Lightroom Classic CC seems slower than previous Lightroom version it replaced

[brente978]

Lightroom Classic CC seems slower than previous Lightroom version it replaced.  To test the performance of the new classic update, I imported some raw pictures taken with a Nikon D810/D850 and am noticing that moving from one image to another (all with 1:1 previews) in the Develop module takes 4 seconds before the image is displayed after pressing an arrow key to move (or using the mouse to select an image).  When you move to another image, the UI is repainted first (and, i assume, the histogram calculated, etc.), and then the image is displayed on the screen.  Moving between the Library and Develop modules also results in about a 4 second delay before the image is displayed.  Moving between pictures in the Library module is almost instantaneous. 

This level of performance is unacceptable.  Doing a copy/paste of settings from one image to another takes longer in the latest Lightroom than in the previous one as the time needed to display the image seems to slow everything down, thus slowing down the entire workflow process.

Another quick test was to press the right arrow key 10 times in succession in the Develop module to move between images.  It took Lightroom Classic CC 20 seconds before the UI finally caught up and displayed the desired image.  Doing the same in the Library module takes about 3 seconds.

Or, is this just the level of performance to be expected?  Was this not tested during the beta process, or just deemed satisfactory by Adobe? 

What's the best way to get feedback directly to Adobe on this?

[122379591]

I first copy my pictures with usb 3 card reader to HD 7200rpm and then import on ssd to the catalog. In LR 2015.13 this goes realy fast and in LR classic this is more then 4 times slower.

[pixellatious]

This is hilarious, I have never had to jump through so many hoops when upgrading to a new version of LR. I deleted the old catalogs after a few days, never had to keep them before. Never had to disable GPU acceleration, never had to delete presets, never ever had issues. The fact that LR works very well for about a 10-15 minutes before it starts to fall apart in the develop module indicates to me something fundamental like a memory leak. Also it seems LR cannot handle too many threads, imagine those poor people that brought AMD Threadrippers, with 10-16 cores, 20-32 threads. As it is I have the Ryzen 7 with 16 threads and have to use a custom .lua file to limit threads to #cores+1. I’m not here to beta test Adobe’s crummy software programming. I’ve been using DxO Photolab for processing RAW’s and it’s excellent and much faster, same with C1 Pro 10.2. Hopefully Luminar will be good too, so I can dump LR if they can’t get their act together.

[RickSTJW2013]

I've read through a lot of this thread.  I noticed an immediate slow down after upgrading.  I've been a subscriber for 4 years and update as each version is released.  I've noticed slow downs moving from tab to tab as well as using the individual tools.  I have a late model iMac with 30+ gigs of RAM.  My external drives are all Thunderbolt.  I see the "apple-pinwheel" more now than I have in 8 years of using PS on a Mac.  I do not see this as a "preference" or "setting" issue.

[NasMaximus]

Majority of us with problems have I think, tried going through nearly everything we can think of.

So by now we know that it doesn't seem to be anything any of us can fix.  However, the majority of other users 'appear' to be fine with the update.

I know it's a long shot, but it kind of points to the fact that we all have something in common, a hardware or software commonality that's causing this problem, because well it can't really be random, can it?!?

Can we all post our specs and list main software here to see if we have anything in common:

OS:

• Win10 64bit - all latest updates

Other software:

• MS Office 2013 (pro)
• Adobe CC full suite all updated
• Articulate 360
• Sophos Antivirus

Hardware (Dell Precision 5510):

• Intel i7 Skylake 6700HQ 2.6Ghz (seems to be capped at 30% 0.78Ghz even when I'm doing CPU stress testing!)
• 32GB DDR
• SSD 1TB
• Onboard intel 530HD
• Nvidia M1000M Quadro display adaptor

Could you also check your CPU speed too please.  If you don't know how to do this follow these instructions:

This should work regardless of Windows OS version:

1. press Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys on keyboard - then select Task Manager from the screen
2. * or go to the start menu and type Task Manager, then select Task Manager
3. The Task Manager window should pop-up.
4. From the tabs along the top of the window select the Performance tab
5. It should display some system information on this screen and should be monitoring performance in real-time.
6. If you have the option (dependent on OS) ensure the CPU is selected.  It should state the overall CPU speed and current utilisation in a percentage and actual clock speed, for example mine was 2.6Ghz, utilisation was at 30% 0.78Ghz. 
7. Keep this window open and start up LR or something else and do something taxing and keep an eye on the CPU utilisation, it should go up, even to 100% or close to momentarily and keep going up and down while your working away. 

The reason I ask this is that I believe mine could be the issue, or at least partly the issue.  I've run 4 different stress tests, Prime 95, SisoftSandra, Cinebench and PCMark all of which should max out the CPU to 100% for the duration of the test, but mine is stuck at 30% 0.78Ghz for some reason.

[phild27006085]

It’s real simple. Regardless of platform, we were all satisfied with the performance of LR. The day I switched to Classic, my performance dropped dramatically.

A proven tool turned into a tool that affects my business.

They’ve had a couple weeks to fix this. I can’t help but believe this is deliberate on Adobe’s part - to drive us to the multi-platform LR - with less features. Why would they want to support two products in the same market?

[RickSTJW2013]

PhilD - The writing is on the wall I'm afraid.  As soon as I saw 2- versions offered, I knew the end was near for the original.  From a business standpoint, there's no practical reason to offer 2 unless you were trying to phase people into the new.  Overall, this might be a good thing.  I'm thankful for Adobe, as I use/teach all their software.  But, it's at a point in which real competition is stifled.  One of the best things about running your own business is not being tied to anything.  Lately, I've felt very "tied" to Adobe. 

FYI - I've done the same work as you describe [sports].  Albeit, you probably already know this, turn off the high speed shooting option on the camera.  Once I did that, my ability to capture the "right" shot increased incredibly.  Shooting 10 frames a second became a joke and never really gave me what I thought it would.  Good luck

[BMLynn]

Interesting.  I ran Task Manager while I was going through an edit session and like you - my processor never got above 40%.  That seems strange to me.  You have the processing power why not use it.

When I was running slow I really expected to see the CPU near 100%.

Luckily, I have only converted 1 catalog to the new version. Once I have my files edited from last week - I will switch back to 2015.

[NasMaximus]

This is interesting....  I thought maybe the CPU issue was just a coincidence with me.

What's your hardware spec and what OS are you running? 

Also try running a benchmark with task manager open and see how performance looks with that running:

Here's a simple one that should max out CPU, it's called Prime95: https://www.mersenne.org/download/

When you've downloaded it, you need to extract the archive and then just run the Prime95.exe from there. When you've opened it, it'll pop-up with an options window titled "Run Torture Test", the 3rd option will be selected by default as that tests both CPU and RAM.

We're not concerned with RAM right now, so select the second option: In-place FFTs (maximum power consumption, some RAM tested).

Click OK, and let it run, while you watch the performance in task manager. If it plateaus at 40% then it's definitely an issue.  You can stop the test at this point, no need to run it for longer than 1minute.

[skyrunr]

Hey everyone,

I'm done being their unpaid beta tester.  I reverted back to 2015.  I recommend un-installing "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic Creative Cloud" before reverting.  The CC is really just a billing scheme.  (Don't get me started on Photoshop, Elements, and Lightroom inconsistent naming.  I have them all installed on my test machine and it is rather hilarious seeing them side by side.  I worked for a national software company and KNOW what it is like to spend hours or days on things that should be very simple.) 

I went to quit creative cloud and there was a $30 fee for half the remainder of my CONTRACT!  I don't remember this, and this is also why I don't like to pay things monthly!  I would much rather pay my bill in one shot.  It is clearer what you are buyingHowever, I got two free months, so I'll use that to see if they fix Classic by then.

You can revert within the Adobe Creative Cloud application by clicking on the tiny down arrow by the install.  Even when you install the 2015 version there it has to update when that is done.  I wanted to run both to see if APLRCCC gets any updates, but that was a huge mess as the executables are both lightroom.exe and APLRCCC takes back over.  My catalog folders are a complete mess because of the changed folder structure and I have to dig around and delete all of those cache folders.   Don't forget to backup your presets if you don't have a automatic versioning backup running like BackBlaze.

PS  Elements 2018 smartfix is pretty awesome compared to LR's tone and wb madness.  I still prefer pegging levels in photoshop, but my D500 is dialed in so well I don't need that level of adjustment anymore.  It has the Camera Raw interface, and I sort of like the light table more, but I didn't at first.

good luck!

[astrosven]

I see the same issues. Not at all promised performance improvements. It got worse on my Mac with GPU enabled in particular in Develop module.

[antard]

I literally just typed into google to see if anyone else thought that the new Lightroom Classic is slow. Stunned by the results and clearly its not just me.

My own experience has been awful so far, that I thought my mac might have mad a virus but that is not the case.

So far when scrolling through Develop mode it lags and bugs out. taking 5-10 seconds to catch up on itself. I thought it was supposed to be fast, never had this problem before.

Oh and the spec of My imac.

Processor:3.4 GHz Intel Core i5

Memory: 32GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4 GB

As a wedding photographer I have processed thousands of photos before without problem, this version is awful! You are not alone in knowing that Lightroom classic is slow, very disappointed considering they said it was faster. What a major boo boo. Sort it out Adobe!!

[timofey_golenev]

I found solution for Slow previews generation problem (4-8 times slower)

In the properties there is a performance option that degrades performance:

Generate previews in "paralle"

"Paralle" will make it 4-8 times slower, instead of faster.

turned on by default on CC Classic.

It has a side effect. when You turn it off You can't work in parallel with previews generation.
I think it is caused by lower priority for the generation threads.

But, If You need 80minutes for efficient work with generated previews, and generation is much slower than Your process of review,
that it is reasonable to wait 10-20 minutes with turned this option off, instead of troublesome 80 minutes.

As suggestions for a fix for Adobe: consider user interaction in the application to be subject to lower down priority for the threads,
while user is not active, make priority higher.
If Application is on top (means no other applications really used and require immediate redraw),
optionally LR could raise priority near to real-time ( You still don't use even 70% of CPU when app is active)

Alternatively there could be "speed slider" that is easier to explain to user.
in this case user could choose between render speed and input lags.
there could be preview speed in one side of slider and user response on another. (kind of preview generation booster)

[skyrunr]

Nice find Tim, I'm staying on the 2015 version for at least a few months.  If they are going to have their users test the software then we're going to have to take that approach.  It is nice to be working again, and a real wake-up call.

The best DAM (and ANY document/file manager/viewer) I've ever had was on Windows 95 called PC Tools for Windows.  Symantic bought them out and killed the product.  It gave Windows 95 some features Windows 10 still lacks, and that was back in the days of Wordperfect v Word and Excel versus Qquatro!

[pixellatious]

Turned of the previews in parallel weeks ago and it made no difference. Localised adjustments are the worst feature for bringing the program to a halt, they cause freezes, screen blackouts, tearing. Program is totally borked.

[timofey_golenev]

Slow switching between photos in the Dev module affects users with monitors higher than full HD (1200+ pixels vertical )

if Sharping section visible by default, it takes a lot of time

to render sharping preview thumbnail (it is not cached on the disk (but cached in memory, BTW))

ex: if You click tab and have no controls displayed in the dev module ->You can see that switching is immediate.

Great, than, you can work it around until it is fixed by Adobe:

just close Sharping section and display when You need it. switching is near to immediate.
(You hardly need it displayed all the time)

I think Adobe should submit performance bugs that are not visible for Adobe QA,

but visible to huge number of customers :

for the issue in this post (slow switching between photos in the Dev module)

and two issues (spelling and performance) reported in my previous post

[mijbil250456]

I'm finding it painfully slow, not so much in the editing, but when simply moving from one image to the next in Library or Develop. if I move form one image to another, then back, I get the dreaded beachball for 30 seconds each time. This is with no editing, just simply browsing through a collection in my Library, with both smart previews and 1:1 previews already rendered. How on earth can it be so painfully slow?

[parkylondon@gmail.com]

I've been having the same issues as most everyone else here and have read through all the various responses and ideas. One thing I tried - and which seems to be doing the trick - is purging my cache in LR Classic and then switching the cache location to another drive completely. I have no idea which bit worked but something has done something and my LR is back up to speed..

Very weird but happy (at the moment) while it lasts!

[RickSTJW2013]

My iMac just updated with the new High Sierra software and LR and PS performance has improved dramatically.  It is now faster than the previous version.  Just an FYI

[Nico.Ivn]

Adobe need to pay you! Work for me for now.Thanks!

[mojo potatoes]

Changing modules seems fine enough but edits have gotten noticeably slower - and I mean any slider action takes 2 seconds to show. In previous versions I could work with my massive shoots (1500 images), without having to build the 1:1 Previews, now I definitely make that process part of my work flow too (which ultimately slows down my whole workflow because now I have to wait for those to be generated).

I'm on

I7-6700k @ 4.4ghz

32gb Ram

Geforce GTX 1060 3GB

Samsung SSD's and M.2's for days

There's no excuse honestly, Adobe. The only reason I'm still using Lightroom over Capture One is the fact that it seamlessly works with my Photoshop flow. Once that's figured out on my end, adios!

[jasonmatzphotography]

I had the same problem, was driving me insane so slow, freezing up etc. I started a chat with adobe and he removed two possibly conflicting program files and changed a couple of preferences and it's now working faster than ever. Think everyone needs to start a chat and let them sort it out, was all fixed in 15 minutes. I'm using a imac 2017 5k 1tb fusion and Wacom cintiq hd27.

[Gerry Pacher]

Hi Jason. I have the same problems and the same HW configuration. I'm glad you did solve the performance problem. What did you change? Kind regards, Gerry

[pixellatious]

What files did you remove, nothing is working for me, tried everything. Just tried Luminar 2018 and it just works fast, as does DxO Photolab and C1 Pro 10. Only LR blows chunks and I’ve done wasting hours trying inane fixes.

[Sckanksta]

I also have upgraded PC to get a faster workflow and I can report the same.

Its a watercooled

i7 8core 7820x at 4.7ghz at all cores

64gb quad channel ram

GPU 1070gtx

A couple of SSD

I went through all the tricks here but its the same. Deleting catalogs and previews and other stuff helped just a bit, but then it turns slow again. Too bad, I really like lightroom and its interface and it works so well up against PS.

I think that all these updates doesn't do any good: They need to rewrite the whole program!

All the serious competition are so much faster now, and many ppl here confirms it, so it has me start thinking....

[James Mayl]

These are the changes I have made, which have massively improved my overall workflow and image load speed:

1) Force OpenGL mode on my GFX card using the config.lua setting mentioned further up this thread

2) Put my catalog and preview files on a dedicated SSD

3) Increase the Camera Raw Cache to 100GB

4) Standard Preview Size to Auto (1920px) - the res of my main editing monitor

5) Preview Quality to High

All these made incremental improvements - however the biggest change was to exclude the following from my Anti Virus utility:

• Lightroom Catalog
• Lightroom Cache Folder
• Lightroom Previews Folder
• RAW files

This has given a massive performance improvement to the point where edits are near instant, and the develop pane performs as expected with near instant load speeds on images.

The only thing that doesn't change is the high cpu load - but it's still a good start.

Hope this helps a few of you,

James