Streamline Lightroom into a Lightroom Pro version

I feel like all this extra functionality is slowing the software down.

By @PhotoJesse

In modern software, generally if you aren’t using those features, they aren’t slowing anything down because the code never gets loaded into RAM. If you suspect something is slowing down Lightroom Classic, this will probably need more troubleshooting, and the result will be more effective than asking for a company to take away features from many people and waiting for it to actually happen.

As another example of how stuff just being there doesn’t slow things down, you can try this exercise: Open macOS Activity Monitor (it’s on every Mac), and in any of the tabs (CPU, memory…) do a Select All on the items in the list and paste them into a spreadsheet in Excel or Apple Numbers or Google Sheets. Then look at how many rows there are. The last time I did this, there were over 600 processes running on my Mac at that second. But…they aren’t slowing down the Mac.

The point of that exercise is this: From time to time, people post on various forums that they want to kill this or that background process because they are absolutely convinced it is “slowing down their computer.” But the hundreds of processes that run every day on your computer (mostly processes run by macOS itself), even when all applications are closed, are the same hundreds of processes that are active in the background when people report the ultra-fast performance benchmarks for the latest models. Because modern OSs do not blindly consume CPU and GPU cycles just because something is running or stored on the volume. Processes can be loaded but not active. For example macOS has this concept of “colaescing” where it can make low priority processes wait until a specific interval to all run together and then pause again, allowing the CPU to rest more of the time. So all those people who think they can speed up the computer by killing this or that unfamiliar background process have to face the facts that (a) what they want isn’t really necessary, and (b) if they really do want to manually turn off processes, they better start now because the list is hundreds of items long, and (c) many processes, especially those run by the OS, will restart automatically so manually killing them is a wasted effort.

The reason I talk about that is to put the request in context: If the feeling is that something has to be removed from Lightroom Classic to resolve a performance bottleneck, the big OS-wide picture is there are so many other actual running processes that could be also removed that in total probably could make a much bigger difference than removing the Slideshow module…if the presence of any of those things is actually a problem, which in reality it is probably is not.

In Lightroom Classic, I hide the modules I don’t use, so my module picker only shows Library | Develop | Map | Print. It’s also possible to hide any of the side panels you never want to see. This provides me with the “simpler, more streamlined pro version” you mentioned. And I think performance is good on my M1 generation Mac that is now over three years old.

A Lightroom truly 'Pro' offering would IMO allow multi-user use at extra cost - not trim anything off (which costs no more to include, but may cost more overall to leave out). Multi user is nontrivial (understatement) to implement when it comes to a local Catalog. That is AFAIK built off a database engine (SQLite) which is not capable of concurrent changes.

So I would agree: the opportunity for offering different product levels and pricepoints may be there for Lightroom (cloud centric), but not for Lightroom Classic (local centric). 

I'll have to agree with the other comments. I do use maps sometimes, but not some other modules, so I have simply hidden those. I see no benefit in removing modules, at the expense of people who do happen to use them. I doubt that unused modules slow down Lightroom.

You've pretty much described the other Lightroom.

"Adobe can barely keep what they have propped upright and working, even with billions in profits"

They have billions in profits partly because they're extremely hard nosed about engineering costs, doing just enough to maintain their market dominance and no more.

I'm pretty cynical: Adobe stopped supporting Map, Book, Slideshow, and Web many years ago. They stopped implementing new features and they don't fix most bugs, even egregious ones. But if you don't use those modules, then they don't affect your use of Library and Develop (no such bug reports posted here).

So introducing a streamlined version would have little practical effect, other than making the installer download smaller -- Adobe wouldn't free up much resources for other purposes, and users who don't use those modules wouldn't see any large benefits.

Personally, I like having Map integrated with Library. I do sell a little-bought plugin that provides 2K and 4K video presets for Slideshow, but I don't use Slideshow myself -- it's always been flaky and temperamental for me. And I've used other services for making books.

Adobe can barely keep what they have propped upright and working, even with billions in profits. I'd rather they have fewer things not more. What we need is ONE version of Lightroom that actually works properly.

So, you want a personalized version containing only Lib and Dev?

Then do I get one with Lib, Dev, Map, and Print?

But my buddy should then have one with Lib, Dev, and Map but not print?

In both the library module and develop module, you can choose which panels not to display. That might simplify things for you. In the module picker (upper right corner) you can choose any module(s) to not be displayed. I don't think those modules slow down LrC when not in use.

As for dealing with thousands of images from events, have you looked at Photo Mechanic? You can use Photo Mechanic to quickly whittle down those thousands of images to just the ones you want to process in LrC, eliminating the much slower process of importing, creating previews and culling in LrC.

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