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

[bob frost]

From: "davepinminn

Does the book module take a long time for the initial load for other PC

users?

2-3 seconds for my fast desktop PC (SandyBridgeE i7 3930, with SSDs) -

slightly quicker than going into Develop for the first time. After the first

time, both are near instantaneous.

Bob Frost

[areohbee]

Sacha_'s script is Windows-only.

Note: I start Lightroom at below-normal priority, so multiple simultaneous exports don't influence video watching etc, and it does not affect Lr performance.

I recommend checking whether it's the priority or the affinity that is helping the most.

If it's the former, then perhaps some other app or service is competing for CPU, if it's the latter, then you've been bit by a bug  that's keeping Lr from using all cores as it should - dunno what the origin of such a bug would be...

Rob

[SistersCountry]

After weeks of absolutely nasty performance with LR4.1 I today tried the trick someone posted here a while ago. I started LR via a batch file:

start "lightroom" /high /affinity 15 "c:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.1\lightroom.exe"

This actually slowed my LR4 down by half on an i7 with 16Gigs.

[Sacha_]

This actually slowed my LR4 down by half on an i7 with 16Gigs.

Strange! I'm running Win 7 btw.

[bob frost]

From: "rpavich1234

Sorry but that answer is also comical............................. that's

also comical.

It is 'funny' that some computers have problems with LR 4.1, and that others

don't, but not in the sense that you mean.

Some people are just waking up to the fact that processing D800 files (40MB

compressed) takes a lot longer than processing D700 files (20MB compressed),

and even longer than processing D100 files (10MB compressed), and that's

without the extra processing that 2012 does. They take longer in 2010 as

well.

The latest cameras have faster processors in them to cope with this, they

use faster cards to store the images on, and ............................

need faster computers to process them. It's just logic, not 'lunacy'.

Sorry that nothing seems to solve your problems. It's 'funny'.

Bob frost

[rpavich1234]

It is 'funny' that some computers have problems with LR 4.1, and that others

don't, but not in the sense that you mean. 

Some people are just waking up to the fact that processing D800 files (40MB

compressed) takes a lot longer than processing D700 files (20MB compressed),

and even longer than processing D100 files (10MB compressed), and that's

without the extra processing that 2012 does. They take longer in 2010 as

well.

And some aren't.

This would be a good point if LR3 wasn't so lightning fast processing big files.

What LR3 does in milliseconds....LR4 (on my machine and others) is so slow as to be unusable....20 seconds or more. I'm not speaking of barely noticable issues.

The latest cameras have faster processors in them to cope with this, they use faster cards to store the images on, and  ............................

need faster computers to process them. It's just logic, not 'lunacy'.

Again...that would hold water if LR3 was choking but LR3 works great...so fast on the SAME FILES that I have to look twice to see if it actually processed!

PS: It's not just a "faster computer" issue and you know it. There are people posting these same issues who are using HUGE machines...it's across the board, not just on the slow / old machines.

Sorry that nothing seems to solve your problems. It's 'funny'.

That's not what I said was funny. You seem to have tunnel vision. I said that the amazing lengths some users have to go to to TRY and get usable performance is what's comical.

Like I said in another post; I've been right where you are now...rabidly defending a buggy software release because I wasn't experiencing the worst of the problems reported...and all of the usual responses were given (just like on this thread about how it's only a "small portion" of folks having the problems and how it's probably their "crappy machine")  been there...done that.

It turned out to be the software...

[fliplip1]

I agree, all these tips shouldn't be needed, and wont get LR4 working as it should.The fact that many peoepl dont have this issue, and have not made any major chages to how they work show this.

There is obviously a problem with the program for some, all this talk of SSD's, 1:1 previews etc are just common sence tweaks, nowhere near fixes.

None of the PC's i have access to have SSD's, more than 8GM ram, nothing over i5's yet all work fine. None have 1:1 previews on import turned on, and all use Len correction on import.

Im sure all could run a tiny bit faster by Turing previews on and LC off but we find here at work that the time it takes to render the 1:1 previews could be spent actually working on the images, and sometimes LC can be forgotten to be enabled so we have it as default.

Im not putting anyone down for tying to figure out what the problem is but i think taking a look at the machines that do run LR4 fine will show that the suggestions in here are not the ones that will fix this.

Still, keep up the good work, its an interesting read.

[Keith Reeder]

fliplip1 wrote:

There is obviously a problem with the program for some

By definition, this must mean that the problem lies with the local environment on which the software is installed.

[rpavich1234]

By definition, this must mean that the problem lies with the local environment on which the software is installed.

Nope...not at all. It just means that there is a bug somewhere that's not readily apparent and simple to squash.

[fliplip1]

Well, i dont want to annoy the others but thats my thinking.

It shouldn't be this way so i feel the blame lays at Adobes door, but i dont think anything in LR can be changed by the user to fix the issues. Its not goin got be that easy.

As ive said before, i changed my hardware but not my HDD, so other than new drivers everything was the same, and this fixed my issues instantly.

I also have PC's at work that have with been through the LR3 - LR4 upgrade (inc catalogue) or fresh installs and none have had any issues. All i5's or lower, no SSD's etc.

[CSS_Simon]

Keith_Reeder wrote:

fliplip1 wrote:

There is obviously a problem with the program for some

By definition, this must mean that the problem lies with the local environment on which the software is installed.

Or, perhaps, some camera's raw files are problematic, as Victoria suggested above?

Whatever, I'm another of those that doesn't experience performance problems.  I have a two-year-old i7-930, and don't get anything like the delays some people are talking about.  I have a (slow-ish) SSD for the ACR cache, but the LR catalogue (58,000 images) and previews are on a normal hard drive.  It's weird!  I'm not doubting the posts here, but it's as though we not talking about the same software. 

[rpavich1234]

I'm not doubting the posts here, but it's as though we not talking about the same software.

Yes...exactly...

[A_C_G]

"Or, perhaps, some camera's raw files are problematic, as Victoria suggested above?"

I have only been using LR4.1 on Panasonic GH2 files and it has settled down to a useable system with no screen flashes.

On Monday I imported five Panasonic G3 files from a friend's new camera.

When I started to work on them the white rectangles I used to get on the screen started again. I had not seen them for weeks on my GH2 only catalogue.

It would be great if one of the posters around here who tell us that LR4 runs without a glitch tried loading some RAWs from another camera and told us if there was any difference.

Tony

[fliplip1]

Im happy to try any files from camera's other than Canon's 30/40/60D and S90/95, as these are what im using.

.

I know my posts aren't helping anyone but one other thing just sprung to mind is when i was having loads of grief with LR4 i was having much better luck with the current ACR version ( i think it was v7.0RC1 or something like that, both LR and ACR had the same features).

I had PSCS6 loaded and while that took a bit longer than CS5 to open to a useable state, the sliders in ACR were pretty fluid.

The PC at the time was a 4GB dual core AMD+ so pretty old.

Come to think of it, when i was having issues it was the program starting up as well as being used that was very slow, and as i also process JPGs form my GF's Fuji finepix camera it wasnt always used for large raw files

[bob frost]

From: "A C G

It would be great if one of the posters around here who tell us that LR4

runs without a glitch tried loading some RAWs from another camera and told

us if there was any difference.

Well, I have nefs from my old D100, D70, D200, D300, D2x, D3, D700, D90,

D60, D40, and current D7000, D800, and V1, and jpgs from a P7000, P5000,

P5400, Canon S50, and S60 in my catalog. No problems, but most are Nikon

files. Some had previously been edited in Nikon Capture and Nikon Capture NX

before LR was invented.

Which just made me think - I wonder if some people have been editing their

raw files in other raw processors and LR doesn't like those edits? Just an

idea! I do keywording in PhotoMechanic but I always open them in Nikon

ViewNX afterwards to make sure that PM hasn't done anything that corrupts

them. I did once corrupt some nefs with an editor, but that was my fault and

not the programs.

Bob Frost

[A_C_G]

Ah well, Bob.

That straw was not worth clutching at for long.

Tony

[DavePinMinn]

Actually, thinking about ACR, you've got an interesting point...  Because of things that are much easier for me to do in Bridge than LR, my initial processing is usually done there.  And when in Bridge, I can open a hundred images in ACR, and walk through them quite quickly.  In fact, I just opened a quick chunk of 90 images, some jpeg, some .nef, some .dng and shoved them into ACR.  Then I took the whole bunch and told them display at 100% and started walking through them.....

It was perceptibly quicker to load any of them than I'm able to do in develop in LR4.  Even at 100% it was finishing loading a .dng or .nef in less than a second and was ready for me to shove the sliders around....

BUT, I presume this is all because Bridge caches everything up front, and in ACR I presume when I grab all the images and tell them to display at 100% it's doing SOMETHING so they're "ready"?  In either case, yes, for ME, ACR doesn't show the same lag I get in LR.  I reckon I"d best go back to doing all my initial examination, evaluation, renaming, keywording, and all that in Bridge, which I only stopped doing 'cause everyone kept telling me I should import directly into LR and do it all there...

[A_C_G]

Dave,

Does that mean you are saying that when you open a RAW in ACR it opens almost immediately - but when it is in Develop mode in LR the 'loading' which I assume is done by ACR it takes several seconds?

Maybe this is a clue for speeding the Develop loading part.

Tony

[fliplip1]

Tony.

At that time anything i did in LR4 (any any version, i went through them all) would take between 5 sec and 20 secs. Moving between modules, moving sliders, zooming in etc. Almost anything would cause LR to become unresponsive until it had doen waht it was doing. I also couldnt export a JPG and use LR at the same time.

If i was to open PSCS6 and go to file/open, and select a raw file ACR would open and i could move freely around the tabs/sliders etc, zoom in and out , with hardly any lag. Certainly as fast as LR3.6 was. Of course this was only with one file at a time.

I dont use Bridge, at all, so not sure if that would have done the same.

Victoria, no, never used PhotoMechanic.

[DavePinMinn]

Victoria, no Photo Mechanic here.  Just Bridge and LR.

I went to some source images, and loaded 237, D300, .nef files into Bridge.  Then opened them all in ACR.  Walked through them and it was not instantaneous, but it was subsecond to fully load each image.  I then took all of them and changed them to 100%.  I was SLIGHTLY longer to display, although that could also be because I think it SHOULD take slightly longer.  In either case, it's far faster than loading in develop in LR.  Sliders are immediate.  Spot healing is not instantaneous, but again, it's subsecond.  It's certainly usable.  Adjustment brush IS immediate.  As I move it, it makes the changes.  I don't see any lag...

Did the same thing with the 150 .dng files created from the .nef files (the rest got tossed during the initial exam).  Again, loaded them into Bridge, which did the rendering and whatever, VERY quickly.  Then loaded them into ACR.  Again, moving from image to image was fast, although I think it MAY have bene slightly slower than the .nef files were.  Is this reasonable, and if so, how come?  I then change them all to 100% and again walked around.  Again, changing images SEEMED slightly slower than the .nef files.  Sliders were immediate, spot healing was quite fast, and adjustment brush was very fast.

In GENERAL, it seems to me (purely anecdotally) that ACR is quite a bit more responsive than LR4.1.  But again, as Victoria said, LR may be doing a bunch of stuff ACR isn't when you're in the develop module...  In any case, I'd SAY, ACR in CS6 is about as fast as it was in CS5.  I don't think it's FASTER, but I don't think it's a lot SLOWER. 

BTW:  I just checked my LR preferences and catalog preferences to try to make sure I haven't done something stupid - like pointing things to the C drive or whatever.  I don't SEE anything that's obviously wrong...  I have the cache set at 30GB, and could go larger if that would improve things.  I also have the video cache set to limit video cache and set at 10GB (I haven't seen this setting before, so I presume this is a V4 thing?)

[areohbee]

If Lr is a lot slower than ACR, then you're being bit by Lr bugs. As Victoria said, a little slower is normal, since Lr does a little more...

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

davepinminn wrote:

ACR doesn't show the same lag I get in LR.

LR's also having to render extra bits - thumbnails, its own previews, secondary monitors, little preview in the Navigator, etc.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

bob frost wrote:

I do keywording in PhotoMechanic

Oh oh oh!  Any of the rest of you using PM?  One of the slow 5DMk3s I mentioned earlier, I know the photographer uses PM before sending the files.  And he also said his date modified changes on the raw files when he uses PM.  It's a real long shot, but....

[bob frost]

From: "Victoria Bampton

Oh oh oh! Any of the rest of you using PM? One of the slow 5DMk3s I

mentioned earlier, I know the photographer uses PM before sending the

files. And he also said his date modified changes on the raw files when

he uses PM. It's a real long shot, but....

But my computer isn't slow! I use Photomechanic mainly because it stores my

keywords in the nefs, not just in the catalog as LR does. So if and when the

day comes that I have to use another program instead of LR, I won't have to

re-keyword everything. It stores the keywords in the nef files same as Nikon

CaptureNX does. No problem. PhotoMechanic is also easier to use, imo, with

its structured keywords panel on one monitor and the grid of images on the

other, doing this is much easier than with LR.

Using PhotoMechanic or Exiftool to add keywords or GPS location data (from

LR) to my nefs doesn't change the exif dates in the nefs. Lots of people

seem to use PhotoMechanic without problems in LR. I was thinking though that

there might be other editing programs, less widely used, that could upset

LR.

Bob Frost

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

bob frost wrote:

But my computer isn't slow!

Doh!  I was hoping we'd found a link.  Ok, back to the drawing board.