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Lightroom RAM usage

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
February 17, 2019
5 replies
16125 views

Somehow LR (classic) doesn't seem to be able to use more than 8GB of RAM. Does anyone have a similar experience? Also, Is there a way to force it to use more RAM? I have the RAW files in external network storage, and that is my current bottleneck.

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Correct answer Conrad_C

No, and the reason is that RAM management has many dynamic variables on macOS and Windows. If you watch RAM usage over time, not all of the RAM used by programs is reflected in that application's own memory listing. Sometimes an application will do something that calls on a macOS function, and so the amount of RAM that goes up is not under the application like Lightroom, but in a macOS process like kernel_task. In addition, when Lightroom or any macOS application uses more RAM, some of the existing RAM it uses may end up cached, compressed, or swapped to disk, depending on what macOS decides is the most efficient use of RAM at the time. That's why Activity Monitor has those categories at the bottom of the Memory tab.

Because memory management involves multiple resources that are managed dynamically by macOS, there isn't one "lever" provided to the user to move. This is partly because macOS isn't watching one process, but all of them, as each application's demands change over a session. The reason macOS does that is so any application that asks for more RAM gets it, by managing overall RAM usage. In the old days of Mac OS 9 the user could specify RAM per application, but that severely limited the flexibility of the system. That's why Apple hasn't allowed the user to allocate application RAM for almost 20 years.

As far as Lightroom overall RAM usage, I often see it under 8GB when working on a single image, even a single large image. I've seen it rise to use much of my 16GB or 32GB RAM Macs when merging panoramas or HDR images, since many images are held in RAM to get that done.

It's also known that Lightroom will take advantage of RAM above 12GB for performance when it's called for. But I'm not sure if that applies to brushing, I think it's more about preview generation.

S

scottbare

Participating Frequently

I am having the same problems with Lightroom. I have almost 1/2 million images in the main catalog and thought that was the problem so pulled just the 14 images I needed to a sep temp catalog and still slows to a crawl with any masking. My system is Mac Pro (early 2009) , with 2x3.46 GHz 6 core processors, 128 GB RAM and ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 graphics card, catalog is local on fast ssd drive. Yet still SOOOOOoo slow. Even creating a 3500 image catalog export with established previews was dogged slow. what is up?

J

John Saxo

Participating Frequently

I found this posting because using Lr is becoming virtually impossible because of the loss of available RAM. I use a 16gb iMac 27" on macOS 10.12.6 with a 2.8ghz Intel Core i5 processor. I am not upgrading my macOS because I run several 32bit applications.

Using masking in Lr (latest version) i.e. Graduated and Radial filters plus Adjustment Brush, is tediously slow with a huge delay (wheel of death) between steps. It can take several repeated brush strokes to effect a change such as deleting a section of a mask even when not using Auto Mask. I know that Auto Mask slows down the operation which is why I try to avoid using it.

As seen in the screen shot Lr has taken well over 8gb of RAM even though all I did was to open Lr, select an image, apply a Radial Mask and then try to erase part of it using the brush (without Auto Mask). It took me about 5 minutes to erase a small section of the mask.

This cannot be right.

S

scottbare

Participating Frequently

I am having the same problems with Lightroom. I have almost 1/2 million images in the main catalog and thought that was the problem so pulled just the 14 images I needed to a sep temp catalog and still slows to a crawl with any masking. My system is Mac Pro (early 2009) , with 2x3.46 GHz 6 core processors, 128 GB RAM and ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 graphics card, catalog is local on fast ssd drive. Yet still SOOOOOoo slow. Even creating a 3500 image catalog export with established previews was dogged slow. what is up?

Just Shoot Me

Legend

Actually your comment is completely different from some others that post here about RAM usage. Most state that with certain operations LR uses ALL RAM available. But that is not so as you have seen.

What you're seeing is the nor and what others see is caused by some other system on their computers.

If Adobe changed that so LR would always use tons of RAM then there would be countless post about how LR is using to much RAM.

K

ksuelaAuthor

Known Participant

I agree, that's why I was wondering if there is a way to change the RAM usage (i.e., a .plist file) to adapt LR to my particular computer.

Conrad_C

Correct answer

Community Expert

No, and the reason is that RAM management has many dynamic variables on macOS and Windows. If you watch RAM usage over time, not all of the RAM used by programs is reflected in that application's own memory listing. Sometimes an application will do something that calls on a macOS function, and so the amount of RAM that goes up is not under the application like Lightroom, but in a macOS process like kernel_task. In addition, when Lightroom or any macOS application uses more RAM, some of the existing RAM it uses may end up cached, compressed, or swapped to disk, depending on what macOS decides is the most efficient use of RAM at the time. That's why Activity Monitor has those categories at the bottom of the Memory tab.

Because memory management involves multiple resources that are managed dynamically by macOS, there isn't one "lever" provided to the user to move. This is partly because macOS isn't watching one process, but all of them, as each application's demands change over a session. The reason macOS does that is so any application that asks for more RAM gets it, by managing overall RAM usage. In the old days of Mac OS 9 the user could specify RAM per application, but that severely limited the flexibility of the system. That's why Apple hasn't allowed the user to allocate application RAM for almost 20 years.

As far as Lightroom overall RAM usage, I often see it under 8GB when working on a single image, even a single large image. I've seen it rise to use much of my 16GB or 32GB RAM Macs when merging panoramas or HDR images, since many images are held in RAM to get that done.

It's also known that Lightroom will take advantage of RAM above 12GB for performance when it's called for. But I'm not sure if that applies to brushing, I think it's more about preview generation.

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

When available, Lightroom will and does use more than 8GB of ram. I have 64GB in my Mac Pro and a fair chunk of it is used when carrying out a large import and building previews.

As for your screenshot, it tells us no more than the amount of ram used at the time the screenshot was taken. If Lightroom had need more for the tasks you'd carried out up to that point, then it would have been allocated by the OS. I would also draw your attention to the green bar in box labelled Memory Pressure. If it stays green, then you have no problem.

ksuela wrote
I have the RAW files in external network storage, and that is my current bottleneck.

If the network storage is your bottleneck, then best you establish why and whether it can be improved. For example, check whether there is adequate bandwidth for the tasks you're carrying out.

K

ksuelaAuthor

Known Participant

OK, so I can expect that if needed LR will use more ram. I have 32 GB, and I want to use them

Also, it appears that the bottleneck is the CPU, as always, there is never enough speed.

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

ksuela wrote
OK, so I can expect that if needed LR will use more ram. I have 32 GB, and I want to use them
Also, it appears that the bottleneck is the CPU, as always, there is never enough speed.

You haven't mentioned what the CPU is or the particular model of Mac that you're using. Nor have you mentioned what you mean by bottleneck. Is it Lr is slow at importing, building previews, sluggish when using local adjustments tools, slow exports, etc. As such, it's difficult for for us to say one or or other whether your system is working as expected...

dj_paige

Legend

Lightroom does not normally need a lot of memory, with few exceptions (HDR, Panorama). So 8GB is not a bottleneck.

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