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

[Charles Putnam]

What's even more disconcerting is that Adobe has its head stuck in the sand (or some other dark orifice) and refuses to say anthing about the issue, even in on the Lightroom blog.

I'm kinda surprised that Scott Kelby and company hasn't said anything publically about this.

[DavePinMinn]

Yes, 3.6 was decent - not blinding fast by any stretch, but adequate and usable. 

BUT, were you around for 3.0?  3.1?  3.2?  If so, do you remember EXACTLY this type of HUGE topic about performance?  And how long it took Adobe to START to address it? 

And, as I recall, they, in the person of a high-up manager, never made any public acknowledgement of a problem then, either...

I know some of the LR development team are photographers and use Lightroom.  I too am surprised that they were willing to turn this loose given the problems, but they may also be in the 50% plus (I suspect at least half the users) are NOT having problems.  As always, the rationale is "Well, there are a lot of people that aren't having problems, so it's something 'abnormal'."

[RikkFlohr]

Dave,

davepinminn wrote:

I know some of the LR development team are photographers and use Lightroom.  I too am surprised that they were willing to turn this loose given the problems, but they may also be in the 50% plus (I suspect at least half the users) are NOT having problems. 

I can offer a little insight here Dave, at the risk of invoking some wrath. But, I have four systems running LR 4.1:

System: 5 Year-old HP Desktop, Quad, 6 GB, No SSD, Win 7 64

System: New Desktop, 12 core, 12 GB , No SSD, Win 7 64

System: MB, Quad Core, 4 GB, No SSD, OSX10.6.8

System MB, Quad Core, 4GB no SSD, Win 7 64 via Bootcamp

In addition, I have had my hands personally on 7 other systems since 4.1 was released that are running 4.1,  Combining my 4 and 7 more that don't belong to me, I can tell you that in 11 systems, I have yet to encounter more than a nominal slowdown.  Considering my 4 as non-random because I built and maintaint them and just taking the 7 systems, if the problem were 50% or near it the odds would be 1/128 or there-abouts that I would have 7 satisfactory machines in my sample.

There will probably be a backlash of users saying, 'we don't (or are glad) care if your system works-ours doesn't) I am not saying there is not a problem. I am saying it is probably much smaller than it is made out to be. Forums gather people with issues. With one exception, no one logs in to a U-U forum to say "Wow, Lightroom's great!"

There was a concerted effort by an individual at the official forum:  http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/do_not_upgrade_to_lr4_until_speed_issues_are_r...  This poster published this link on many forums trying to garner support to demand Adobe act. In more than a month, in spite of a heavy campaign, much discussion and gnashing of teeth, only 26 people could be bothered to click a + 1 button.  Thats about a third of the amount of people wanting Linux support on the same forum. As unscientific as this is, it tells me that the actual number of systems with problems is probably small as a percentage, vocal as an aggregate but still is having real quantifialbe problems-problems which need addressing.

The first post of the link I've provided above contains (as the Official Response) an actual "official response".

Whenever someone posts an operation and an elapsed time, I try to duplicate it on my closest system. I just am not seeing the times being reported by those having issues. I would love to get my hands on one of these machines so I could test various theories.

If you are who I think you are, you are not very far away from me. Are you experiencing the massive slowdowns, Dave? I would love a look at your machine if you are.

[andreas603]

Rick with all due respect, when you say its a problem 'much smaller than it is made out to be', I disagree.  I have a brand new MBP Retina with NOTHING on it except LR4.1 and it takes EXACTLY 17 seconds to redraw a Canon 5DII RAW file when scrolling through the library in Dev mod.  Reverting back to 3.6 and Canon 5DMII, its about a second or less.  Thats enuff data for me to tell me something is drastically wrong.  You really think that many people are just making up speed numbers?  With respect to your comment about only 26 people could be bothered, then why is the original 'develop slider sluggish' thread the longest one in Adobe PS community by about a factor of 5 with several Adobe staff indicating that the problem 'is acknowledged' .  Furthermore, you have to sign up for a 'get satisfaction' account to click on that stupid link that only 26 others have...you really think everyone that has a prob has time to sign up for that?  I sure didn't. What does that number have to do with anything!?  Why on earth would so many people be so specific about their complaints, log so many hours of their own testing, etc...show me another PS problem that has had this many comments in the past 6 months.   Lastly, how would you suggest users report problems otherwise... Are you suggesting the fewer posts the more 'real' the problem is?  C'mon.

[DavePinMinn]

Hi Rikk,

Yup, it's me!

I suspect, like you, MANY users aren't having performance problems.  I presume a pretty high percentage.  But, I also suspect that every user that puts an entry in a topic in any forum or facebook or wherever indicating a performance problem is represenative of many users that aren't reporting the problem.  I don't know if they represent dozens or hundreds...

I have to confess, I've been over to Peter's topic on the feedback site, and didn't realize there even WAS a "+1".  I read the topic, and even replied, but in my ignorance I never saw the button to add me to the people seeing issues.  I'm not sure how many other people with problems are even aware of the topic in the other forum, and of those that are aware, how many are like me and didn't realize the goal was to get numbers of people with problems.  Your note will hopefully make more us aware and get more people to hit the "+1".  At the same time, I presume Adobe is capable of hitting the many topics in a variety of forums and viewing the entries from people with problems

As far as "massive" slowdowns...  I've put notes in a couple topics relating some numbers.  I'd have to go rummage around to find them, but for example, the amount of time for Develop to open and display an image (up to 30 seconds), or the amount of time for a previously rendered 1:1 preview to display (typically 4+ seconds).  My favorite was the amount of time for Book to do the initial open (almost a MINUTE, but I don't use Book so I don't know what it's doing).  Either prior to my entries, or after them, other people also indicated times for operations similar to the above in the same range. 

In general, I'd say the whole of 4.1 is a lot more sluggish then 3.6 was, and some areas are significantly slower.  There are specific problem areas other people are hitting that I'm not, but I suspect it's mostly because I don't make heavy use of heal/clone or adjustment brushes in LR.

Fortunately, I have a viable alternative for my initial post processing - I use Bridge/ACR as it performs better.  And once done there, I put the .dng files into LR, and do basic adjustment there (as needed) prior to going into Photoshop to do the real work.  So, I'm aware that it's sluggish but it doesn't shut me down as it apparently does for some people that rely on LR heavily.  So, my desktop is usable, marginally compared to 3.6.  My laptop, an i5-720 with 8GB of memory is appallingly slow, but I don't do image processing in LR there any more with LR4.  I haven't even tried measuring anything there.

I wish the LR User group hadn't canceled again.  It might have been useful to see how the attendees would respond to a solicitation from the developers in attendance about performance issues.  Although, I don't have much confidence that the vast majority of that group would admit to having problems.

[andreas603]

Spot on Dave!   How about instead of giving Rikk access to our systems, he posts some video him self showing how lighting fast his Dev Module is!?

[andreas603]

actually Adobe has 'acknowledged' 'a' problem several times...so they haven't completely ignored it..."the first step to recovery is recognizing you have a problem" ...question is they acknoweldged it now how long to fix!?

[RikkFlohr]

andreas603

You claim I say much that I didn't say. I cannot deny things I did not say.

But, I said I tested these elapsed times on reported operations. .

On my 4 month-old system it takes 1.3 seconds to scroll through Canon 5D-MKII files (Non-ACR cached) Arrow Right, wait for Loading to disapper, scroll to next. I can do 8 images every ten seconds. 

On my 3.5 year old Macbook, it takes 3.8 seconds to scroll through Canon 5dMKII files (non-ACR cashed) Arrow Right, wait for Loading to disapper, scroll to next.

I believe every time reported here and elsewhere-otherwise, why test them. Why else would I be trying to get my hand's on Dave's system? What I said was that on the varied systems I have personally tested I am not seeing anywhere close to these times.  That is why I want an errant system in my hands. It is hard to test a non-failure, and unfortunately I am blessed.

Sorry you don't like the official forum-unfortunately it is the only one we have.

Lastly, "With all due respect" carries more weight when you spell the person's name correctly.

[RikkFlohr]

Dave has personally seen me demo the Public Beta and LR 4.0 at the Twin Cities Lightroom User's group on a projection on my old Macbook. If it had taken 17 seconds to move image-to-image, I am sure he would remember.

Besides posting a video of how great my system runs would just cheese people off whose systems are not performing. It is far more useful to put into my hands a system that is failing to perform. Right?

[DavePinMinn]

Y'all, much as I hate to be a voice of rationality (and I promise I'll get back to normal shortly), Rikk isn't the guy the chew on.  He's an excellent photographer, and routinely teaches a variety of photographic classes INCLUDING Lightroom since (V2?)...  He's not a fan-boy, and I absolutely believe if he was hitting performance issues he'd be right up front telling us and Adobe.

I agree about the getSatisfaction thing - it annoyed me too, but if that's the place where Adobe is gathering statistics, mayhap everybody should make sure they go over there and add their voice and numbers to the list.  Yes, it's another place, and yes it's a bother, but the 800 pound gorilla doesn't really want to be bothered with this so I reckon we're going to have to do it Adobe's way if we want to have any hope of acknowledgement and some relief...

[RikkFlohr]

Dave how far away from Apple Valley are you?

[DavePinMinn]

I'm in Northfield, so I'm about 30 miles from Apple Valley.  Unfortunately, we're remodeling AGAIN/STILL, so things here are "chaotic"......

BUT, let me throw some thoughts at y'all...

I just got off the phone with a friend who has a machine ALMOST identical to mine.  We use the same motherboard, processor, both have 12GB of memory, and we're both using 7200 rpm disks...  Video cards are different, but both are current and adequate.....  She shoots a Canon 5D, I shoot a NIkon D300 - about the same size files.

In Library, her system walks through loupe views very quickly.  She RARELY gets a "loading" box.  Mine is not QUITE as fast - I often get a "loading" box for a fraction of a second.

In LOUPE view, at 1:1, her system STILL loads images very quickly.  She'll frequently get a "loading" box for a fraction of a second, but still very fast.  Mine is not QUITE as fast, probably a fraction slower.

When either of us hits "Develop" with an image at 1:1 in loupe view, both jump to develop subsecond.  This is NOT consistent, however.  I sometimes get a delay of 4 or more seconds when going from library to develop before the image finishes loading.

Once IN Develop at 1:1, walking through the filmstrip, her system STILL displays images almost instantly. EXCEPT, no consistently.  It would display 3 or 4 or 5 image very quickly, then she'd get the "loading" box for 2 - 4 seconds.  Finally, she got to a set of new images, and ALL of them displayed the "loading" box for 2 - 4 seconds.  Mine ALWAYS displayed the "loading" box, generally in the 2 second range, occasionally taking longer.

When I pressed the "book" button, it took approximately 4 seconds for Book to come up.  This is DRASTICALLY FASTER than the first time I did this, when it took well over 40 SECONDS for it to display.  Once done, switching between book and library or develop and book was subsecond on both systems.

Neither system shows a lag when using the sliders in the Basic module.

SO, what's DIFFERENT?  A couple things:

1.  She's using Canon RAW files.  I'm using DNG files.

2.  She does NO import presets, nor any OTHER presets or up-front processing.  I have import presets that set clarit, vibrance, sharpening values, noise reduction (based on ISO), lens corrections, and camera calibration values.  ALL my incoming files have the presets applied.

My question...  Does LR have to do a bunch of processing on my images, because of the presets when it displays them in library or develop, that it DOESN'T have to do on her images?  Is there SOMETHING inherent in DNG files that makes them slower?  I don't see how it would since this is an Adobe format, but?

And why would her system display some images VERY quickly, and others take the same 2-4 seconds to display that I see consistently?  We checked, and there did not APPEAR to be any adjustments on images that displayed slowly as opposed to images that displayed more quickly...

[areohbee]

I hate to say it Dave, but most of that sounds pretty normal.

Lib culling is fast when previews are built, otherwise not.

Dev module re-renders from scratch if image not in ram cache (aka negative cache). Properly functioning ACR cache only improves performance by a very small amount.

Lr4 does more to render for develop than Lr3 did (PV2012 + NR + CA), so it takes longer - 50% longer is normal, 100% longer is not.

Some people are having order(s) of magnitude worse performance - they should be praying for improvement in Lr4.2. You and your friend however may not see much improvement.

Rob

[Bob_Peters]

Rob Cole wrote:

Lib culling is fast when previews are built, otherwise not.

Not true on my computers.  Culling in the Develop module is always faster, even after all 1:1 previews have been created.

Lr4 does more to render for develop than Lr3 did (PV2012 + NR + CA), so it takes longer - 50% longer is normal, 100% longer is not.

How did you arrive at the figure of 50%?  I haven't run across that estimate.

My newest system:

MacBook Pro ("retina"), 2.6 GHz i7, 8GHz, RAM, 512 GB SSD

OS X 10.8 ("Mountain Lion")

[areohbee]

Bob_Peters wrote:

Rob Cole wrote:

Lib culling is fast when previews are built, otherwise not.

Not true on my computers.

In lib module, it should only take a fraction of a second to switch from image to image, if requisite preview is available. If you are seeing larger delays, then I postulate Lightroom is not performing normally on your system, in that regard. For me, it's a small fraction of a second, but I have previews on separate SSD. Even if you are running on a laptop with only one pokey drive, it should not take more than a half a second (that's my estimate - not official).

Bob_Peters wrote:

How did you arrive at the figure of 50%?  I haven't run across that estimate.

25-50% are numbers I've heard quoted by others, and is also consistent with my own experience. That should be considered a very rough estimate, not some sort of gospel. However, it should *not* take 2 or 3 times as long (or more...) to load a PV2012 image for develop in Lr4, as it did to load a PV2010 image for develop in Lr3 (and if it does, you are suffering from abnormal performance), but it *will* take substantially longer, even under the best of normal circumstances:

It should take about 50% longer to load a PV2012 image for develop in Lr4, than it would take to load an "equivalently edited" image for develop in Lr3. But also, it will normally take say 25% longer in Lr4 to load the same PV2010 image (with the same edits) for develop in Lr4, as it did in Lr3, due to additional processing even for PV2010 images (e.g. NR + CA).

Rob

[Bob_Peters]

I should be clearer, Rob.

All 1:1 previews created.

A fast 512 GB SSD.

Select a buch of images and zoom to 1:1.

What I should have written was that under those conditions it takes about twice as long to go from one image to the next in the Library module as it does in the Develop module.

My current computer is...

MacBook Pro "retina"

2.6 GHz i7, 8 GB RAM

OS X 10.8

[areohbee]

Bob_Peters wrote:

What I should have written was that under those conditions it takes about twice as long to go from one image to the next in the Library module as it does in the Develop module.

I would think it depends on what you mean by "go".

In the library module, there are multiple phases:

* Load preview from disk and display.

* Update histogram, navigator, metadata, ...

In the develop module, there are also multiple phases, only they are different:

* See if develop data already cached in ram, if so everything is very quick, if not:

* Load lib preview from disk and display.

* Do (or redo) a rough dev-mode rendering, using ACR cache, and replace lib preview with that.

* Continue to refine dev-mode rendering while simultaneously initializing the other stuff needed in dev module... (and once the latter is complete, enable sliders, whilst continuing to load refined rendering).

I would think the time required to see initial preview (assuming dev data *not* cached in ram) would be in the same ball park, since in both cases the task is the same: fetch lib preview from disk and display. The other stuff... - not sure how to finish that sentence. On my win7/64 system, switching in lib module is noticeably faster (time until initial preview display).

Do you think your Macs are performing normally, or abnormally? Or perhaps a better question: is there some need for a code change to better handle lib module culling performance on Macs? Or how about: are Macs, in general, slower at lib module culling then Windows boxes? If so, why?

Rob

[Bob_Peters]

Rob Cole wrote:

I would think it depends on what you mean by "go".

What do I mean by "go"?  You are joking.  Right?

Press the right-arrow key to traverse the selected images.

Left panel hidden in both modules.

Right panel displayed on both modules.

I don't care what is going on, actually or hypothetically.  It takes about twice as long to perform the task I described.  Period.

That's my last response to this silliness.

[areohbee]

Bob_Peters wrote:

I don't care what is going on...

Fair enough, but in case anybody else is still game, here's my attempt at a summarization:

On Bob's Macs, the time from pressing the next key until initial library preview display (when requisite preview is available), is significantly greater in library module than in develop module (even when dev-module data is *not* cached in ram). It's not clear whether the speed is the same (in lib module) when Lightroom is idle when the key is pressed, versus if it's still chomping on the metadata and navigator and histogram... when it's pressed. Two very different problems depending on which is the case.

On Rob's Windows box, just the opposite is true: library module is very quick (small fraction of second), and dev module is noticably slower (larger fraction of second).

Any other users care to report? (I can't help but wonder whether this is a normal Mac vs. Windows thing - and I can't see why there would be such a difference, or if Bob's library module is performing abnormally, or my dev module is performing abnormally, or whether we are even talking about the same thing...).

Note: the above mentioned time is expected to be faster in dev module if dev data is cached in ram. This is true for me: If it's one of the last four visited in dev module, then it's cached in ram, and the time is faster in dev module than lib module.

Or here is another possibility: maybe Bob's negative cache limit has been inadvertently set to a large value, and way more than 4 images are being cached in ram. If this were the case, I would expect Bob's ram use to continue to climb as he traverses images in the develop module. BTW, if anybody figures out how to do this, I'd like to know ("this" meaning to up the ram cache size limit - it can be set to zero (disabled) using config.lua, but is there a way to up the count???).

Rob

[Ryan Smith Photography]

I was having performance problems but I recently upgraded my system to the

latest Core i5 ivy bridge, Lightroom 4 seems very cpu intensive. Now

Lightroom 4 runs great, it's just a matter of having enough power to run

it. Not that it's ideal it requires the very latest hardware, but I think

what it does for my work is worth a little expense. I would say if you are

a working pro, just buy a new system.

[areohbee]

rsmith4321 wrote:

I was having performance problems but I recently upgraded my system to the

latest Core i5 ivy bridge...  Now Lightroom 4 runs great.

That is good news - welcome to the fold... (I have a medium-powered AMD machine and it runs Lr4 like a champ).

rsmith4321 wrote:

...it's just a matter of having enough power to run it.

Unfortunately there is more to it than that - *lots* of people with hot new systems are having abnormal performance problems (meaning still *very* slow) - due to bugs and incompatibilities...

Even so, *if* you haven't upgraded your system recently, then now may be a good time to do that - you may get lucky like rsmith4321 did. A couple years ago, I was having severe (abnormal) performance problems with Lr3 and upgraded my system - improved performance by an order of magnitude (10 times). The system was not anywhere near 10 times faster though! - Lr3 just liked it better for some reason.

Rob

[glugglug]

Even so, *if* you haven't upgraded your system recently, then now may be a good time to do that - you may get lucky like rsmith4321 did

We need to keep our sense of logic alive here. I'm agreeing with Rob's remark 'lucky'.

If LR runs slowly on your system, a faster system will run it faster. That is a statement of the ****din' obvious. However, many people have a slow system on which lightroom runs quickly enough. It follows that the likely reason it runs acceptably quickly on your new sytem is that the system in new and does not have whatever triggers the LR speed problem.

What rsmith advocates misses the point that many people have very fast up to date systems on which LR runs slowly. His solution is like trying to cure a leaky sink by running the water faster.

My copy of LR was very, very sluggish but miraculously cured itself. I was lucky, I now run LR on two machines, one in England, one in France. The English machine is 5 years old, a 3GH Core duo, the French one brand new, an i5 processor. LR runs at near enough the same speed on both of them. Go figure, as you Americans apparently say 🙂

[jippiaijee]

Something weird happened. LR4.1 works quite well now for me. I did not have the problem of sluggish sliders, but very slow rendering. This is what I wrote about it to Adobe feedback forum:

Sorry for not reading through the whole thread. I _had_ a problem with LR4.1 very slow rendering, which affected a lot when moving between Dev and Loupe/Grid. The re-rendering lasted 5-30 sec and the PC was unresponsive during it. PV2010 worked better, but I want to use PV2012.

What I did before:
- Applied development preset (sharpening, NR, lens profile, clarity) and rendered 1:1 previews during import

What I do now:
- Import without any development presets or camera default settings and render 1:1 previews
- In Grid module apply the development preset to all the imported photos
- Render standard previews for the whole folder (did not check if this task had any effect)
I'm not sure what happened (coincidence?), but now the corresponding delay of re-rendering is around 1 sec or less (less if clarity setting dropped from the preset). So the speed is now more or less the same than in LR3.6.

This may be or may be not related to the other performance issues, but now LR feels much better than before. Worth to check?

-Win7 x64
- Intel Q9550 Quad core
- 6 GB RAM
- catalog and previews on win system SSD disk, NEFs (approx. 15 000 photos) and cache on a traditional disk
- Display adapter HD6950

Regards,
Juhani

[Another_Photographer-qoO2PF]

bob frost wrote:

From: "andreas603

I knew someone would talk about DNG.  Not a practical option for many of

us

Just curious - why isn't it practical?

bob Frost

Bob Frost--is that a serious question?  You think people who are having problems with being locked in to LR are going to get completely and irreversably locked in by converted their photos to Adobe's proprietary format?  (And let's not get into a discussion about how open DNG is; the most flexible format is the one that your camera captures, period.)  DNG is a one way street that I am not prepared to go down.

Btw, the fact that they are able to update DNG coverter so that it reads new cameras just shows you that they could have done the same with LR3.  They rushed LR4 out the door unfinished just as Nikon was releasing the D4 and D800 so that they can avoid supporting those cameras in LR3.  Shameless.

[areohbee]

davepinminn wrote:

I believe the best thing that could happen to us as consumers would be a real, fanny-kicking, spectacular set of tools to compete with Adobe.

Google maybe? - I heard they recently purchased Nik Software - they must have something up their sleeve...

Picassa + Nik + $ = Lightroom killer?