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Arnold-Norway
Arnold-Norway
Known Participant
March 5, 2022
Question

Export slideshow to PDF or video is very slow

  • March 5, 2022
  • 5 replies
  • 1391 views

A friend of mine use to export photos to PDF slideshow, but now it has become extremely slow. 30-40 RAW files takes 30 minutes or more. On my own MacBook Pro it takes 30 seconds. My friend alså tells me that working in Develop is difficult, as the sliders tend to jump or not move at all. The key problem seems to be making the main catalog work properly. Here is what I did to narrow down to the problem. 

  • Optimized Catalog several times
  • Changed previews file
  • Set use GPU to Off
  • Reset preferences
  • Created new Catalog and imported photos from the first catalog
  • I also created a new catalog, and imported a few photos. This seemed to make export Slideshow PDF function more normally.
    Exported files was stored in a folder on the local disc.
    Hardware is a 1 year old iMac, and software the most updated (Monterey 12.2, Lightroom Classic 11.2)
    It may looks like the catalog file is the problem, but how can we make the export work properly?
    Attatched is a system report  from Lightroom Classic.

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5 replies

Arnold-Norway
Arnold-NorwayAuthor
Known Participant
March 16, 2022

I posted this in Discussions a week ago or so, but got no relevant reply. (Export slideshow to PDF or video is very slow - Adobe Support Community - 12793649)

A friend of mine use to export photos to PDF slideshow, but now it has become extremely slow. 30-40 RAW files takes 30 minutes or more. On my own MacBook Pro 13" M1 it takes 30 seconds. My friend also tells me that working in Develop is difficult, as the sliders tend to jump or not move at all. The key problem seems to be making the main catalog work properly. Here is what I did to narrow down to the problem. 

  • Optimized Catalog several times
  • Renamed the previews file
  • Set use GPU to Off and restarted
  • Reset preferences
  • Created new Catalog and imported photos from the first catalog
  • I also created a new catalog, and imported a few photos. This seemed to make export Slideshow PDF function more normally.
    Exported files was stored in a folder on the local hard drive.
    Hardware is a 1 year old iMac, and software the most updated (Monterey 12.2, Lightroom Classic 11.2)
    It may looks like the catalog file is the problem, but how can we make the export work properly? New catalog file and import all photos with Import from another catalog also imported the problem.
    Attatched is a system report  from Lightroom Classic.
    My friend is a professional photographer, so access to photo archive is crusial. The exported PDF slideshow is used for presentation of photo shoot to customers, so they can order prints.
RegardsArnold Hoddevik
J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 6, 2022

Does your friend have the same problem when using a fresh new catalog? Just create a new catalog and import 30 images into it and expport to a slideshow. It's possible that there is database corruption of the catalog. It is also possible that this is related to accessing the images. Are their images on an external or network drive?

 

Some troubleshooting steps:

1. Try a new catalog

2. Try resetting the Lightroom Preferences

3. Unplug any peripherals such as wacom tablets, hard disks, etc. Monterey introduced some new bugs with peripherals.

Arnold-Norway
Arnold-NorwayAuthor
Known Participant
March 6, 2022

Please read my post and comment once more.

Reset preferences did not solve the problem.

New catalog seemed to make export work more normally. The same photos was used to create and export a pdf slideshow with normal speed. So the problem seems to be catalog related.

 

So I made a new catalog. When I made a new catalog and run "Import from another catalog", the problem showed up again.

My friend is running a photo bussiness, so access to archive is crucial. 

So my question is still the same. How can my friend get rid of the slow export  problem?

 

RegardsArnold Hoddevik
J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 16, 2022

How much free space does your friend have on their internal SSD drive? It should be at least 1/3 of the total space on the drive and at least 2x the RAM in the computer. Insufficient free space on the system drive would explain the observed behavior. 

Lastly, to get a pdf slideshow, you might be better off exporting to lower resolution jpegs (e.g. 1920x1080) with a numbered filename (image001.jpg, image002.jpg, etc.) and doing a select all in finder and control click or right click on them and select quick actions->create pdf. This will very quickly generate a pdf of all the images in sequence. You can also use automator to create a simple droplet application (use the "new pdf from images action" and save as an application on your desktop) that you can drop a bunch of images on that creates a pdf. This is going to be lightyears faster than Lightroom's dinky slideshow module and actually creates much higher quality slides. Lightroom's module should be better but I avoid using it for a reason. 

Arnold-Norway
Arnold-NorwayAuthor
Known Participant
March 6, 2022

I should have mentioned one more thing. PDF is the preferred format, because each export is used for preview of portraits to customers, so they can chosse among several photos. A PDF slideshow is very handy.

 

A bug would show up on my Mac too, but my export takes less than 30 seconds, and my friends takes more than 30 minutes. 

RegardsArnold Hoddevik
J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 5, 2022

The slideshow export is not very good unfortunately. The video files it makes are very unoptimized and because of that don't work on many devices and the module is shockingly buggy. You are better off just exporting to jpegs and importing them in another program. Even Photoshop will make nicer and higher quality slideshow videos but it is not that easy to use. Easiest (and free) option is to just use the built-in to your Mac Photos application. Much higher quality and will do nice pans and zooms. There are also lots of commercial programs for this purpose that work much better than Lightroom. Love Lightroom but this module is just not very well done.

    Sean McCormack
    Community Expert
    Sean McCormackCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 5, 2022

    If the slideshow is for screen use, I'd export the files as JPEG at a smaller screen size, adding them back to the catalog in a subfolder, and then use them for Slideshow. Skips a lot of the Develop weight when making changes. 

    Sean McCormack. Author of 'Essential Development 3'. Magazine Writer. Former Official Fuji X-Photographer.
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