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Buddym7
Participant
September 1, 2018
Answered

Lightroom classic slow switching between imported photos in develop mode?

  • September 1, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 1906 views

New here and not very experienced with Adobe so go easy lol and sorry if this has been covered.  I have Lightroom classic and have imported 200ish raw photos 25-30mb photo size.  When I'm in develop mode switching from picture to picture to compare images it's painfully slow for it to load the clarity of the image and then when I go back to the other image same thing takes like 7 seconds to load the clarity.  This is just switching back and forth between two images takes a long time for it to load then same problem when I switch back to other image.  I read Abobe having slow problems but pretty sure it's not as bad as what I'm dealing with if anyone can help please.   Frustrating trying to develop photos waiting 5-10 seconds for picture to load just to compare two images to see which one is better.  Thank you in advance for your help.  

    Correct answer Ian Lyons

    Unfortunately, 4GB of ram isn't going to be nearly enough with Lightroom, especially in Develop mode. The 'recommended' minimum is 8GB, but 16GB would  be better.

    3 replies

    M
    Marian_C
    Participant
    July 28, 2025

    Resizing the window was the only thing that worked for me.

    Nothing else made a difference. On macOS, everything runs perfectly. But on Windows, it's a frustrating experience. It seems Adobe still can’t scale properly on high-resolution displays, and performance suffers—especially when it comes to RAM handling. This has been a persistent issue for years, and it’s still not fixed.

    Honestly, it’s another reason to consider moving away from Adobe products.If you're using a 4K screen or higher, the only workaround I found was to resize the Lightroom window to half its size. That instantly improves image loading speed in Develop mode. Library mode works fine because it doesn’t need to load masks and all the detailed adjustments.

    V
    VincentAC
    Participant
    September 1, 2018

    Yeah, I am having the same issues as of a month or two, now, and am ready to give up on LR. It can take upwards of a minute to handle similarly sized RAW images, and has become almost complete useless. With LR on, all the rest of my apps get bogged down, too. I'm well past minimum performance specs, too.

    johnrellis
    johnrellis
    Legend
    September 1, 2018

    Two quick troubleshooting steps that help many (but certainly not all or even most) users with performance issues in Develop:

    - Uncheck the option Preferences > Performance > Use Graphics Processor.

    - On Windows, update your graphics driver by going directly to the manufacturer's Web site: Adobe Lightroom GPU Troubleshooting and FAQ

      Ian Lyons
      Community Expert
      Ian LyonsCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      September 1, 2018

      It would be useful to know:

      1. What operating system you're using

      2. CPU

      3. How much ram you have

      4. Is catalog on SSD or spinning hard-drive

      B
      Buddym7Author
      Participant
      September 1, 2018

      Hi Ian.

      My PC specs...

      Windows 7 Professional

      Intel Core 2 Duo CPU  E8400 @ 3ghz

      4GB Installed Ram (3.84GB usable)

      Program is running off the harddrive no disk.

      Thanks,.

      Ian Lyons
      Community Expert
      Ian LyonsCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      September 1, 2018

      Unfortunately, 4GB of ram isn't going to be nearly enough with Lightroom, especially in Develop mode. The 'recommended' minimum is 8GB, but 16GB would  be better.

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