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RobertSmits
RobertSmits
Inspiring
March 28, 2018
Answered

Lightroom Classic CC slow (what else?)

  • March 28, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 7061 views

Hi All,

I know this is a question that everyone is asking, but I have seen performance improvement with the release of LR Classic CC? only to have it slow down again after some updates.

On my Desktop, LR is workable, I have one master Catalog, with around 90.000 images in, mostly RAW files. Desktop is: Intel Core i7-4930K CPU @3.40GHz - 3.70GHz, 32GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX770 2GB (Dual EIZO screens), WIN10.

On my Laptop however, I only keep a small working catalog, which is what I am shooting on the day/holiday, typically, LR catalog will not exceed 1.000 photos, as I do all my culling in PhotoMechanic 5, as LR is a nightmare for culling.  My Laptop, is a Dell XPS15 (i7-6700HQ Quad Core, 6MB Cache - 3.5GHz) with a 15.6 inch 4K Ultra HD screen (with touch), 16GB RAM and Geforce GTX 960M 2GB GDDR5 GPU).

Lightroom bogs down and I often get the program to go into "not responding"-mode. Despite knowing LR is slow, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and blame my laptop.  I used a fresh WIN10 install (without all the Dell bloatware on it) and only installed programs on it that I will use often and mainly for photos. (Photoshop CC, Lightroom Classic CC (not LR mobile), Photomechanic).  And still, Lightroom doesn't improve on speeds... I have tried to disable the GPU, enable it again, doesn't seem to speed up any work in LR. PS seems to be a lot more responsive.

I often go on underwater photographic trips and have noticed that the LR version of MAC is a lot faster, even for culling.  My Dell XPS has similar, if not better specs than even a recent MacBook Air or even the Pro version, and it is still slower.  As said, even culling in the Library Module (not full screen, just "E"), is loading images fast on Mac, but hangs and gives "not responding" on pc.  Also exporting the images (even if only 20 images), it will stop responding at least 5 times, if not more!

I am using a Canon 5D mk iii (24MP) and a Canon 5D mk iv (30MP, not even used Dual Pixel Raw), I used to convert to .dng, but stopped doing that and am only using the native .cr2 files, as I have had issues with dng - and - for cloud based backup, a dng file will have to reupload every time, in stead of the small xmp sidecar file.

I feel I have tried everything that I have looked up, read about, heard, but LR remains unworkable. The specs of the laptop should be more than enough to keep it running smoothly. CPU is not maxed out at 100%, nor is the RAM when LR throws itself into a fit..

Hoping someone can help me to sort this out... Sorry about the tone, but this is going on for almost 2 years and it is very frustrating!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer dj_paige

By the way, as far as I was aware, the model I chose, is the one with the fastest CPU and even opted for the XPS15 over the XPS13, as the 15 has a dedicated GPU, which would be better for LR/PS, and a faster CPU.  I have the 512GB SSD version, over the 1TB version, as I don't need that much storage on my laptop.  It typically only contains one shoot/holiday, so I have a lot of space free, as to not bog down the system any further...


Large screen (4K) monitors such as yours, large image files, and relatively slow CPUs are situations where the slowdown like you are experiencing can occur, even if you do no editing, the processor has lots of work to do just generating previews. Lots of brushing and/or spot healing make the problem worse.

I am guessing that spec-wise, the laptop should be more than adequate?

But you told me the exact CPU, and you can easily look up benchmarks on this CPU. It is not fast by today's standards, and more importantly, it seems like it is too slow for your large screen monitor and large image files, based on your own observations of speed.

As an experiment, can you set the monitor to a lower resolution, say 1920x1080? Then take some photos and import them and do some editing (but no brushing and no spot healing), is the problem improved?

4 replies

S
Scott E.36141900cm8m
Participant
March 18, 2024

Faaawk! What are you talking about and why? How long did it take you to type all that nonsense. Really? 

GoldingD
GoldingD
Legend
March 18, 2024
quote

Faaawk! What are you talking about and why? How long did it take you to type all that nonsense. Really? 


By @Scott E.36141900cm8m

Seriously? This crud on a six year old post?

 

Please see:

Adobe Community Guidelines

Community How-To Guide - Tips & Best Practices

 

djuncheg117156386
djuncheg117156386
Inspiring
February 10, 2020

Just have mouse lag issue in LR Classin in 2020. No other soft with this problem and no any problem with this PC, but LR still terrible optimized - its just how Adobe work now and ever. 

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
March 30, 2018
Lightroom bogs down and I often get the program to go into "not responding"-mode. Despite knowing LR is slow, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and blame my laptop.  I used a fresh WIN10 install (without all the Dell bloatware on it) and only installed programs on it that I will use often and mainly for photos. (Photoshop CC, Lightroom Classic CC (not LR mobile), Photomechanic).  And still, Lightroom doesn't improve on speeds...

Same software after re-install, no speed improvement? Why could that be? You have ruled out software, so the next likely reason is because your hardware is slow. In particular, the i7-6700HQ is a relatively slow CPU by today's standards.

Also, are you doing a lot of brushing and/or a lot of spot healing?


What size in pixels (and not inches) is the monitor on this computer?

RobertSmits
RobertSmitsAuthor
Inspiring
March 31, 2018

Hi dj_paige, thanks a lot for your answer.  Before the re-install of Win 10 (ultimate I think), there was a lot of Dell Bloatware still on, and I had some other software on there too.  With re-installing everything, I made sure I only kept the "bare" minimum software.  I have on : PhotoMechanic, Lightroom Classic CC, Photoshop CC Adobe Creative Cloud, Bullguard, Winrar, Microsoft Office 2010 (Excel, Word, OneNote, PowerPoint), hide.me VPN, Datacolor screen calibration software, Loupedeck, Teamviewer 13, Wacom tablet and Whatsapp desktop messenger.

I am guessing that spec-wise, the laptop should be more than adequate? I assume most people edit on machines with far lower specs? Do you know if you can easily swap out the CPU of the Dell Laptop to a faster one?

That's the thing... I do get that the system slows down when doing spot healing and brushing, but even when I have culled my images in PM and import them into Lightroom (I generally use a preset for importing, depending on what I have been shooting) and even then, the system is slow.  Example from last weekend : I did a newborn/day-in-the-life shoot and had around 1100 images, after culling, I kept 249 images, which I imported with a preset that does:

+.50 exposure

-60 highlights

+5 shadows

-40 whites

+5 blacks

-20 Clarity

-5 Luminance

-5 Saturation

That's it.  When in the Grid view (so I haven't done anything else), and I just use my arrow keys to move left and right, I can move over 2 images and then LR goes into it's 'non-responding' state for about 20-30 seconds, then I can usually move another 1 - 3 images, before it goes into that state again.  I have tried restarting LightRoom, restarting my laptop, disabling and not using my Loupedeck device (which works snappy and fast on the desktop),.. But to no avail.

This means the RAW files (from Canon 5Diii and 5Div), in .Cr2 (typically around 30-50MB per file), are basically unedited.  I even tried just to import the files and go from there, but that is no help either.

I have also completely deleted LightRoom and re-installed from the CC, but no help (which would be odd, seeing that I completely formatted my laptop a few months ago, as I thought it might be the Dell Bloatware causing the issue).  If needed, I can send you a geekbench test?

The screen res is 3840*2160 (it's the UltraSharp 4K Ultra HD resolution Touchscreen).

RobertSmits
RobertSmitsAuthor
Inspiring
March 31, 2018

By the way, as far as I was aware, the model I chose, is the one with the fastest CPU and even opted for the XPS15 over the XPS13, as the 15 has a dedicated GPU, which would be better for LR/PS, and a faster CPU.  I have the 512GB SSD version, over the 1TB version, as I don't need that much storage on my laptop.  It typically only contains one shoot/holiday, so I have a lot of space free, as to not bog down the system any further...

RobertSmits
RobertSmitsAuthor
Inspiring
March 28, 2018

Sorry, forgot to mention : I am using version 7.2, ACR version 10.2

I have set my Camera Raw-cache to 50GB

All running software should be updated.

I also tried editing with smart previews, without smart previews, with 1:1 previews, without them and standard previews.  It doesn't seem to improve speed.

RobertSmits
RobertSmitsAuthor
Inspiring
March 30, 2018

No one can offer any help?

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