Remove tool performance issues

[DavidH77]

I'm stunned how much of a delay there is when starting to paint over an area using the Remove tool. The behavior is often random. Sometimes it takes several seconds before it even accepts any mouse/pen input drawing over an area, sometimes it is alost instant. I tried to see if I can see a pattern. Definitely if I move to the next photo and start removing objects, it's slow. Sometimes it gets faster after the first delay, but sometimes the delays happen again on the same photo I've been working on for a while.

The remove tool always had performance issues in Lightroom since I can remember. I understand it needs to decode the raw data first to be able to determine the area I'm trying to remove, but also a greater area to find a good source to clone from. But here is the thing, when I start drawing over an area I want to remove/clean up, the software doesn't need to do anything but draw an overlay showing the brush stroke. It doesn't need to process anything. Let me just draw the area out. This cannot take up any significant CPU/GPU time. Only once I let go (finish drawing) the software can start processing. If it takes a while, so be it. The annoying and frustrating part is when it won't let me draw the area. It litterelly won't follow the mouse/pen movement for seconds. Obviously Lightroom can do this flawlessly when drawing mask with a brush. They have no delay and zero lag.

My system is a MacBook Pro M1 max with 64 gb RAM. It definitely is not the laptop being old or slow as Lightoom can accept drawing the remove brush very fast some of the times. Just 50% of the times it isn't because it wnts to do something in the background that is unneccessary when just drawing the area.

If anyone has a solution, I'd love to hear.

[Ian Lyons]

Can you be more specific about which one of the Remove options is slow?

Can you laos provide your 'System Info'. This can be obtained from the LrC Help > System Info menu item

[DavidH77]

Here is what I mean:

Hit D (Develop)

hit Q (Remove tool)

hit Z  to zoom in to 100% on an area you want to remove something from

start painting over the area. Lightroom will mark the area you paint with a white outline. But often, there is a second long delay before it accepts any more/pen input.

Move to a different area in the photos, still at 100% zom level. Start painting again. See if it causes a delay.

It gets fast and basically real time when you work on just one photo. But if you have many photos to work thought and go go from photo to photo and you have to remove smething from each, the delay will happen more often than not.

Below is my system info. I don't think it is relevant as the system can handle the remove tool draing just fine, just not all the time.

Lightroom Classic version: 13.3 [ 202405092057-40441e28 ]
License: Creative Cloud
Language setting: en-US
Operating system: Mac OS 14
Version: 14.5.0 [23F79]
Application architecture: arm64
Logical processor count: 10
Processor speed: NA
SqLite Version: 3.36.0
Power Source: Plugged In, 49%
Built-in memory: 65,536.0 MB
Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 5,582.6MB / 49,152.0MB (11%)
Real memory available to Lightroom: 65,536.0 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 14,386.8 MB (21.9%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 431,592.5 MB
Memory cache size: 4,449.2MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 16.3 [ 1863 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2
Camera Raw virtual memory: 1412MB / 32767MB (4%)
Camera Raw real memory: 1410MB / 65536MB (2%)

Cache1:
Preview1- RAM:22.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-929.NEF
Preview2- RAM:22.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-979.NEF
Final3- RAM:446.0MB, VRAM:1,292.0MB, Olivia-955.NEF
Preview4- RAM:22.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-920.NEF
Final5- RAM:352.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-947.NEF
Final6- RAM:352.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-956.NEF
Preview7- RAM:22.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-958.NEF
Preview8- RAM:22.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-986.NEF
Preview9- RAM:22.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-938.NEF
Preview10- RAM:22.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-910.NEF
Preview11- RAM:22.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Olivia-968.NEF
NT- RAM:1,326.0MB, VRAM:1,292.0MB, Combined:2,618.0MB

Cache2:
m:4,449.2MB, n:2,301.0MB

U-main: 233.0MB

Standard Preview Size: 3456 pixels
Displays: 1) 3456x2234

Graphics Processor Info:
Metal: Apple M1 Max
Init State: GPU for Export supported by default
User Preference: Auto

Application folder: /Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic
Library Path: /Users/davidhofmann/Pictures/Lightroom/full-v13-3.lrcat
Settings Folder: /Users/davidhofmann/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom

Installed Plugins:
1) Nikon Tether Plugin
2) Pic-Time

Config.lua flags:

[Ian Lyons]

There are no issues that I can see in the System Info. The memory used by the GPU is what I would expect and the GPU itself appears to be configured for optimum peformance.

When using 100%, the new caching used in the Develop module should actually be helping, but you seem to be describing the oppoiste. It's certainly been my experience on Macs from M1 Mac mini, MacBook Air M3, MacBoook Pro M3 Max and Mac Studio M1 Ultra that the new Develop module caching is more help than not. So, not sure what's going on with your system.

Was this issue present in LrC 13.2 or is it new in 13.3?

You mention uisng a Pen. Is this Wacom pen or another third party vendor? Have you checked that the drivers for the pen are up to date?

[DavidH77]

I'm using LR Classic 13.3 Release. The lags were sometimes an issue but not huge. It became realy noticable with several seconds of delays when they introduced the AI based Remove tool options as well as the object aware option. I don't remember which verson that was introduced with.  The issue is the same weather I use a the laptop's track pad with nothng else connected or with the Wacom tablet.

I'm not familiar with Lightroom's internal works. But it does seem like a caching issue. It works fast after a whie working on one photo. It has the delay when moving to a new photo. SO maybe it is still generating the data to be cached which is causing the delay. Once it is processed it's fast. I'm well aware such processes are necessary and helpful overall. It would just be helpful if, as soon as you strt paiting a remove brush, the system halts whatever it is processing and just let's the user draw the brush and resumes once you release the mouse/pen.

[DavidH77]

I just spent some time looking into this. Reading the official guied on how to make Lighroom perform better had a great clue about the remove tool. It's performance greatly improves if you do it before you make other adjustments.
My workflow was the oposite. I did all edits and adjustments and did spot removal last. If I do them first the tool performs much better and faster. There is still a delay thefirst time you use it on a new photo, but it is not nearly as bad and from there on it is almost realtime on subsequent uses on the same photo.

Thank for taking the time to respond!

[tennisnjt]

Very interesting. I was just looking into why my remove tool brush was moving SOO slowly on a new macbookpro. I was using it after I did other edits.  When I tried it on an unedited image as you suggested, it moved fast as expected.  Strange.  Hope they fix that because I usually present my clients with proof images that has some edits but not all the picky things like removing distractions. I do that after I know they want an image.  

[kailuo0D4C]

Thanks for sharing this. The performance issue of the removal tool was very annoying. This work around is helpful but only as a work around for a bug. Performance wise it really shouldn't behave differently from brushes.  Our workflow of applying other edits first makes sense because we the photographers often need to apply some big edits to see if a photo will "work out", only then do we start to work on the details of which removal tool is indispensable. 

Adobe please fix this.