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

[A_C_G]

I'm following two threads. This one and the one here:-

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

Someone today has suggested talking to the Press. Do you think the Press care? Two hundred people with huge computers can't get a bit of specialist software to work. Boring....let's write about a celebrity scandal.

When I started in digital about eleven years ago I was introduced to several pieces of software. One was Picture Window Pro and the other Qimage. Both still exist in much modified forms and both run support sites where the original writers, Jonathan Sachs and Mike Chaney, leap in as soon as soon as one (not waiting for 168) users have a problem. Picture Window Pro is still better than Photoshop and Qimage is ahead of the game when it comes to printing.

My RAW progress has been less successful. I think I started with something called Camera Roar - or was it RAW? Then something else I have forgotten about and then Dribble (or was it Bibble). Bibble was lovely when Eric and the others were around - and then fewer seemed to be in the team and the upgrades became more sporadic. I jumped ship to Lightroom just at the time Bibble announced they were part of Corel. Before I retired I was a publisher and in my final few years we junked all the Corel software as being outmoded - so god help Bibble.

Adobe used to be ahead of the game. We are now watching its demise.

Both the fora I am watching are being hosted by Adobe. Anyone with an iota of Public Relations would be in here like a shot saying "Do not worry folk. We are know there are problems and we are working 24/7 to solve them"

Not a dicky bird - as we say in England.

So the client base will walk with its feet. Someone has just mentioned Photo Mechanic. I'd never heard of it until people started getting ratty about Lightroom.

We will never change their mindset as Canute never stopped the waves. I read that Steve Jobs was never happy with anything any of his designers showed him. Merely out of principle. And look at the cash mountain that business is sitting on. Is there a Steve Jobs anywhere in Adobe? Or is planning the next lunch or holiday a tad more important.

Folk. We are watching the end of a software company........

Bye,

From two gigs Tony. (sorry a hardware spec - foregive me Andreas!)

[Guest]

Hi!

I too have experienced a slowdown on LR4. It has picked up since I stopped writing XMP data after each change. But it is still slower but usable for me anyway. The big issues for me are the LR3-LR4 catalog issues and the Print Module nonsense with templates and printer profiles. The only way I've been able to change print templates is to select the new template, quite LR and open LR and it will open in the new template. For the catalog issues, I created a new empty LR4 catalog and imported my LR3 in order to see the images in the sub folders in the parent folders. But I did get the error message "Unable to convert this catalog" or something like it at the end. However it seems to be working.

But I haven't thrown out LR3 yet either.

I know this is frustrating to a lot of folks, myself included, but Adobe is a big company with many staff that are in the programming support. With all of the different systems the product runs on and uses we put it through, it's not surprising to me that it is taking a bit of time to duplicate all of the issues, identify the errant code, create and test a possible solution and get it out there. (That's my only defense of Adobe as I've worked at very large companies like Adobe before and it does take time.)

Photo Mechanic by Camerabits is a great tool for what it is designed to do. I use it regularly to rate, add keywords, and all sorts of metadata and rename files on the import from the card. It uses variable so I can move the original file name to another IPTC variable location while simultaneously renaming and making duplicates of the original file during the import process. I use this exclusively to move and document files from my cards to the PC's. It is a much smaller company than Adobe and Kirk in the support area is very responsive and easy to work with. I recommend PM anytime I can. Give it a try. It doesn't edit files or act as a DAM but it is great for captioning, keywording, and sending to different agencies as it was originally designed for the photojournalist community.

Take care and be a bit patient, Adobe will fix the problems in LR4, just not overnight.

Tony...

[quenton8]

There seems to be some strange attitude here that if "I" am having problem then the whole thing is a disaster.

Obviously from the number of people with performance issues, something changed.

However, many (probably a majority given the small number of individuals complaining) do NOT have a performance problem,

so its not like adobe said "well its very very slow but lets release on the poor slobs anyway".

Like many others, I have no problems at all, if anything its faster than LR3.6, so there has to be some

combination of things LR4 is doing with certain hardware or other software items -- I would be surprised

if the LR team does not have a handle on it at this point, but maybe not a solution yet.

This is actually not an uncommon thing to run into with S/W, and the big mistake I think the LR team made

was not releasing a fully functioning BETA or RC for testing -- I bet they don't do THAT again.

I note in another thread a similar issue that our company ran into -- we had one client who had VERY slow

response (seconds up to a minute instead of fraction of a second) on most of their PC's.  We did not and no

other clients did.  Turns out all their PC's were purchased at the same time and had slow clock issues

and the clock update S/W installed would back up the clock a few seconds a every minute or so causing

very long delays in a timer module.

This kind of thing is very difficult to diagnose!  So I have sympothy with the team -- other than not having

released an RC.

[Blind Monk]

The important thing here is that I think everyone would feel better and be more likely to have compassion if these concerns were getting acknowledged in a respectful way.

Many of us have spent thousands of dollars helping to support, develop, and build Adobe by purchasing their products over the years -some of us for well over two decades. It is very fair to say that Adobe's being passive in this (and other threads about the launch of LR4 and it's shortcomings) is not quite as savory as saying something like, "We appreciate you and we recognize that we have some issues to take care of -we'll keep you posted. We're working tirelessly... Love, Adobe."

Accountability speaks volumes about character.

[Lee_Jay]

Blind Monk wrote:

The important thing here is that I think everyone would feel better and be more likely to have compassion if these concerns were getting acknowledged in a respectful way.

I guarantee you that the team is reading these threads and working the issues.  Additionally, they've said so themselves here and in the feedback forum.  But comments quickly get buried in long threads.

[shamus1585]

I'm sure they are working hard on mulitple concerns raised on these forums.  Looking forward to see what 4.1 improves.  Hope its soon.

[Jasonized-nfnCsn]

This is why I said I was giving up on LR4.0...  and looking forward to 4.1, or probably 4.3.   With the experience I had with 3.x, the first few dot releases were useless as well.  I am not one who said he'd return the product, I'll just wait until there is actually a useable one.

At least I learned from the 2.x to 3.x move;  back everything up first, so I can go back.  Last time I couldn't do it, this time I could (and have done so).   So 3.6 is working well, I'll just have to wait until they work 4.x enough to find and fix the bugs.

Cheers!

[Lou Dina]

I hope Adobe is listening. I'm telling all my photography friends NOT to buy and install LR4. I've already talked a few people out of upgrading, at least until the product performs acceptably. It's not even close now.

Personally, I'll give them a week or two to get their collective act together. If I don't see some solution that drastically improves performance, I'm sending the program back to B&H for a refund. The box will be unopened, since I am currently using the free download version. If it doesn't hurt Adobe's wallet, they will just continue to ship crap that is unacceptable. I'm not one-sided...LR4 has some nice new features, but isn't worth the pain and the drastic slowdown in speed. I find it unusable as it currently is, and I have tried many of the recommendations on this thread. I need to get on with production.

Lou

p.s. I have a pretty fast machine, so it's not lack of hardware. Dual processors, 8-cores, 64-bit, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, (4) fast 1 TB HDDs, good video card, OSX 10.6.8, etc.

[SistersCountry]

I would be curious to read reports back from folks that actually follow some of these suggestions such as to setup exceptions in their anti-virus software as detailed by subdood earlier in the thread. That and the CPU thread priority bump in the processes are two things that would be very helpful to know if they might not really be a factor. There are some very useful posts here in this thread but they are getting buried further and further apart it seems.

[A_C_G]

"I would be curious to read reports back from folks that actually follow some of these suggestions such as to setup exceptions in their anti-virus software as detailed by subdood earlier in the thread. That and the CPU thread priority"

I use MSE. I told it to ignore any folder with the name Lightroom in it and the folders in the users/user/appdata area.

I set the Priority to High.

I saw not a smidgeon of difference.

Tony

[SistersCountry]

@Tony: That is helpful to know. What does not seem to help is in some ways as helpful as what does.

I wonder if adding the *.lrcat and *.lrdata files as exclusions could make a difference. I also specified these. My catalog folders don't have Lightroom in the name so just doing the 'Lightroom' exclusion would not necessarily cover that base. Aslo, I am not sure about MSE, but my NIS has scan exclusions and also auto protection and SONAR exclusions. I think it is the latter that may be the most critical as that is what jumps on current activity it detects. The former may just cover the full drive scans.

[Scooby007]

ACG

Adobe used to be ahead of the game. We are now watching its demise

It's a curious demise, since they had a $180 million net in the first quarter. An Adobe share bought for $4 in 1998 is worth more than $30 today. The product line has never been bigger.

Someone today has suggested talking to the Press. Do you think the Press care? Two hundred people with huge computers can't get a bit of specialist software to work. Boring....let's write about a celebrity scandal.

I think it's safe to say the press would not care

[hamish niven]

B R E T T and ACG

There is a demographic that tv complaint monitors use. They work on the assumption that if they get 10 - 20 complaints about an advert / programme ( ie BBC), then that represents more than 10-15 % of the viewing public.

and this means major FXXK up needs sorting ASAP

Just because

B r e t t wrote:

ACG

Adobe used to be ahead of the game. We are now watching its demise

... Two hundred people with huge computers can't get a bit of specialist software to work. Boring....let's write about a celebrity scandal.

The BBC / UK tv channels would consider that 200 complaints was a HUGE problem, and they would issue apologies, pull the program and shoot the presenter who caused the offence.

I'm not saying that Adobe will apologise for LR4.0 being a monster for the 200 you've quoted as have made noises, its not in their nature. but that 200 represents a substantial percentage of LR4 users, a very large %.

I read on a Adobe LR4.x tutorial that they  fixed over 800 (EIGHT HUNDRED) bugs / issues from LR4 BETA to LR4. I feel that LR4.0 should have been beta 2, but I guess cashflow got the better and 100,000 x $92 was needed to pay a few bills etc.

Anyway bitching aside, they will be watching, there is an army of tweets going on about #lightroom, and #LR4 and there is absolutely no negativity, its all tutorials, ideas, thoughts and the like.

So the 200 people complaining about

• dual screen issues
• sliders that move slowly and there effects even slower
• the inibility to convert more than 100 DNG's from RAW files
• etc
• etc

do really amount to a very very large % of users of LR with major issues, complaints and concerns. It is strange that those with normal computers ie less than16 Gb RAM, less than 3.4 Ghz processors and no SSD drives are not suffering so.

I feel that a beta 2 with what we have with LR4.0 would have been kinder to many, but remember the days when LR3 came out? the next dot release was very soon, and LR3.4 was superceeded with LR3.41 (from memory  - feel free to correct me) within a day or two, as bugs were introduced and removed.

Its just a shame that many have to pay for these to be fixed.

I'm suffering from hugely slow web galleries being made, but this has been seen by the okes in Adobe and will be addressed, the other issues, I've not seen comments on - as yet.

However, I'm finding that more than 90 mins of LR4 slows it down and a quick close LR4, restart and its faster than LR3.5, but that is me and my Macbook pro laptop with 8Gb ram and 2.2 Ghz processor

[rkstarr]

Well I've given up on 4.0 but I look forward to 4.(fixed) and in the mean

time I'm back with trusty LR3.

I just wish there was a way to stop the clock on my trial until the

revisions come out. I certainly won't buy without trying the next time.

[quenton8]

I suspect if you ask adobe for a new trial you will get it -- on the basis of the problems that have occurred.

In fact it might be wise of them to simply create a new trial of 4.1

[A_C_G]

"Or, my favourite, FO."

Abuse reported.

Tony

[Screenynamettr]

[Scooby007]

I would only say that all of the absolutes in this thread (it's broken, it's unusable, it's not even close) need an asterisk afterwards that says "for me"

[C5Z]

Not to diminish the issues that many are having, but given the virtually unlimited amount of hardware/primary software/apps combinations, I no longer can imagine a one size fits all version of LR or any other upgrade that "just works" straight out of the box.  If it did we would be paying much more and waiting much longer.  It is what it is, yet I have no doubts that Adobe will stabilize LR 4.

[Witward83]

Im having the same slow problems as well. One thing that is interesting and something to note, ive just installed the photoshop cs6 beta and tried using camera raw 7.0 and it runs like butter, evrything updates instantly, no lag whatsoever except when using the adjustment bush it does slow down a little but not near as bad as LR4. Its so refreshing compared to LR4. Really hope they get lightroom up to the level camera raw 7.0 is. Not sure why there is such a difference between the two. Any ideas? Has camera raw always been faster then lightroom?

[holdgaj]

On my 4.2Ghz 8 core Sandy bridge, its fine - i.e. the sliders are responsive and I have not noticed any real difference betweeen 3 & 4. 4 does seem to make better use of the cores when importing & generating previews, or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part ...

[Dave Eagle]

Update to my original post. I have been using LR4 on CR2/Nefs in Lightroom, seems OK after having been 'slow' initially, but export a CR2 file to CS5 rendered by LR4 and editing the resulting TIF in LR4 is once agin slow in responding to the sliders, but then the screen blanks out while it redraws the image after every adjustment which is where it gets to be unusable.

There is no AV running, its an iMac 2.8  i5, 4g memory, Running 10.6, Cache is set to 1G, changes are written to XMP files, Catalogue size is 209.5meg.

Unlike other posts, this is single monitor. Detailf for which are: Chipset is ATI Radeon HD5750, 1g VRAM, Driver 01.00.417

I am not about to install SSDs for cache (or similar) but all help appreciated.

[SistersCountry]

I think that it is pretty definite that having your changes being written to xmp automatically can cause a pretty fair performance hit. You may try turning that off and seeing how much of a difference it may make. You can always run a folder update when you are done working on that set. How big are the TIFs you are working with? I'm not quite sure how xmp writing works with TIFs. Might it be changing the internal metadata?

[Jao vdL]

xmp metadata is written inside the tiff file. It's generally a bad idea to

have automatic xmp turned on, especially while working with non-raw files.

This has always been slow. Better to do a command-S when you really need it.

[Lou Dina]

Dave Eagle....

I'm also on a Mac Pro, dual 2.26 MHz, 8-core, 64-bit, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD drive, four fast 1TB HDDs, no AV. Even with my SSD drive, LR4 is slow on this machine. I have even turned off writing XMP metadata automatically, turned off GPS, and even turned off sharpening and lens correction, with minimal improvement. It's still unacceptably slow. I set my preview database to 35GB, and upped my cache to 5 GB. No help.

Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and LR3 are all very fast on my machine. Only LR4 is slow. Sorry I can't offer any solution, but I am waiting for one myself. If it doesn't come before my trial period is up, I'll hold off on LR4.

Lou