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Hi, I've used Lightroom 9.4 for work for years and after upgrading the drive of my Mac (HDD to SSD, upgraded from Mojave to Ventura), I've had to reinstall all of my programs. I've tried the latest Lightroom, as well as Lightroom 10, and they've been incredibly slow and ruined my workflow. This is my livelihood and I'm desperate for any version of Lightroom 9. I've contacted customer care and they suggested that I ask here. Please help me figure out what to do.
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If you want v9.4 then call Adobe back and request a link.
They sent you to this community site to offload your issue onto the grace of fellow customers. Perhaps in a hope that members can help you get your LrC to work. Not to ask for v9.4 as they now we are not Adobe, etc.
As you probably have found out, using the Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop App, will not provide you with a copy LrC, that far back from the current version.
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Thanks for your responses. I've tried to no avail with several agents - they say it's no longer supported and they can't share it, which I think is utterly ridiculous. Do you mean actually call? Because that I haven't tried! Only online chat.
They gave me installers for 10 and 11 but I learned from 10 that it would work fine if it didn't have bugs. On MacOS, the interface and scrolling are unusually slow. Apparently these issues were recognized and remedied by 10.3 but they still say it's unavailable now and I'm stuck with only the base version. I've run around in all kinds of circles with them trying to get installers for 9.4 or 10.3 yet they refuse.
I tested the latest version of 13 and it's slow in the sense that it's bloatware. I edit hundreds of images individually daily and it's not feasible to go through so many extra hassles for simple features when earlier versions were much more stream-lined and suited for my needs. Tomorrow I'll be trying the latest version of 12, since I haven't yet. I truly hope it's my answer somehow because I feel pretty defeated.
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@laurent60700078 wrote:
I tested the latest version of 13 and it's slow in the sense that it's bloatware. I edit hundreds of images individually daily and it's not feasible to go through so many extra hassles for simple features
Can you say what it is about 13 that seems bloated and extra hassle? Because a lot of us here benefit from the additional productivity in the latest versions, and would never go back to the way it was before. The new masking alone is saving me a lot of time.
Also it would be interesting to know what kind of hardware it is running slow on. I am on an M1 Pro MacBook Pro (released over two years ago already), and my 150,000+ image catalog runs great in version 13.
@laurent60700078 wrote:
I've tried to no avail with several agents - they say it's no longer supported and they can't share it, which I think is utterly ridiculous.
That may be. But for future reference, it has been the published policy (link below): They now only support the last two major versions of Creative Cloud apps. So we have to plan and work with that in mind.
https://helpx.adobe.com/support/programs/cc-support-policy.html
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Funnily enough it's the masking tool! I use many local adjustments per image and edit each image in a minute or less. I don't know how to get it to do what I need it to do in the time I need. The brush tool in versions 9 and 10 worked for me. I'm willing to learn, but it's difficult when I actually have to work as well. I'd really like to be able to use the latest version, especially to avoid this same situation in the future. Today I'm still going to try one of the newer versions again and see how it goes. I've wasted enough time trying to get old versions and accepted that I simply can't pick up where I left off and my workflow is going to have to change.
My catalog is freshly created, but I regenerate new ones and delete old ones frequently anyway. Here are my specs on a 2017 iMac: 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, Radeon Pro 570 4 GB, 32 GB memory. The biggest caveat is that it's a 5K retina display, which I've learned to work around by using a smaller window and previews, etc. It worked absolutely fine on Lightroom 9.4 for over 4 years when I had a HDD (now SSD) and only 8 GB memory. I can't justify buying an entirely new computer yet when everything was fine for me only a week ago before I had to have my drive replaced.
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This is the likely problem: Radeon Pro 570 4 GB. It is almost 7 years old now and most likely underpowered for the current LrC.
As Lightroom Classic advances, LrC uses the GPU more and more (and certainly it uses the GPU more in LrC 13 than it did in LrC 9.4).
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Yes, and now Adobe makes the software that would actually work for my hardware unavailable. So frustrating.
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Here are my specs on a 2017 iMac: 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, Radeon Pro 570 4 GB, 32 GB memory. The biggest caveat is that it's a 5K retina display, which I've learned to work around by using a smaller window and previews, etc. It worked absolutely fine on Lightroom 9.4 for over 4 years when I had a HDD (now SSD) and only 8 GB memory. I can't justify buying an entirely new computer yet when everything was fine for me only a week ago before I had to have my drive replaced.
By @laurent60700078
Yeah, I see the issue, and you deserve sympathy, although that might not be enough to shift Adobe policy.
Not your fault in the least, your last iMac was an excellent choice at the time, and that was a decade when Macs and PCs were not changing all that much from year to year. But in the last 5 years, there has been a lot more change than usual. Cameras with a lot more megapixels came out, and they were straining the existing raw photo editors and computers. At the same time, CPUs and GPUs started to add a lot more cores, so software companies said “hey, let’s update the software to take advantage of all that power.” So the software started expecting that kind of power to be there, the system requirements went up, and older computers seemed a lot slower. For example, the new masks do depend on the kind of graphics hardware in current Macs and PCs, and run a lot slower on computers more than a few years old. And then the new hardware made AI practical (which drives some of the new masks), but older computers couldn‘t keep up.
I can see some of the same problems you do, in my old Mac, a 2018 Intel quad-core MacBook Pro. When you reach the point that you can upgrade to an Apple Silicon Mac, it’s going to be like night and day. For example, even the cheapest and oldest M1 Mac has 8 CPU cores, and the graphics are a lot more flexible and can use more memory. Those first Apple Silicon Macs are now 3.5 years old, so software companies are writing for that and the newer Macs.
As an extreme example, the new AI Denoise feature can take several minutes per image on my 2018 Intel Mac, but on my 2.5-year-old Apple Silicon Mac it takes less than one minute, and the newest Macs can do it in 15-20 seconds. That’s how far the Mac GPUs have come in the last few years.
When you can afford to buy something newer, know that even buying a decent previous generation Mac that is now heavily discounted (for example, M2 Pro or M2 Max instead of the latest M3) will be a huge step up for you. In the meantime, yes, the best solution for a 2017 iMac is probably the earlier version you want of Lightroom Classic. Unfortuntely, any of us posting here who do not work for Adobe don’t have a way of making that available. Hope somebody comes to your rescue somehow.
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Update
I've tried Lightroom Classic 12.5.1 and it performs similarly to 10, giving me the same issue. I'm beginning to think the scrolling and interface issues might not entirely be related to Adobe, but Ventura or (obviously) in combination with my hardware. I don't have major performance issues actually editing or anything else, just navigating the program.
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In your original post, you said "incredibly slow" but didn't tell us what actions in LrC are slow. Now you are saying the problem is navigating the program ... please be specific and detailed on exactly what steps are "incredibly slow". Now that you tell us the problem is not editing, I believe the GPU is NOT the problem.
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Sorry, I clarified in my second post saying, "On MacOS, the interface and scrolling are unusually slow. " but I should've been specific initially. The masking feature is also slow to me in the sense that it takes more steps to do than it did before and the window/interface is clunky, albeit I'm willing to adjust and hopefully I'll find the best way to utilize it the more I use it.
After doing some trial and error, I've discovered that when generally scrolling along the adjustments menu, it scrolls normally when I hover the mouse over the scrollbar rather than the entire menu. It gets choppy when I hover and scroll vertically over the adjustments altogether (no issues with the sliders on the adjustments themselves.) This wasn't the case in 9.4 on Mojave and since I work very quickly, it's a noticeable difference and a major annoyance with my workflow. Now that I've figured out a slight workaround and know that it's likely not going to be solved through any other software version, I'm just going to suck it up and deal with it until I eventually get a new setup.
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I've discovered that when generally scrolling along the adjustments menu, it scrolls normally when I hover the mouse over the scrollbar rather than the entire menu. It gets choppy when I hover and scroll vertically over the adjustments altogether (no issues with the sliders on the adjustments themselves.)
Are you talking about the History Panel in the Develop Module here?
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I'm referring to the Develop panel on the right, however it seems the same issue is present on the left panel with Navigator, History, etc.
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As to help from members. About your LrC performance issues. Can you reply back with the following:
1. Your System Information as LrC reports it. Click on Help, then System Information. Copy that information and post in your reply. Typically the info after the plug-in info is of not much use, so you might want to not include that. Or if you do, then attach that info as to prevent your reply from being so very very long (think scrollspace and likelihood a member will stop reading and move on)
2. While the System Info will include the library path, include info on the volume your catalog is on, looking for % free space.
3. While the system info sort of includes info on Camera RAW CACHE, it is a bit muddled, So how large do you let the camera RAW CACHE to get?
4. Screen captures and/or video captures that help describe the issue.
4. A description of how LrC is failing, what is slow, what are you doing that may trigger the performance drop.
5. A item by item list of what you have attempted to fix the problem
6. Any crash reports you get (best as an attachment, they get awfully long)
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Hi, I've used Lightroom 9.4 for work for years and after upgrading the drive of my Mac (HDD to SSD, upgraded from Mojave to Ventura), I've had to reinstall all of my programs. I've tried the latest Lightroom, as well as Lightroom 10, and they've been incredibly slow and ruined my workflow. This is my livelihood and I'm desperate for any version of Lightroom 9. I've contacted customer care and they suggested that I ask here. Please help me figure out what to do.
By @laurent60700078
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I have a 2015 15" MacBook Pro and can run Lightroom just fine, and its a lot less powerful than your computer. So the hardware isn't the problem.
Adobe is aggressively cutting off access to older installers. We cannot legally distribute Adobe software and if someone DID offer, its probably a cracked or hacked copy that could contain malware. So if Adobe won't give you access to an older version and you don't have a copy of the installer, you are out of luck.
Lightroom should be able to run ok, BUT... I would start thinking about upgrading your Mac. I also have an M1 Mac mini and its considerably faster than the MBP. Apple will be announcing new computers, possibly upgrading their whole line to the latest M4 processors, in probably late October or November. Your iMac still has good resale value so you can sell it and buy a newer computer. I'd wait until the product refresh and then look at refurbs which are a great deal.