. I render 1:1 previews of my Canon 60'd RAW files on import, but when I open photos in library view, some photos (not all) will appear blurry or unsharp. There is no "loading" indicator, and the photo stayed blurred until I either zoom in and back out again or collapse the side panels. This seems to force a reload of the photo.

It seems others are having similar issues, and it is an annoying problem. I shouldn't have to guess wether the photo is out of focus or Lightroom is rendering my photo incorrectly.

Specs: MacBook Pro 2010, OS X 10.8.2, Lightroom 4.3

Report · Feb 12, 2013

I'm having similar problems, and I do not like the sickening feeling when half of my photos initally seem to be out of focus. I would love to have a fix for this.

Report · Feb 20, 2013

lr 4.3 is driving me bananas. It's just so slow doing everything - even just switching modules between library and develop.

my machine is a macbook pro 13" retina 2.9 ghz i7, w/8gb ram and a 512 gb ssd (no slouch at all)

my cameras are Nikon d7000 and Sony rx100.

it seems 4.3 is noticibly slower than 4.2 was.

it's so bad that I keep hoping Aperture 4 would come out so I can compare performance and possibly switch.

Report · Feb 20, 2013

Just uninstall 4.3 and reinstall 4.2. That's what I did a month ago and I've never looked back. 4.2 is super fast on my retina MBP. I'll wait until 4.4 comes out before updating again.

Report · Feb 21, 2013

Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie - I've just upgraded from 4.2 to 4.3 on a windows 7 machine and I'm seeing some of the issues described above, running slow, photos remaining blurry when they should be sharp. I'd like to go back to 4.2 but I'm worried about what I might lose. If I uninstall 4.3 using the Windows Control Panel and then reinstall from a downloaded 4.2 file what do I lose in the Library? Do I need to save/back-up anything before I do it? Or is there a better way to go back to 4.2 than using the Windows Control Panel to uninstall?

Many thanks