Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.x

[BCormier]

Anyone else notice that lightroom 4 is slow? Ligtroom 3 always ran fast on my system but Lightroom 4 seemlingly lags quite a bit.

My system is:

2.10 ghz Intel Core i3 Sandy Bridge

8 GB Ram

640 GB Hard Drive

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

Message title was edited by: Brett N

[Natsukashi53]

Other "sessions" as in other applications? or are you referring to

read/write sessions?

either way, my macmini does not have a SSD and it is also experiencing the

same issue.

CPU access is not tremendous however, and it does not show in the activity

monitor as I edit. No spikes that I can find so far. I will still check to

see if I get the spikes. But currently I am not running any other

applications except LR4 on my MBA. It's strange to me that LR3 worked

perfectly fine, and LR4 doesn't. I hope an Adobe Tech is reading this

forum/thread.

[andreas603]

all- I mean no offense to any of you but I'm in the camp that has the problem and trying to hypothesis the root cause of the issue for over 2 months now is something you are certainly free to do but 1) Adobe doesn't look here; 2) Other users have yet to be able to solve it or understand root cause and 3) Lets be optimistic that Adobe is smart enough to understand all of the possible causes since they are a applcation developer and are working on it.  My net point is, I think the best course of action is to post your concern or status on the Lightroom bug/problem website which is the one that is actually monitored- not here.   I subscribe to this thread just in case there is in fact a post entitled "problem solved!!"...but after over 2 months of waiting I'm not hopefull at all.  I've already goten a refund on 4 and am back on 3.6 and am very very unhappy esp when trying to process RAW files from my new Canon 5D MIII !!!

If you really are compelled to share your HW config and hypothesis, pls do so on the forum that counts in this case so that Adobe doesn't forget us..I am certainly envious of those that don't have this problem and I congratulate you but there are MANY of us that do and I really would appreicate if you post your ongoing issues here:  thx!

  http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lr4_0_reacts_extremely_slow

[Natsukashi53]

no offense andreas. i get the feeling you're tired of getting the email

notifications from our convo on this thread. we're still going to rant, i

mean, the more that people can contribute, the more likely someone could

find a solution. giving out configs helps other users differentiate their

setups, which in turn helps find a particular commonality between them,

thus finding something that may lead to a solution. maybe turn your

notifications off for a little while, then come and check back later, so

that your mailbox isn't getting spammed with our conversations and rants.

I think that part of the reason people are ranting here is because we all

share a common issue, and it feels good to vent to someone who understands

your pain... if you were to vent to your gf/bf who doesn't know anything

about what you're talking about and can't relate, you wouldn't feel

satisfied and would be more frustrated.

In the lightroom feedback forum, this issue has been posted if i remember

correctly. I saw it there when I was looking for this thread. I don't

think that posting new threads for the same thing will speed up the Adobe

Tech's fix process...but I agree that posting our configurations there as

well may help them narrow down the issue.

That being said, I don't think it is pointless for us who have the problem

to continue to rant/vent here... It's a thread to talk about the problem,

share our experiences, and provide any additional insight that could help

resolve the issue...

[andreas603]

Natsukashi53 - as you can see I'm stil subscribed

Points taken... just as a quick point of clarification, I was not suggesting to start any new thread anywhere..thats the last thing we need...but instead to continue to 'rant' (or copy your rant from here) and double post it to a place Adobe monitors- granted if I worked there, I'd prob tune everything out at this point!

One thing that I did suggest to Adobe 3-4 times now but they haven't taken the bait yet (and I'm not smart enough to do it or I would) is to provide those willing to give feedback ( alot of us!) a format or template such that we each provide the *same* type of information about or environment/config... I can't possibly imagine Adobe being able to easily analyze root cause with everyong providing random HW config status, logs, etc... How can they (or us as a user group) try to get to the bottom of this when information is streaming in in bits and pieces from everyone.  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to more or less fill in a template (or heaven forbid allow us to provide our HW config ONCE in our profile so we dont have to repeadly do it) and for all of us to have a better basis for developing our hypothesis?  There are a lot of smart people here!

[Natsukashi53]

true. I see your point.

Sent from my iPhone

[Chris_Myers50]

Well I'll chime in and say that I've noticed 2 things. My SSD gets eaten up (went from 130gigs free to a handfull before I tracked it down) by a temp file that is created since I installed RC2 and I have actually run out of ram... that is fricken nuts because I have alot of ram!

Winders7pro

intel core i7 970 (3.2GHz times 6 cores)

24GB ram (I've been at 99% used a few times since RC2 install).

GeForce GTX 570

I've got all the settings in both CS6 and LR4RC2 maxed out to allow full usage of everthing (it is an editing machine after all!).

I sure hope they fix these leaks soon, I love most of the new updates in both products.

[KKuja]

rpavich1234 wrote:

I'm back on LR3.6 and it's LIGHTNING FAST....GREASED LIGHTNING....no comparison...not even in the same universe.

This is mostly offtopic reply, but I'll take the risk I'll anger you all.

Yesterday I booted up my old windows machine (WXP, core 2 duo around 2,4 GHz, 4Gb ram) and tested old Lightroom 2.3. Man it was fast when comparing even 3.6.

I have always thought that every new major version is a bit slower than previous. In every software, not just LR.

[Bert_Nase]

It was the same on iMac. 2.6 was fast as nothing which was slowed down with the introduction of rel. 3. It gets worst with every release. Release 4 is just a nightmare. I upgraded my memory from 8Gb to 16Gb but LR4 doesn't get impressed by doubling the ram.

[robo_detroit]

Try the manual lens correction feature.  I could have sworn I heard my laptop actually backfire.  It was almost comical watching the image spasm and distort for a good minute after I took my finger from the track pad.

[j. scriba]

I does indeed help to turn off modules.

It seems like even turning off modules that are neutral (like HSL) makes the basic sliders more responsive.

The sharpening/NR module ("details") has quite some impact.

So it might be a good idea to turn of lens correction and "details" and do the basic adjustments first, then work your way down the modules.

A somewhat unsatisfying workaround, but this program seems to need every performance boost you can get to feel responsive.

Try the manual lens correction feature. I could have sworn I heard my laptop actually backfire. It was almost comical watching the image spasm and distort for a good minute after I took my finger from the track pad.

[hinzo]

I am starting to believe it's a graphics driver issue. All the people who reported that LR4 is snappy have ATI while the others (me included) who reported slowness have Nvidia or Apple.

Not sure if it's related as well, srolling the text in the about window is so sluggish!

[j. scriba]

I haven an ATI Radeon HD 5770

Three monitors connected. Sluggish LR4, snappy LR3.

I am starting to believe it's a graphics driver issue. All the people who reported that LR4 is snappy have ATI while the others (me included) who reported slowness have Nvidia or Apple.

[shamus1585]

I have two monitors connected.  I turned off the second and the speed increase was noticable.  I hope Adobe fixes this as I like the two (Hope the new CS6 dosen't have the same issue as I REALLY use both in PS).  For now, only one monitor .  I have an NVidia card with 2 gig (rare as mose desktops are 1 gig) and the latest driver. (just checked)

[edentonkip]

Sluggish on this for me:

Chipset Model:	NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Type:	GPU
Bus:	PCI
VRAM (Total):	256 MB
Vendor:	NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID:	0x0863
Revision ID:	0x00b1
ROM Revision:	3427

[rkstarr]

Same here, LR4 very slow in some cases.  The library module was slow at first but has improved.  Now, the spot healing tool takes a LONG time to respond.  I didn't notice this with the beta and LR3 was impressively fast and responsive.

[shamus1585]

I sure hope Adobe is monitoring these comments and working on it.  I depend on LR for my photography business and will eventually need LR4 due to body upgrades for new camera raw. 

[edentonkip]

Thanks, frankc1978, for your detailed post. LR4 is unacceptably slow for me also - MacBook Pro 8gb ram 24" cinema display - but it's nice to see it's also slow for those of you in SSD land - I don't have to think about that expense for now!

I tried doing what you and hamish niven suggested - deleted the Preview file and also purged the RAW cache, but to no avail.

LR4 is not only terribly slow, but the real deal breaker was when I went to edit out a photo in PS, and LR4 said I would need Camera Raw 7 - what? There is no Camera Raw 7 that I know of. And when I opened the photo in PS anyway, LR4 had sent it the unmodified RAW file, not the one that I had worked on in LR4!

Back to LR3.6 I go. Four hours of work yesterday down the drain, along with the $79 upgrade price.

Finally - let's look at the file sizes: LR3.6 is 102.4 MB. PS CS5.1 (the mother of all apps) comes in at a whopping 410.8 MB. Did I say "whopping" - fuhgeddaboudit. Here's the new whopping - LR4 is 922.3 MB. Over twice as big as PS. I think Adobe has created a Swiss Army Knife behemoth. Time to go on a diet.

- Kip Shaw

[Guest]

Helli Kip Shaw.

I do not use PS so far, but i red on facebook. ps still uses camera raw version 5.6 (or something like that) like lr 3.6 did. of course ps will not understand the prozess 2012. adobe made a release candidate today available for adobe camera raw for ps which you can download here:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cameraraw6-7/

This will help you using LR4 with Photoshop..........but it will still be slow as hell hehe! Want 4.1 update NOW with about 800% more speed. Everything else would be useless!

Frank!

[edentonkip]

Frankc1978 -

Thanks for the Camera Raw link, but, like you said, still will be slow. And what's really weird is that LR4 says you need Camera Raw 7??? You'd think that there would be a bit more compatibility especially since LR4 now has "Photoshop" as part of its name.

Do you know if there has been any official response from Adobe - in the Forums here or anywhere else - about these reported problems?

- Kip

[Guest]

Hi Kip!

Nope sorry. As i said, i do not use PS. I just red in facebook, that now LR4 works together with PS with this download. Just found it and gave it to you, but i have not found the time to search otherwere about these issues. I hope employes of Adobe do read here with us and will soon make a statement about these performance issues.

King regards Frank!

[correspondanc]

I used LR 3 and now upgraded to LR4. I have a small laptop (I5, 6 Giga Ram, 1024 Video card,  from HP). I really do not notice any significant difference.

The cursors are still super fast. What takes time (but is was true before) is to zoom in at 100%. I use Raw file from Canon 7D. It takes me about 4 to 5 seconds to zoom 100% in the Development mode. But again, no difference with LR3. As I'm not a pro, such 4 to 5 seconds delay is not a big issue for me.

[Guest]

Corresondanc!

I was used to work in realtime. Not 1 seconde and not even 5 seconds when zooming in. Klick and zoom. 0.1 seconds. i zoomed, moved sliders and delted, exported and so one. a raw converter today should be able to give the customer a fast and speedy workflow when the customer has a high end machine at the state of the art. i am not a pro too, but i love to take photos, organize them and do some nice adjustments to them. if you do not have a fast computer and you do not need/want this performance everything is ok for you. but people like me are used to work fast and fluid and without having lags and sluggish sliders.

you say lr 3.6 was slow (5 seconds when zooming - oh my god) and lr4 is still slow. so it is clear that you can´t see andy difference. for people like me lr 3.6 was a realtime workflow and lr4 is now ......you know what hehe.

Like i said on a 7D and on a 550D the workflow for me is much better like on 5DMKII files. Nikon D800 will come with 36MP. What will that give? 2seconds delay? Hasselblad - move a slider and go drink a coffee?

Please people stop telling us that lr4 is fast like 3.6 when you had and have a slow computer. in lr 3 people were able to put some money in some nice hardware and then had a nice and fast workflow, but lr4 is not even able to be fast on high end machines and that is my real problem with this software.

King regards Frank!

[Agnus1]

Although I am disappointed that the only plug-in I can use at the moment with Lightroom 4 are my onOne Perfect Suite 6 plug-ins, I am very happy with how fast the program is. I've noticed a huge improvement from Lightroom 3.6 at least on my machine. Win7, i72600k, 64 bit, 16gb ram, amd radeon 6800 series graphic card etc. Lightroom 4 is running better than any version since the very first roll out of Lightroom, too bad they didn't get everything completely right, but it seems they've figured out the resource issues to me.

Now if I could just work out getting all of my Nik software and Topaz plugins to work without having to install a trial version of cs5 which I have absolutely NO interest in using, I'd be completely happy.

[Go_Noles]

I have a relatively new Dell XPS 8300 and I find LR4 to be as quick as LR3. The only sluggishness I've noted is the initial switch to the Develop module in a new folder. Subsequent uses of Develop in that folder are less than a second.

I'd like to post more details on my computer, but I don't have access to them at the moment.

[AndyYau]

I used LR4 Beta since it was released and found it sluggish like hell when processing G10 & 450D raw files.

And after installing LR4 release version, I found the same problem. Using sliders was always in slow motion and

it took 1-3 secs to response.

After reading this forum, I tried the so-called solution by deleting cache and preview files serveral times and nothing was chagned.

And finally I tried changing a profile of a photo from 2012 to 2010 and then back and forth. The strange thing is that when switching from 2012 to 2010,

all adjustments to the photo was lost. The result was the same as a reset. Is this normal?

Besides this, I also tried import raw files using Copy As DNG to see if DNG will work better.

After these operations, my LR4 works as fast as LR3. I do not know what was happened. I tried to touch serveral ten photos and LR4 is still fast.

And slider operation is almost instant. And all other operations is at lest 2-3 times faster than it was before.

My computer is always the same unit: Mac Pro 3GHz, 8-core, 16G Ram, System Disk: SSD, Data Disk:Raid0 x 3, OS X 10.7.3.

It seems I am dreaming but it is true. I even tried to check the screen if I am using LR3.

I do not know if LR4 will slow down again....