Lightroom 3.3 Performance Feedback

[Tom Hogarty]

Please use this discussion topic for your feedback on Lightroom 3.3 RC and the final Lightroom 3.3 release when it becomes available.  The Lightroom team has tried very hard to extract useful feedback from the following discussion topic but due to the length and amount of chatter we need to start a new, more focused thread.  Please post specifics about your experience and be sure to include information about your hardware configuration.

Regards,

Tom Hogarty

Lightroom Product Manager

[Ian Lyons]

Samoreen wrote:

Hi,

Samoreen wrote:

Even more astonishing

As soon as I start using the local adjustment brush, lightroom.exe is continuously accessing the following registry keys

I have no idea whether it's expected that Lr should be accessing these registry keys or not, but it would be useful if others on the Windows platform could check for similar behaviour on their system.

[Samoreen]

but it would be useful if others on the Windows platform could check for similar behaviour on their system.

Those who don't have Regmon can use Process Monitor. It has replaced the former.

[TK2142]

Ian Lyons wrote

I have no idea whether it's expected that Lr should be accessing these registry keys or not, but it would be useful if others on the Windows platform could check for similar behaviour on their system.

I checked on Windows XP (SP3). I only get 22 registry accesses once when I start creating a stroke using the brush and another 22 when I finish the stroke.

I used "Regmon" and filtered for "lightroom".

[Samoreen]

TK2142 wrote:

I checked on Windows XP (SP3). I only get 22 registry accesses once when I start creating a stroke using the brush and another 22 when I finish the stroke.

Thanks  for testing. I'm also running XP Pro (SP3). I installed a trial on  another XP system (a laptop). No problem. No frantic registry accesses.  No performance problem.

Well, I bit the bullet and

• Made a backup copy of my preference file and of my presets
  
• Uninstalled LR
• Thoroughly and manually cleaned up disk and registry by removing every visible trace of LR that I could find.
• Re-installed LR 3.3
• Re-installed my preference file.
• Re-installed my presets
• Re-launched LR and selected my main catalog
• I didn't change anything to my system settings, to my Startup menu or to anything else. I didn't even rebooted the system.
  

No more wild registry accesses to the Time Zone settings. No more performance problems when using the local adjustment brush.  There's no possible comparison between now and before. LR is running  much faster now. So I guess that this registry activity was the cause of  the massive slowdown of LR. Again, it would be interesting that those  having performance problems with the local adjustment tools have a look  at the registry activity when doing such adjustments. I hope that the users having the same performance issue as I had can fix it this way.

Anyway, there's still something wrong to unhide in LR. I always made clean updates and never did anything fancy with it. These registry accesses were (indirectly) made from LR and only from LR. No problem with Camera Raw or with any other application. Maybe there's something going wrong with the upgrade/installation process, starting with 3.2.

[JW Stephenson]

Samoreen wrote:

• Thoroughly and manually cleaned up disk and registry by removing every visible trace of LR that I could find.

I am not a registry or OS expert, so would you mind elaborating on exactly what you did for the above step?  I have W7 but would consider doing exactly what you have done for the chance of solving the sluggish problem.

Jeff

[Samoreen]

Hi Jeff,

JW Stephenson wrote:

I am not a registry or OS expert, so would you mind elaborating on exactly what you did for the above step?  I have W7 but would consider doing exactly what you have done for the chance of solving the sluggish problem.

Registry

I just launched Regedit and did a search (Ctrl F) for "Lightroom" from the root key (My Computer). I deleted any key that had "Lightroom" in it (using F3 to find the next one). However, I did not delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Lightroom\1.0 because it holds registration information and a serial number (I don't know if and how it is used by the subsequent versions of LR - probably not, I guess).

Disk

After uninstalling LR, I renamed Documents and Settings/[username]/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom to Lightroom.old (see below). Under Windows 7 it's Users/[ username]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom. I deleted C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.3. I did not remove C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom because it only holds registration data. I also didn't do anything to my LR catalog folder (which is not at the default location but on a different hard disk).

NB: All these files and folders were left behind after "uninstallation".

But in that case, this was useful because having renamed Documents and Settings/[username]/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom allowed me, after re-installation, to compare the Lightroom.old and the new Lightroom folders (I use Beyond Compare from Scooter Software for comparisons - this is the best comparison utility ever). So I could easily restore some presets and my plugins (beware: Development presets cannot be restored this way - you must re-import them, which you can do from the Lightroom.old\Develop Presets folder). I also restored my preferences this way.

Then I removed the Lightroom.old folder after re-importing my Develop Presets from LR.

See this document if you need information about files and folder locations.

Hope this helps.

--

Patrick

[thewhitedog]

@ Patrick: Man am I glad OS X doesn't have a registry! This isn't the first time I've been grateful for this distinction, but your troubleshooting travails certainly highlight it anew. Not that Adobe doesn't scatter application specific files hither, thither and yon in OS X, too, but they're not that hard to find. And they rarely cause any trouble. I don't mean to gloat, but I'm definitely feeling grateful for "small favors" after reading these accounts of runaway registry calls by Lightroom in Windows. There are probably bugs in the Mac version of Lightroom as well, but they don't seem to be causing the same degree of difficulty.

And some issues are platform agnostic, like the slowdowns caused by using Lens profiles and auto masking. Are these "bugs" caused by inefficient code or unavoidable side effects of using these features? Personally, I've had no trouble with auto masking on those infrequent occasions when I've used it. But this may have to do with how extensively it's used on a particular image. I hope to read more on this issue.

It remains to be seen how extensive these problems with the registry are, but they move the focus away from hardware once more and back to software issues. I admit I find the whole process here fascinating. I guess that's because I actually use Lightroom and so I have some serious skin in the game.

[Samoreen]

Hi,

thewhitedog wrote:

@ Patrick: Man am I glad OS X doesn't have a registry!

I was considering switching to a Mac but they are a bit too expensive, IMHO.

thewhitedog wrote:

It remains to be seen how extensive these problems with the registry are, but they move the focus away from hardware once more and back to software issues.

Yes, that's the key point. I think it's now a proven thing that these performance issues in LR have little to do with the hardware configuration or the OS of the system running it (provided it's a "decent" system meeting the minimum requirements specified by Adobe). There's no reason that a system able to run Photoshop CS5 and Camera Raw without a hitch could not run Lightroom the same way. After all, LR is just Camera Raw + a better user interface and a lightweight DBMS.

[thewhitedog]

@ Patrick: It's not so much that Macs are more expensive as that Apple doesn't make inexpensive computers. They don't compete in that market for a variety of reasons: profit margins are too low to justify the effort for one thing, and it would not be possible for Apple to maintain their standards of quality with a cheap computer. To the extent that Macs are more expensive compared to comparable Windows PCs - and all such comparisons are by their nature inexact - the added initial cost is more than offset by lower support costs over time. For one thing, you don't need an annual security software subscription.

However, if you did switch platforms, you would incur the significant expense of getting Mac versions of the PC software you use. There's no avoiding that issue. So the matter of expense is not a trivial concern. And, to be honest, most software works just as well on Windows as it does on a Mac (except Lightroom 3 at the moment), and recent tests have shown that many graphics intensive games work better on Windows on exactly the same hardware because Windows has better graphics drivers. This has been a problem of long standing for the Mac: Apple's graphics drivers are not optimized for games.

You also don't get as wide a selection of computer models and configurations to choose from - though some people consider this to be an advantage. Nor do you get the usual ton of crapware installed by the vendor. But perhaps the biggest advantage with a Mac is that you get an operating system without the registry. That's not to say that there aren't routine maintenance issues to deal with on a Mac, but the registry isn't one of them.

I realize this is not the usual place to discuss the differences between Macs and PCs, but the problems some people are having with Lightroom highlight that differences do exist and, in some cases, provide a distinct user experience. I'm not saying that one platform is superior to the other; that is a matter of individual preference and priorities and, very often, a matter of what you are used to.

[Samoreen]

thewhitedog wrote:

@ Patrick: It's not so much that Macs are more expensive as that Apple doesn't make inexpensive computers...

Thanks very much for the advice.

[Guest]

Before saying the Lightroom works better on a Mac than a PC, people might want to scan this forum and other user forums.  Mac users have just as many problems as PC users - some are the same issues and some are different.  Actually, if you factor in the smaller Mac market share, Mac issues make up a a rather large chunk of compliants.  Simply because a small number of people posting think they have tracked down a Windows specific problem, does not mean that 1) that is the actual source of the problem, 2) its origin is in the software, and/or 3) that is indicative of some pandemic issue specific to Windows systems.   I have never bothered to uninstall previous versions and did run the Lightroom 3 beta side by side within Lightroom 2.7 and I can't replicate the registry related issue on either an x64 Windows 7 Ultimate laptop with 8 GB of RAM or on a x86 Windows 7 Professional netbook with an atom processor and 2 GB of RAM.  The vast majority of users are also not posting problems which generally suggests lots of people are not having problems.  I am glad people think they have identified a specific issue.  At this point they should refer it to the engineers to confirm whether it is a software issue they can address or a hardware issue possibly beyond control.

Stephen

[Samoreen]

Hi Stephen,

swyost wrote:

I am glad people think they have identified a specific issue.  At this point they should refer it to the engineers to confirm whether it is a software issue they can address or a hardware issue possibly beyond control.

As far as I am concerned, I'm just reporting what I see, what problems I had, what I did and the results I obtained. I am not drawing any conclusion (beside the fact that I'm pretty sure it's a software problem because I didn't change anything to my hardware and to my OS and LR is now working correctly on this system). That's the job of the development team.

This thread has been started by a member of this team so I guess it's not useful to upload the same reports to Adobe directly.

[KKuja]

swyost wrote:

Before saying the Lightroom works better on a Mac than a PC, people might want to scan this forum and other user forums.  Mac users have just as many problems as PC users - some are the same issues and some are different.  Actually, if you factor in the smaller Mac market share, Mac issues make up a a rather large chunk of compliants.  Simply because a small number of people posting think they have tracked down a Windows specific problem, does not mean that 1) that is the actual source of the problem, 2) its origin is in the software, and/or 3) that is indicative of some pandemic issue specific to Windows systems.   I have never bothered to uninstall previous versions and did run the Lightroom 3 beta side by side within Lightroom 2.7 and I can't replicate the registry related issue on either an x64 Windows 7 Ultimate laptop with 8 GB of RAM or on a x86 Windows 7 Professional netbook with an atom processor and 2 GB of RAM.  The vast majority of users are also not posting problems which generally suggests lots of people are not having problems.  I am glad people think they have identified a specific issue.  At this point they should refer it to the engineers to confirm whether it is a software issue they can address or a hardware issue possibly beyond control.

Stephen

To be honest, I partially disagree.

Based on my experience, Lightroom works better on Mac. When I switched to mac I did some testing and found out Lr Mac works better on my Mac than on my Win machine, even though my mac had less raw horsepower than my Pc (and less memory and slower disk). And After switching to Lr mac I haven't been severily hit by a single bug.

And what I have read this forum I have understood that more bugs/problems are windows only than Mac only. Actually, I'm not a aware of any Mac only issues (except one about changing Lr language). Could you please point few to me?

The vast majority of users are also not posting problems which generally suggests lots of people are not having problems.

I agree. And when there have been wide spread problems Adobe has usually recalled problematic version and released new dotdot release which have fixed the worst problems.

[Samoreen]

Hi,

KKuja wrote:

The vast majority of users are also not posting problems which generally suggests lots of people are not having problems.

I agree. And when there have been wide spread problems Adobe has usually recalled problematic version and released new dotdot release which have fixed the worst problems.

Do not underestimate the number of people who are not reporting any problem even if they have one. How many of the Lightroom users do you think are visiting this forum? How many people are using the bug report form? How many users are just clicking on "Check for updates" every other month just to see if things could get better? This doesn't mean that every LR user has problems, which is certainly not true.

Moreover, think about the non english speaking users who are facing a page in english when they want to report something to the support. On the french site, there's no bug report form and when you click on "Ask a question", you are redirected to a page in english (US). Clicking on "Change" to go to a page in french will send you back to the french site's home page. Endless loop... I guess this is the same for many other countries.

[DdeGannes]

During my working years in the banking industry the marketing department always indicated that only about 10% of disatisifed customers make formal complaints, the rest just choose alternative providers.

In the case of Adobe, because of their profile in the market the ratio may not be that low, but I am sure that a signficant amount will make alternative choices.

[KKuja]

Samoreen wrote:

Hi,

KKuja wrote:

The vast majority of users are also not posting problems which generally suggests lots of people are not having problems.

I agree. And when there have been wide spread problems Adobe has usually recalled problematic version and released new dotdot release which have fixed the worst problems.

Do not underestimate the number of people who are not reporting any problem even if they have one. How many of the Lightroom users do you think are visiting this forum? How many people are using the bug report form? How many users are just clicking on "Check for updates" every other month just to see if things could get better? This doesn't mean that every LR user has problems, which is certainly not true.

Moreover, think about the non english speaking users who are facing a page in english when they want to report something to the support. On the french site, there's no bug report form and when you click on "Ask a question", you are redirected to a page in english (US). Clicking on "Change" to go to a page in french will send you back to the french site's home page. Endless loop... I guess this is the same for many other countries.

I'm not underestimating it. My marketing/leadership education already tell me that every complaining customer is a gift, because there are probably 100 customers who don't complain but suffer in silence (and buy from elsewhere if possible).

Funny thing about your non english comment is that in this forum the login link is not working for me because of localization. If I click it I get page not found error (at least last time I checked). If I want to login this forum I have to manually edit the url. So I've bene bitten by that snake. And I probably encountered the endless loop you mentioned. If I recall correctly.

[Ian Lyons]

KKuja wrote:

I'm not underestimating it. My marketing/leadership education already tell me that every complaining customer is a gift, because there are probably 100 customers who don't complain but suffer in silence (and buy from elsewhere if possible).

Actually, if you remove all the multiple posters and those from folk with something to say, but not necessarily suffering from a performance issue the number of complaints is measured in 10's, not 100's or even 1000's. So, even 100 times the number of complaints is fairly low compared to the number of copies sold. That's not to minimise the issue, but hopefully puts it in context.

[JayS_In_CT]

Ian Lyons wrote:

KKuja wrote:

I'm not underestimating it. My marketing/leadership education already tell me that every complaining customer is a gift, because there are probably 100 customers who don't complain but suffer in silence (and buy from elsewhere if possible).

Actually, if you remove all the multiple posters and those from folk with something to say, but not necessarily suffering from a performance issue the number of complaints is measured in 10's, not 100's or even 1000's. So, even 100 times the number of complaints is fairly low compared to the number of copies sold. That's not to minimise the issue, but hopefully puts it in context.

Ian,

I don't think you can make that jump either. We have no real clue as to how are impacted but that formula does not work either. There is another side of this that does not talk to the folks pushing it as hard as many here do. I also think there is enough past history with previous versions to know performance improvements are likely still to be made. Also, I don't think Tom would have engaged this thread for 10s of people. I really think trying to frame it as such is just, if not more, unfair than overstating it. There's plenty enough

evidence to know the

[thewhitedog]

I think that's an interesting point about the number of non-English speaking users who may not have a viable way to report their problems with the software they use. At first blush, it looks like an unfortunate case of ethnocentrism on the part of Adobe, not providing technical support in the same number of languages as the software itself supports. But when you think about it, it's no small job to produce multiple language versions of their software. Providing technical support in the same languages is probably just not feasible, however desirable it may be. That's not to say Adobe shouldn't do better in the European languages that are no doubt their primary secondary market - say in French, German, Italian and Spanish - but that still leaves out a great many people, in Russia and Japan, not to say China. Where would they, or should they, draw the line? What's fair and what's doable are seldom the same things.

[JayS_In_CT]

Not understanding something again on Previews in Library..  I loaded about 300 images last night and did a "standard preview" on all of them during import (watched it building them).  I went back and made some global changes (was indoor auditorium UCONN Ladies game).  I went back and selected all and did a Standard Preview because I added a couple of more..  Preview build did its normal scan then started building a preview for all the photos, not just the new ones.  Is this because of the global changes I made in Develop?  If so then do Develop changes actually have an impact on Library previews?

Jay S.

[Ian Lyons]

JayS In CT wrote:

Not understanding something again on Previews in Library..  I loaded about 300 images last night and did a "standard preview" on all of them during import (watched it building them).  I went back and made some global changes (was indoor auditorium UCONN Ladies game).  I went back and selected all and did a Standard Preview because I added a couple of more..  Preview build did its normal scan then started building a preview for all the photos, not just the new ones.  Is this because of the global changes I made in Develop?  If so then do Develop changes actually have an impact on Library previews?

As soon as you edited the images in Develop module the Library previews became stale. So, yes the develop changes do have an impact on Library.

[JayS_In_CT]

Ian Lyons wrote:

JayS In CT wrote:

Not understanding something again on Previews in Library..  I loaded about 300 images last night and did a "standard preview" on all of them during import (watched it building them).  I went back and made some global changes (was indoor auditorium UCONN Ladies game).  I went back and selected all and did a Standard Preview because I added a couple of more..  Preview build did its normal scan then started building a preview for all the photos, not just the new ones.  Is this because of the global changes I made in Develop?  If so then do Develop changes actually have an impact on Library previews?

As soon as you edited the images in Develop module the Library previews became stale. So, yes the develop changes do have an impact on Library.

Thanks Ian,

So, then these "new" previews become the new baseline for Develop?  If so, then it would seem to make sense to regen Standard size previews after a round of updates to the images?  Something I didn't necessarily think was a to do.

Jay S.

[Ian Lyons]

Jay,

Library previews are for Library. Their use in Develop module is VERY limited (i.e. a second or so until camera raw cache file is pulled in then replaced by fully rendered image). The Library previews need to be updated after editing otherwise there aren't reflecting the current state of the image (i.e. totally bleeping useless). If you don't update them via the menu option they will be updated the next time you select and zoom into the image in Library module. This is why you sometimes see the "Loading" bezel appear. Remember, Lr has multiple preview sizes stored in a pyramid for each image. The one you see will have been updated automatically when you edited the image, but others won't have.

[JayS_In_CT]

Ian Lyons wrote:

Jay,

Library previews are for Library. Their use in Develop module is VERY limited (i.e. a second or so until camera raw cache file is pulled in then replaced by fully rendered image). The Library previews need to be updated after editing otherwise there aren't reflecting the current state of the image (i.e. totally bleeping useless). If you don't update them via the menu option they will be updated the next time you select and zoom into the image in Library module. This is why you sometimes see the "Loading" bezel appear. Remember, Lr has multiple preview sizes stored in a pyramid for each image. The one you see will have been updated automatically when you edited the image, but others won't have.

Thanks Ian..  Yes, I'm aware of the pyramid build..  I went back and tried this on another folder.  FWIW, the rebuilt standard library images loaded faster in develop (maybe mind over matter and we're not talking half the time).. small but "noticeable".  Trying to squeeze whatever I can out of my older Macbook Pro, if this works, it isn't an inconvenient thing to do.  🙂

Jay S.

[DJ-G]

I'm running Win 7 64-bit. Just being in the Library loupe doing absolutely nothing I get about 35 registry accesses every 10 seconds. That seems pretty weird. I'm using my firewall software's registry monitor, filtering for lightroom.exe.