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

[SavagePhoto-lItHqa]

Asus system

i7 2630Q 2.0GHz

16GB ram

2 x 750GB 7200 drives

C = OS

D = only LR Cache + Catalog + only the current Raw files

This testing catalog (and D drive) only has

9322 Raw files 7186 left to work on

(I just checked my main catalog and it has over 400,000 photos)

I have uninstalled all Adobe Products and re installed LR 4.1

built a brand new catalog

I have tried multiple video card adjustments.

I have swapped out my HD for faster bigger drives.

built 1.1 previews

not using sidecar files

created a new user and built a new catalog under that account....

Fully Defragmented.....Catalog optimized

still very sluggish even with my affinity adjustment.

What is Sluggish

I hit spot remover - it is a full 4 seconds before LR decides where to sample

Pull down a gradient (with no adjustments) it is one second before the line catches up to where I stoped (bottom of photo)

The brush adjustments follow behind the mouse until it stops following - 15 sec later it catches up and adjusts where my mouse went while it was thinking. Often this is over areas I did not want it.

None of the sliders respond real time but rather just behind.

Switching between modules is acceptable only about 7 seconds going from grid to develop with 1.1 previews already made

Processing JPG and Tif speed is not comparable for me since I do most of this while I am sleeping.

If I have the affinity set to defaults (currently using my 3 core workaround) than these times are X 1.5 longer

can anyone really say that I haven't tried everything reasonable to try or that the slowness is acceptable or that somehow this isn't an adobe issue?  I am open to suggestions as to what else to try.

[SavagePhoto-lItHqa]

I have been using a tablet. when I use a mouse LR seems faster... are the others with this problems using pens and tablets?

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

SavagePhoto wrote:

I have been using a tablet. when I use a mouse LR seems faster

Have you updated to the latest drivers?

[SavagePhoto-lItHqa]

HOLY CRAP Wacom released drivers on the 14 . I just installed those and the problem apears to be GONE!!!!

[RikkFlohr]

Excellent. Spot Removal Zippy? Graduated filter draw acceptable? Brush keeps up?

[bob frost]

From: "SavagePhoto

HOLY CRAP Wacom released drivers on the 14 . I just installed those and

the problem apears to be GONE!!!!

So it was a Wacom driver problem, not a LR problem?

Bob Frost

[andreas603]

Must I use PV2012 upon importing new Canon 5D MIII RAW images?  This cam is only compat with ACR 6.6, the newest ACR.... I dont see a workaround to save it to PV2010....?  thanks

[areohbee]

I dunno if you can have legacy PV as default, but you can apply a develop preset after importing with preferred PV.

[joerivera]

I've also been shocked by the sluggish performance of LR4. Disappointing, to say the least. However, I do have a couple of tips that helped me resolve some of the sluggish rendering while reviewing photos in Loupe mode:

1.) Be sure in Catalog Settings/File Handling you have the Standard Preview Size set high enough. This is sort of counter-intuitive (or was to me), as it seems a higher-res preview would take longer to create. However, it appears that if you render at a preview size that is smaller than your loupe view area — Lightroom re-renders the preview to scale it up on the fly. This causes a "Loading..." pause for each photo as you click through. I set mine to 2048, since my view area is in the neighborhood of 1500px.

2.) If you can live with a Medium or Low preview quality (again, in Catalog Settings), it does speed things up significantly. I'm driven crazy by the jpeg noise, so it isn't a real option except when I'm doing a first pass review.

3.) I created a development preset which only contains the Process Version and Calibration options for my camera. Setting this to be applied during import seems to trigger a Standard Preview rendering, which makes the photos available sooner.

4.) If you are going to be working on a group of images and going and back and forth between Grid/Loupe/Develop — try selecting all of them, going to Library/Previews and rendering BOTH standard previews and 1:1 previews before you start. Having them both done up front takes time, but it's better than being interrupted as you try and work.

Note: I haven't scientifically tested any of the above. Performance increases may be specific to my computer or just in my own mind.

-- Joe

[LynneHarty]

Joe,

Can you tell me how to create a preset for a specific camera? I'm not sure what you mean by it "contains the Process Version and Calibration options for my camera". Thanks.
Lynne

[DavePinMinn]

>1.) Be sure in Catalog Settings/File Handling you have the Standard Preview Size set high enough. This is sort of counter-intuitive (or was to me), as it seems a higher-res preview >would take longer to create. However, it appears that if you render at a preview size that is smaller than your loupe view area — Lightroom re-renders the preview to scale it up on >the fly. This causes a "Loading..." pause for each photo as you click through. I set mine to 2048, since my view area is in the neighborhood of 1500px.

MIne has been set to 2048 for a VERY long time since the primary monitor is 1920x1200.  I haven't tried a lower setting other than when I've done "minimal" previews to speed importing, and that DEFINITELY makes things horrendous for any operation except the library grid.

>2.) If you can live with a Medium or Low preview quality (again, in Catalog Settings), it does speed things up significantly. I'm driven crazy by the jpeg noise, so it isn't a real option >except when I'm doing a first pass review.

I"ve tried medium and it didn't speed things up a perceptible amount if any.  But, again, I"ve been using high quality for a very long time - since at LEAST early V3. 

>3.) I created a development preset which only contains the Process Version and Calibration options for my camera. Setting this to be applied during import seems to trigger a >Standard Preview rendering, which makes the photos available sooner.

I don't know if this would matter or not since I've also been using an import preset for a very long time.  It makes sure everything is at default, does the lens correction, sets a process (2012 now) and a profile (one of the standards if it's not nature, one of the landscapes if it is). 

>4.) If you are going to be working on a group of images and going and back and forth between Grid/Loupe/Develop — try selecting all of them, going to Library/Previews and >rendering BOTH standard previews and 1:1 previews before you start. Having them both done up front takes time, but it's better than being interrupted as you try and work.

Tried that with a VERY small catalog I created with a couple hundred images.  Had it render previews at import and rendered 1:1 afterward.  My abysmal times are WITH the 1:1 previews.  I now shudder to think how wretched it would be with a slower box, external drives, less memory, and just standard previews.

[bob frost]

From: "davepinminn

I don't know if this would matter or not since I've also been using an

import preset for a very long time. It makes sure everything is at

default, does the lens correction, sets a process (2012 now) and a profile

(one of the standards if it's not nature, one of the landscapes if it is).

Probably not a good idea to put lens correction in an import preset.

Although this may seem sensible, it is known to slow everything following

down. Try leaving lens correction until near last if you have lots of

develop steps.

Bob Frost

[bob frost]

From: "davepinminn

MIne has been set to 2048 for a VERY long time since the primary monitor

is 1920x1200. I haven't tried a lower setting other than when I've done

"minimal" previews to speed importing, and that DEFINITELY makes things

horrendous for any operation except the library grid.

With a 1920 screen, you are not going to need a 2048 preview are you? I

doubt if the preview will ever be more than 1680 on the screen? Try 1680. I

use 1440 on a 1600 screen, and have no slowness problems, even with a second

monitor of same size.

Bob Frost

[DavePinMinn]

Bob, have you read somewhere or seen data that doing the default lens correction at import time slows subsequent operations?  It sounds interesting and I'd like to see why it would have this effect.  I certainly didn't clobber everything in V3, so I'm wondering what was changed that in V4 it causes problems.

Now that you said it, you're probably right about preview size...  Even in loupe view in the middle of the screen, I'm guessing the size wouldn't exceed 1680, so I'll try reloading my little test catalog at 1680 and see what happens...  I can also try with the "Enable Lens Corrections" turned off to see if there's a perceptible change.

One of the things I'm noticing is that when looking through a series of images, even after walking back and forth repeatedly, it STILL has a perceptible lag.  Not like the several seconds the initial "loading" takes, but if you watch the filename in the loupe info overlay, it takes a very perceptible amount of time to update.  On occasion, if I don't wait long enough to be SURE I'm viewing the next image, I've been fooled about focus point or exposure change or whatever differed between images...  It can be disconcerting!

[bcw99]

Looking through this thread, I don't see any response from Adobe?

The speed issue also seems to be a very inconsistent problem which will make diagnosis difficult. I know this isn't helpful, but why can third party software show blistering performance importing and adjusting RAW files?

There are dozens of thread on this forum and dozens of other forums full of complaints about the responsiveness and inconsistency in LR4 so Adobe are obviously aware of the disgruntlement. The fact they don't respond simply confirms my long held view that Adobe are a very strange company. They seem to insist on doing things their way and blow the user! This is apparent in Acrobat for example which is a cumbersome dog. Flash Player seems to think we need a massive banner plastered over the first ten seconds of a video to remind us to press ESC to exit full screen mode and so on. You can tell an Adobe application a mile away. The only exception is Photoshop strangely. Maybe that's because I've been using it so long?

I've noticed that a lot of developers are now producing image processing software that rivals Photoshop in the functionality needed for pure camera image processing. These apps incorporate file management facilities as good as Lightroom, the best features from Photoshop such as adjustment layers and so on and are lightnng fast on lesser specified hardware.

Adobe hasn't risen to that challenge and will regret assuming it can be top dog forever. Look at Lotus spreadsheets, Ashton Tate dBase, Novell netware, and more recently RIM. Nothing lasts forever Adobe.

[bob frost]

From: "bcw99

Looking through this thread, I don't see any response from Adobe?

That is because this is a User-to-User forum, where users help each other.

If you want to report bugs, problems, or make feature requests, you should

either use Adobe's Help lines, or use the other Adobe Forum where Adobe does

participate -

<http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/products/photoshop_family_photoshop_lightroom?sort=recently_created&style=topics>

Bob Frost

[areohbee]

Reminder: if changing preview size makes more than a little difference in performance, it's due to a bug.

Last time I was doing performance testing based on preview size (not Lr4, Lr3 I think) I noticed some *very* strange phenomenon, which neither Adobe nor any users were able to explain (observed by some other users, but not observed by all users):

e.g. 1680 preview rendering size was *larger* than the 2048 size...

(I never noticed any difference in performance, so I kinda forgot about it)

Moral of the story: never assume Lightroom is working properly .

PS - Rendering 1:1 previews renders standard previews too - no need to do both.

Cheers,

Rob

[DavePinMinn]

Actually, if I recall correctly, there are some of Adobe's Lightroom people that do participate here on a purely volunteer basis.  Unfortunately, given the performance issues that come up with every major release, they may have decided their time would be better spent elsewhere - hopefully figuring out how to speed things up...  But, I believe there are some around.  Of course, they may not be able to hop in here and tell us much...

I recreated my little test catalog.  It contains 146, NIkon D300, 12 megapixel images in .dng format.  I turned off the import preset.  I turned off everything as far as I know.  Imported and then did a 1:1 rendering.  My preview size is now set to 1680 with high quality.

I then recreated it WITH the import preset and jumped back and forth...

As near as I can tell, and this is PURELY anecdotal, NOT doing the lens correction didn't make any difference to how fast images display in loupe.  Nor did it change how fast they display in 1:1.  Nor did it improve performance in Develop, which is where the worst display speed is.  Not DOING anything, just moving from one image to the next. 

I'll have to go back to the "real" catalog to see how much improvement there is from going to 1680 instead of 2048 for previews, but it doesn't APPEAR to be much if any......

I could be more certain if I had a way to have something automatically open say 10 images in loupe, then go to develop and walk through 10 images to see how long that took, but I don't know of a way to do that in Lightroom.  So, I'm going with what it looks like when I manually hit the arrow to move from image to image and just watch the clock.  Not very precise.  What I CAN say with some confidence is that it's slower than V3.

Anyhow, it is what it is.  bwc99, yes, there are number of threads in a number of forums.  I've waded through some of them looking for a magic bullet, but so far I haven't found it.  I don't think Adobe's strange, I just think they're responding the way any company that has a virtual monopoly does. 

[areohbee]

Note: the size of the standard preview makes no difference whatsoever if you have 1:1 previews built. It only matters if you DON'T. (assuming Lightroom is functioning normally, which it may not be)

Why?

When Lightroom renders 1:1 previews it actually renders 7 different versions in one fell swoop (or 6 if image smaller to begin with...), plus ACR cache info for develop (alias fast-load data if you use DNG):

1. 1:1
2. dimensions half of 1:1
3. dimensions half of 2
4. dimensions half of 3
5. dimensions half of 4
6. dimensions half of 5
7. thumb: dimensions half of 6.

This is what's known as the preview pyramid, or stack.

If you render standard previews only, and not 1:1, it skips:

• Largest (1:1) rendering
• ACR cache info.

I always keep 1:1 previews rendered at top quality (I would use medium, except I also use PreviewExporter for quick yet high quality exports), and ignore standard preview settings.

Rob

[DavePinMinn]

So, if I do 1:1 previews, nothing else matters.  That takes care of everything...

Interesting... 

BTW:  UNTIL V4, I NEVER RENDERED 1:1 PREVIEWS...  Literally, NEVER.  And it was STILL at LEAST as fast (and in truth I believe develop was FASTER) on the old version than V4 is WITH 1:1 previews...

[areohbee]

Lr4 is not running well on your system.

Lib module sequencing is lightning fast for me, if requisite previews are available.

Dev mode is slower, because of additional processing (NR, CA, PV2012), but lib module: like greased lightning in Lr4.

R

[DavePinMinn]

That's good to know Rob... 

When you walk through images in the library module, how fast does the loupe info update?  'Cause on mine, the previews aren't instantaneous, but the loupe info text is definitely BEHIND the image update.

[areohbee]

davepinminn wrote:

When you walk through images in the library module, how fast does the loupe info update?  'Cause on mine, the previews aren't instantaneous...

The delay when stepping from one image to the next in fit-view is barely noticeable, so I would estimate less than a tenth of a second for fit-view image display. A bit longer, say 1/8 second, for 1:1 image view.

Lr also updates histogram, metadata, ... - those things take some time to fill in (way less than a second, but still noticeable lag) - but they don't hold up image viewing.

PS - I don't use the Lr 'Info' display proper (accessed via the 'i' key, because I don't like how it overlaps the image), but having just tried it, it definitely lags - filled in after the image, like the metadata display... - fraction of a second, but noticeable lag... - maybe 1/5 to 1/4 second.

win7/64 medium-powered system (4-core AMD, 3.4GHz, 8GB ram, mainboard graphics driving 2 1920x1200 displays): I do have catalog and previews on SSD, but I don't use dual monitor mode of Lr, nor full-screen mode. Main view and right panel on right monitor, oversized left panel on left monitor, filmstrip open most of the time.

How about you?

R

[bob frost]

From: "davepinminn

When you walk through images in the library module, how fast does the

loupe info update? 'Cause on mine, the previews aren't instantaneous, but

the loupe info text is definitely BEHIND the image update.

Presumably that is simply due to retrieval time from wherever you store your

previews and catalog. I assume the image info has to be got from the

catalog, after the correct preview has been selected from the previews

folder. Putting your catalog and previews on a SSD will speed retrieval up.

Bob Frost

[rpavich1234]

Putting your catalog and previews on a SSD will speed retrieval up.

I'm sorry but I've been following this thread and the whole discussion is just comical.

The ever-growing list of things to do to make LR4 even in the same performance neighborhood of LR3 is staggering.

Imagine buying a new car and have it perform worse by such a large margin than last years model that you currently drive that you have to change almost every bit of that car (motor, suspension, tires, fuel system etc...) all in an effort to get it to even perform CLOSE to what last years model did.

It's just lunacy...

I'm not downing those who are trying to help the poor souls make LR4 work...they are just trying to help...I'm just commenting on the insane lengths one has to go to get a piece of software to run as well as a previous version...there is definitely something wrong in Adobe-land.

I'd LOVE to drive this year's model but I can't afford to have my car stall out everytime I put my foot on the gas...I have places to go.