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

[Guest]

I have been using Lightroom for quite a while but with the 3.2 and 3.3 upgrade the performance have been abysmal when using local edits for simple stuff as increasing/decreasing exposure. I have concluded that lightroom just hogs ALL the ram that is availible and switching from one photo to another can add another 1-200Mb in RAM increase so i can only use it for 20-30 min before my RAM goes to 99% (and it seems like lightroom belives it goes to 11 ) and the whole systme becomes unresponsive. Minimizing lightroom actaully unloads alot of the memory it uses but it goes straight back up after a while

My system is q6600 (tried both under and overclocking), 4gb RAM, Geforce 8800GT and windows 7 64bit

[Rancher53]

I also have to agree it is a Ram hog as you put it, I had ,we'll still do

run Idimger the latest one and I thought it ran allot of Ram but Lightroom

3.3 uses more, One thing that is allot better is the export, import and

moving files is allot more stable in LR 3.3, along with labels and ratings

stay with the photos as I had a few problems with IDimger not keeping the

tags.

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

HeiroEs wrote:

I have been using Lightroom for quite a while but with the 3.2 and 3.3 upgrade the performance have been abysmal when using local edits for simple stuff as increasing/decreasing exposure.

Check to make sure you *don't* have lens corrections enabled while you are doing local edits.

[web-weaver]

Yesterday I was using the clone / healing tool quite a bit. I hadn't used it for a while, so it was my first time in LR3.3.

I have to say that the tool is now much more responsive and faster than it had been in LR 3.2.

Using the tool in LR 3.2 I was "twiddling my thumbs" a lot while waiting for the tool to resume responsiveness.

But now in LR 3.3 there is no time for any "twiddling."

Thanks guys.

BTW I am running LR 3.3 on a 5 year old dual-core machine with 4GB RAM under Win XP SP4.

WW

[areohbee]

Spot tool has been working good for me (reasonably responsive), but recently I had a bout where it was extremely slow to respond to re-positioning the source circle. Hadn't happened before and hasn't happened since - dunno what might have happened to cause it or what happened from time it started acting wonky to time it started behaving normally again (possibly a restart of Lightroom or my computer...).

Lightroom version: 3.3 [711369]

Operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate Edition

Version: 6.1 [7600]

Application architecture: x64

System architecture: x64

Physical processor count: 4

Processor speed: 3.4 GHz

Built-in memory: 7934.1 MB

Real memory available to Lightroom: 7934.1 MB

Real memory used by Lightroom: 1842.9 MB (23.2%)

Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 2000.4 MB

Memory cache size: 1381.9 MB

System DPI setting: 96 DPI

Desktop composition enabled: Yes

Displays: 1) 1920x1200, 2) 1920x1200

Rob

[ffennema]

I am also having the problem with the Spot Removal tool that others have described - the tool will sometimes stop working (freeze). I have noticed something interesting when I have the problem. I'll click on an area using the clone brush and drag the circle to another area. As I'm dragging or after I let go, LR stops responding. If I go to another application window or even just minimize all windows and then go back to LR, it will start responding again. However, sometimes the circle is not where I left it.

My environment:

- LR 3.3 final

- Windows 7, 64-bit version

- Dual core with 8GB memory

- ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series Display Adapter

- wanting for a fix for this problem since LR 3.2

Good luck on shooting this bug. If anyone from Adobe that is working on this wants to remote into my computer to help see what is going on, let me know...

[thewhitedog]

This is a problem that I have experienced as well on my 3GHz quad-core Mac Pro with 8GB of RAM running OS X 10.6.5 (and earlier). It was also present in Lightroom 2. I was hoping version 3 would resolve the issue, but it has yet to do so. After using the healing brush on multiple images eventually it will stall Lightroom. I've been using a quit and restart to get around the problem - one of the seldom noted advantages of Lightroom is that you don't lose any work if the program freezes or quits. But I'll try the strategies ffennema mentions - switching apps and minimizing windows as these would be even less time consuming - though restarting Lightroom is hardly arduous if you don't have to do it too often - though you shouldn't have to do even that if Lightroom managed resources more efficiently.

[JW Stephenson]

ffennema,

This is consistent with a bug report I filed starting with 3.0 regarding this behavior as well as overall sluggishness using the Spot Removal tool.  I have been providing information to Adobe and they assure me they are still working on the issue so I think we have to wait a bit longer.

I too noticed that if LR gets hung up using this tool I can "show desktop" and then maximize LR and most of the time it will remove the hang.  However, the spot is rarely where I left it and I have to unhide all the spots (H Key Toggle) to check and then usually delete the spot.  Also, in my case anyway, once an image has been hung up from this tool, generally re-visiting that image in Develop causes significant delay and sometimes additional time with the "(Not Responding)" window title before it become available for work again, and then it is very slow going so I have to move on.  Closing LR every 4 or 5 images sometimes helps as well but it is not a memory issue as I rarely have more than a third of my 12GB utilized when in LR.  Even moving down in the history panel to try and see prior stages is problematic.

As far as what helps, I have found that by removing the ATI processes that normally start-up with the computer and turning  off hyper-threading of the CPUs does help quite a bit by delaying the inevitable sluggish behavior.  It may not work for you but if either apply you should give it a try.  I have also tried reloading LR after uninstalling all versions and manually deleting Registry keys but that turned out to cost me some performance.  Every system seems to be different.

If you would confirm one thing for me it might be useful next time Adobe contacts me for this issue: when your system is in full hang mode but before you minimize all windows, do you notice that one of your cores is at 100% while the others are basically zero?  Just trying to find out if this is unique to my system or if this might be a lead as to what is behind this mystery.  The minute it frees itself, either by the "show desktop" method or by simply waiting, the cores all become utilized either randomly or fairly equally but rarely is any core at 100%.

By the way, a Win7 shortcut to show desktop is the "Win-D" combination.  Use it again and it brings you back where you were before you minimized.

Thanks!

Jeff

[ffennema]

Jeff, thanks for the reply. I think I'll hold off doing the removal of ATI graphic processes. I've just been doing the clone work in PS CS 5 instead (the tool is much improved from PS CS 2!) out of LR instead.

I did a little CPU monitoring during LR usage as follows:

Test 1. Used the Spot Removal tool. LR hung. Minimized all windows; maximized LR. Only portions of LR window were showing: menu bar, image, histogram. My desktop image was in the rest of the window. Did not look at CPUs. This is the worst I've seen LR hang.

Test 2. Rebooted, started only LR. let it settle down to nominal CPU usage (less than 10% in all 8 CPU graphs in Windows Task Manager, Performane tab.) I then constantly moved my mouse back and forth across the image with no tool used, just the magnifier as the mouse icon. The CPU performance numbers for the 8 CPU graphs were: 10,0,15,0,25, 0, 30, 0. Let LR settle down to nominal again. Used the Spot Removal tool. LR hung. CPU graphs were: 50,0,50,0,30, 0, 60, 0. Minimized all windows. CPUs went to nominal. Maximized LR. LR was un-hung. Used the Spot Removal tool again and got same results - LR gets un-hung after awhile (a few seconds.) Hope this helps a little.

[H_D_]

Hi,

I've performance problems with the Heal Brush in Lightroom 3.3 (there is already a very long thread for this topic but I didn't see an entry if the guys use 64 or 32 bit or if it's related to jpg only).

My configuration:

Win 7 Home Premium 64 Bit (AMD 1050 six core CPU).

4 GB of RAM

Lightroom 3.3 64 Bit

Photoshop CS5 64 Bit

10000 images in my catalogue (mainly jpg)

Using the Heal brush with Raw images works very fast. Using the brush on an jpg file is very, verly slow (have to wait a few seconds till the result is visible. Also depends on the brush size. Bigger brushes => more delay).

If I use the Camera Raw module from Photoshop everything is fine, also with the jpg files.

I've already deinstalled Lightroom but this has had no effect (I didn't clean up the registry and the file system).

Hope this helps a little bit to locate the error,

Holger.

[JW Stephenson]

Holger,

Everyone's experience is a bit different, most apparently having no issue at all with this tool, but you are not alone.  I too have a 64-bit, multi-core processor and a variety of RAW and JPEG images, probably 8k each.  Many of the JPEG images are antique images and require a fair amount of spot removal.  As with you I have noted that JPEG (and TIFF files as well) are materially more difficult to work with using the Spot Healing Tool than with RAW, but even the RAW files will slow down after a certain number of applications.

Through a bug report and some correspondence Adobe has been made aware of this behavior difference and they have added it to the list of symptoms but there doesn't seem to be a common theme as to who has this problem and who doesn't.  However, as you and I can demonstrate it isn't due simply to lack of power.   As you have noted, I too can operate this tool in Camera Raw via Photoshop with no apparent lag and as an additional point of reference, I can run LR v2.5 with absolutely no lag in any tool or feature or anything, so even though this problem might be hardware configuration related, it was not an issue with some prior versions - this behavior started for me with v3.0.

I turned off hyper-threading and my performance  with the tool improved quite a bit, allowing me much more edit time before an image becomes  sluggish if at all. Not sure if AMD processors have that feature turned on by default (or if they have it at all) but it might give you some short-term relief until Adobe is able to isolate and fix the problem.  Some have had some success in completely uninstalling LR and reinstalling (described earlier in this thread) but that actually cost me some performance - still, probably worth a try.

Best of luck while we wait.

Jeff

[H_D_]

Thank you Jeff.

I've deleted my Lightroom catalogue and have imported the pictures again.

The effect was that I could use the Spot Removal tool (I do not know the exact english terminology, in german it's "Bereichsreparatur-Pinsel") a little bit longer (meaning moving around the source circle) before now the whole application has frozen for a few seconds.

The last thing I will try is to deinstall Lightroom and delete also the registry settings.

Hopefully this problem is solved soon.

Thanks again for the information,

Holger.

[Guest]

Computer Hardware/Software:

I have an Intel Duo Core processor running at 2.0ghz with 4 GB of ram and it has Windows 7 x64 running on it.

I just recently started reworking an older photo taken with a Nikon D50 in Lightroom 3.3.  The photo was captured using the RAW .NEF file format on the camera.  It was imported and worked in Lightroom 1, and then I changed over to Lightroom 3.  Now I'm on Version 3.3 and this is where I was reworking the file.   I updated the file to process version 2010, and started working the file over (like from import in the history) using the local adjustment brush.  The file started slowing down when I was over half way through my edit, and I had to edit a copy to finish it because it was just horrible!  I started losing brush strokes (it would show up using the 'show selected mask overlay') then the harddrive would make a write and the stroke would dissapear. Eventually the program started freezing up and making it impossible to work the file any more.  I beleive there were some other tweaks made to the photo before the brush was used, and it would be things like exposure, clarity, saturation, vibrance.    Before I exported this file to a .TIFF it used all my RAM (it was only program open except task manager, and I even ended the explorer process so it was only Lightroom and Task Manager running)  and started Caching onto the harddrive and that's when the computer was unuseable.  Switching between Task Manager and Lightroom was a big job for it to do.

[thewhitedog]

I'm not gloating, but there does seem to be a serious problem with Lightroom 3 on Windows. I have experienced some slowdowns with Lightroom 3 on my Mac Pro, but the same problems existed in Lightroom 2.x. And I've seen nothing as drastic as what Windows users are reporting here - nor do I remember another post by a Mac user with issues this serious. I'm not even saying that Mac OS X is better than Windows; I'm just remarking on the differences with Lightroom 3 on the two platforms. Given how long this has been going on, Adobe is clearly having difficulty isolating the problem. I don't envy them the chore.

[areohbee]

More problems are reported by Windows users, but its hard to know whether its because there are more WIndows users, or also because they have proportionally more problems (which would not surprise me, I just dont know) - never seen the numbers... Lr3.3 running well for me now on Win7/64.

PS - There are Mac vs. Windows benchmarking comparisons on the SDK forum which indicate there are some notable differences in performance behavior under the hood between the two platforms (even when working well on both platforms) - mostly but not always favor the Mac if my qualitative guestimate is correct (it may not be).

[Sharpis]

thewhitedog

I operate my LR3.3 and CS4 on a MacPro using the latest version of Snow Leopard.

I have never experienced any slow operation just the inability to transfer an

LR3.3 edited raw image to CS4 by any route. The only option I have is to open

the original raw file in adobe bridge using camera raw and then CS4 itself. The

result is not as good as LR (some may say that is my lack of ability with CS4)

and it takes much longer (same comment).

For all those saying I am commented outside the intention of the specific forum

I say rubbish. This is a functional?operational failure of LR3.3 as I have had

no problems carrying out these operations with any other version of LR and the

same Photoshop software CS4.

For photographic or graphic files Mac is streets ahead of Windows. But then

again the cost is too.

[thewhitedog]

@ Sharpis: I already explained that Lightroom 3 and Photoshop 4 are not compatible for Raw images. I don't know why you keep banging on this. They use different versions of the Adobe Raw processing engine. In fact it has always been the case that when you upgrade Lightroom you need to upgrade Photoshop as well. Adobe has been developing the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in for Photoshop in parallel with Lightroom. Any major upgrade to one is matched by an equivalent upgrade in the other. I have stated further that if you export your Raw images from Lightroom 3 as a JPEG, TIFF or PSD, they will open just fine in Photoshop CS4 and the adjustments you made in Lightroom will be rendered permanently in the exported files. This is a workaround; if it's not sufficient for your needs you will simply have to upgrade to Photoshop CS5, as most of the rest of us have done.

Of course you had no trouble with Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2 - they were compatible, as Lightroom 1 was compatible with Photoshop CS3.

It's reasonable that you cannot get the same results with ACR in Photoshop CS4 as you do in Lightroom 3. Lightroom 3 - and ACR in Photoshop CS5 - are different in significant ways from the previous version. It's not a matter of expertise in Photoshop - no one can get the same results in the two versions, no matter their skill level. This is not the place to go into the changes in Lightroom 3 in detail; there are videos on the Adobe TV web site explaining the changes. Consult these if you want to know more.

It seems to be the case, though, that some of these "improvements" have had a negative affect on performance for some people. Personally, I have exactly the same performance problems in Lightroom 3 that I had in Lightroom 2. While this is disappointing, my issues have not been nearly as serious as others are experiencing so I feel fortunate to have gotten off fairly lightly. Nevertheless, I do have issues, which is why I came to this forum thread in the first place, to see what solutions may develop.

[Keith Reeder]

thewhitedog wrote:

And I've seen nothing as drastic as what Windows users are reporting here

Neither have I - and I'm on Win 7...

[H_D_]

Keith_Reeder wrote:

thewhitedog wrote:

And I've seen nothing as drastic as what Windows users are reporting here

Neither have I - and I'm on Win 7...

Win 7 64bit or 32?

I'm wondering if this makes a difference. Could be a hint for the guys from Adobe where to search the problem.

[Alan_Garrett]

Hi,

LR3.3 works fine for me. I'm on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, with 12Gb RAM and an i7 processor (2.93Ghz).

Cheers,

Alan

[H_D_]

Thanks.

I'm using Win 7 64bit, 4GB RAM and AMD six core CPU 1050T.

I only have problems with the Spot Removal tool when editing jpgs. the performance with RAW pictures is good.

My hope was that the problem could be drilled down to a issue with Win7 in the 64bit Version. Next time when I use the Spot Removal Tool I will check the memory consumption to see if the footprint is so high that page file access is necessary.

Is there an Adobe official screening this thread? If yes, is there anything we (the ones with problems) should check and then inform you about the result? (Like: CPU, Graphic card driver, Open GL, Windows version, RAM, pagefile access, and so on).

[Samoreen]

Hi,

H.D. wrote:

Win 7 64bit or 32?

I'm wondering if this makes a difference. Could be a hint for the guys from Adobe where to search the problem.

Considering the reports that have been uploaded, this performance issue with the local adjustment tools cannot be related to a hardware configurations being too weak (very powerful systems do have the problem) or to a specific version of Windows or even of the OS. My understanding is that Adobe are clear about this.

--

Patrick

[Keith Reeder]

64 bit/6 gb RAM/Intel Quad Core for me.

But Patrick ("Samoreen") is right - it's too much of a generalisation to simply say "it's worse for Windows". There's clearly way more to it than that.

[H_D_]

Thanks Keith. Understood.

I'm a software engineer. I do not program any more because I have a different "role" now.

To my understanding this is not an sporadic error (I refer to the performance problems with the Spot Removal tool). You have it or you have not

And that's good news because sporadic errors are often very hard to find..

Because I do not know if Adobe has a setup where the error occurs,my idea was to provide them information about my/our (the ones who have the problem) system.

What I've read so far the RAM seems not to be a root cause. But maybe the graphic card model or driver (I'm using a AMD ATI 5870 Card).

Since I do not know the internal implementation of the tool (e.g. is OpenGL used, ..) I can't say what info is needed. Perhaps Adobe has some internal test tools, we could execute or they need the list of the running processes, a memory dump, a list of all system drivers, ...

To my opinion we should provide this information in a structered way, meaning not some handwritten text but "dumps" and (Lightroom) log files from our system

That's why my question was if there is some Adobe engineer screening this thread and if yes, can we provide information (what and how) about our setup to "isolate" the error.

[DdeGannes]

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

The link is to the form used to report this info to Adobe but I do believe they are paying particular attention to his thread.