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jbinco
Inspiring
June 6, 2022
Question

What does the Preference to "Generate Previews in Parallel" do?

  • June 6, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 6232 views

I cannot find any definition of what this option is doing?  How does this option effect performance?

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1 reply

John Waller
Community Expert
John WallerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 6, 2022

https://lightroomguy.com/lightroom-classic-preferences-catalog-settings/

"Preview Generation Settings > Generate Previews in parallel

Set this feature ON

By setting this feature to ON you can speed up the processing of previews during the import process. In this case, Lightroom will attempt to generate more than one preview at a time. In other words, it will try and process multiple previews in parallel rather than sequentially.

This feature works better with computers with more processing cores. Laptop users may want to keep this turned off, especially if the computer starts to really slows down and/or starts to get very hot."

    J
    jbincoAuthor
    Inspiring
    June 6, 2022

    I appreciate the link and the info.  Now I'm wondering what the source of that person's information was.  I was hoping to find "official" Adobe documentation on this. 

    Does this parallel processing continue after the images are imported until all imported images have a new preview? 

    Does this parallel processing consume all available physical cores?  Logical cores?

    Does this rely on enabling Intel hyperthreading BIOS options?

    TheDigitalDog
    TheDigitalDog
    Inspiring
    June 6, 2022

    From the "Lightroom Queen FAQ" which is about as close to an official Adobe response there is (and worth getting):

     

    Generate Previews in Parallel

    If you have a fast computer, enabling

    Preferences > Performance > Generate Previews in Parallel allows multiple previews to be generated concurrently, rather than one at a time. It can, however, have a detrimental effect on interactive performance, so it's best used if you're not going to be using the computer while the previews are building.

     

    Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
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