P: Large numbers of brush strokes leads to slowdowns and can cause an image's edits to reset.

[C.Cella]

In Lightroom it is impossible to edit a photo as much as we want or need, using Masking regardless of the hardware you have.

EXPLANATION 

Let's say you want to edit a photo with Masking to your heart's content OR because you need to change many aspect of the photo.

Logic tells you "we have Masking so obviously it's possible to do masking safely and as much as I want"

Reality is that in Lightroom Classic there is an "upper limit" of local edits that we can have on a photo: once we reach that "upper limit" the photo will be be reset.

So in Lr it's not possible to sue Masking as much as we want/need.

Usually if you have lots, lots of edits on an image other editing software struggle and get progressively slower and slower (if one has powerful hardware generally slowdowns don't happen or appear later) but in LR a photo can reach a point where it's no longer editable and it will be reset NO MATTER THE HARDWARE YOU HAVE.

All Masking tools (gradients, spot removal, brush, Ai, et...) contribute to reaching this "upper limit" of local edits BUT Brush is the tool that contributes the most because each strokes is made of countless of dab points that are heavy to process.

Here I have attached a preset for everyone to use.
Apply it on one of your photos that already has Masks and your photo will be reset. (Please be sure to undo, or use another another history step or Snapshot to revert back to your safely edited photo)

This "Reset Bug" is a huge problem/limitation AND as long as it exists we users will never, ever be able to use Masking as much as needed/wanted in Lr.

For the record this issue is not present in Adobe Camera Raw or other non Adobe softwares: it is totally unique to Lr.

As far as I have tested we can have "infinite" number of local edits in ACR...logically with many, many mask ACR becomes progressively slower but there is no photo reset.

Best Practice When Working in ACR and LrC using Masking

If you are doing Masking in ACR and import the photo in LrC (or import settings form disk if the photo is in the LrC catalog) then the photo will either be slower to edit OR be reset in LrC.

If a photo is resetting in LrC then you must go one step back beore the reset after that you can finish editing it in ACR but unfortunately you can't safely open/import that photo in LrC again as the edits will be unusable by LrC

Keep a Virtual Copy in LrC before you edit in ACR or import form ACR.

That Virtual Copy will be always usable in LrC.

Best Practice with Brush Tool

1. Create a new Brush Mask for every single stroke you do. This way you can delete the stroke(s) that you don't like, redo them better and go back to an editable photo when the reset happens.
2. I recommend to ONLY use Subtract as and never user Erase Brush that adds dab point but are not visible in the overlay. Subtractions are always visible in the overlay and can be deleted.
3. If you are working with Brush Density I recommend to ALWAYS keep the same Brush Density in the same Correction and ideally write it in the Correction's name. On the same correction a new brush with different Density will overwrite the previous stokes adding more dab points above the ones created but in the overlay it looks like you did fewer. It you find a that a brush at the current density is not giving you what you want then: create a new correction > use the same settings AND use Brush with a different Density in that correction.

I personally work with very low flow and keep always Density at 100 for all my corrections. When is see that a brush is not enough or too much and is not giving me the result I want I: delete it > create a different Correction with  higher/lower different settings and brush there but the Density is always at 100.

P.S.
I was the first to discover and report this back in 2017 in this thread. (The username is different but it's me)
I bring it back as a full fledged Bug Report upon request of the Adobe team so please moderators do not merge this with existing Bug reports as this needs to be traceable as a standalone.

[C.Cella]

@Rikk Flohr: Photography I have added two sections in my OP to help users with this issue.

[peterp98441593]

LR Classic 12.2.1

(i13900KF , 64GB RAM, RTX3060-12GB- Win 10 PRO 64bit)

Extensive use of a brush when masking suddenly leads to the ENTIRE set of masks disappearing from the menu with NONE of the masks / crop / adjustments whatsoever having ANY effect anymore on the image – yet, everything seems to be there still according to the protocol and you can get them back going a few step backs in the protocol, but imho this in by no means an acceptable behavior. And, yes, I do LOTS of edits and brush strokes.

I have had problems before on a different computer with brush strokes extending across the entire image where I never have been with the mouse- but this one is new.

[Sameer K]

Hey @peterp98441593. Welcome to the Lightroom Community. I'll need more info to help you figure this out.

Where do you keep the Lightroom Classic catalog? On the internal, or external drive? Are you syncing images from Lightroom Classic?

Try this:

Go to Edit > Catalog Setting > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes into XMP.

This will force Lightroom to store edits next to the raw images in an XMP sidecar file. 

Let me know how it goes. Thanks!

Sameer K

[Sameer K]

Hey @peterp98441593. Welcome to the Lightroom Community. I'll need more info to help you figure this out.

Where do you keep the Lightroom Classic catalog? On the internal, or external drive? Are you syncing images from Lightroom Classic?

Try this:

Go to Edit > Catalog Setting > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes into XMP.

This will force Lightroom to store edits next to the raw images in an XMP sidecar file. 

Let me know how it goes. Thanks!

Sameer K

[peterp98441593]

Hi Sammer, thank you for your reply.

I keep my LR catalog on an internal drive and for importing images into LR classic, I first copy the images from SD card into a file on the hard drive, and then leave the images in the file when I import  them into LR.

I have learned in the mean time that the exact same error I experience has been reported by others before. It seems to be a glitch  in the program, but I will try out if there is a way to work around by keeping the changes in the XML file (I was NOT aware that this is not done automatically, so your advice is very helpful).

Regards, Peter

[Ian Lyons]

Please check below linked bug report and report back as to whether it's same issue as you're experiencing

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-large-numbers-of-brush-strokes-leads-to-slow...

[peterp98441593]

Hi Ian,

yeah- when I wrote that "I have learned in the meantime" I was actually referring to this exact thread. I could not imagine that a bug this severe is left unattended or unresolved by Adobe for so long, so I did not even bother to search in the papyrus archives of the Adobe forum to see whether it had occured in any previous version of LRC. In the past, when experiencing slow processing, I had exported the image in its current state to a 16bit Tiff file and then continued to process the TIFF but always was annoyed that in this way, I could not fine tune adjustments for all masks in one single go. On my new computer, I think I should be way past any hardware limitation that might force me to do this. :- (

[Ian Lyons]

My understanding is that's it's design limitation imposed a long time back when hardware wasn't as capable as it is today. That being said, there are still many customers using LrC on older hardware, which 'may' explain why Adobe hasn't yet changed or removed the limitation.

The only solution that I can offer at this time is to read the guidance in the first post of the thread I linked to above. The author of that guidance has spent many hours/days developing a workflow to minimise the likelihood of LrC resetting edits.

I appreciate that above is not the response that you would hope for or expect, but at this time there isn't a pending fix.

Note that this thread may well be merged into the thread linked above.

[peterp98441593]

I am fine with merging the thread with the one linked above. What I still do not understand is why there is no way to get rid of the many dabs - like, once a mask is considered "ok", why can't it at least be consolidated into ONE single mask having the same dimensions as the image? sigh....programs like Capture One just became incredibly more attractive for me.

[C.Cella]

@peterp98441593 

You can use Adobe Camera Raw to finish your editing as ACR doens't have the "edits table" limit that LrC has.

As I said in my OP bear in mind you will NOT be able to load/see/use ACR edits done in LrC so you must finish the job in ACR and export a final TIFF with the edits.

Rather than switch to Capture One stick to the Adobe family when problems arise.

My hope is that the LrC team will fix this bug and bring performance parity with ACR.

Add your vote to increase the chance for a fix to be prioritized.

.

[balatre41]

Bonjour,

J'ai une photo qui au-delà d'un certain nombre de modifications dans le menu développement perd toute trace de ses modifications et revient au format NEF d'origine sans aucune modification. Les modifications de la même photo enregistrée par caméra raw via photoshop fonctionnent.
J'ai désinstallé puis réinstallé LRC sans que cela change quoi que ce soit.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Can you be more specific about the changes? For example: is it Brush Strokes?

[balatre41]

Les modifications ont été faites par masquage et pinceau

[Ian Lyons]

@Rikk Flohr: Photography 

I believe this is the same issue as @C.Cella  has reported

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

It looks like it is. I will merge it in. 

[balatre41]

Je crois en effet qu'il s'agit du même cas.
Il est donc regrétable que ce dernier n'ait pas été pris en considération...

[Redauser]

I am having the same problem, I have a pretty good PC (AMD 5900X, 64GB RAM, 2TB M2 and a 3080ti), and when I work with ~10 masks, the whole program becomes an unusable mess.

If I monitor the performance, it's using 20GB of RAM, 5% CPI , and 10/20% GPU.

The resources are definitively enough, I also granted 40GB RAM to the program, so it should have more than enough.

However, only when I work the masks it slows down. In all other settings, it works flawlessly. It also happened that I was trying to add further brush strokes and LrC didn't add them. I had to restart the program to continue.

Cheers

[C.Cella]

@Redauser 

You can edit the images in ACR or even LrCC local mode.

If there are no slowdowns then you will have confirmation/proof that the issue is only with LrC.

Before editing the images in ACR or LrCC create a Virtual Copy in LrC as I detailed in my OP.

.

[Redauser]

Hi thanks for your answer! How do you edit a local file with LrCC? I thought it worked only for cloud files 😕

I feel a little dumb right now 🙂

I will test it asap!

[GoldingD]

The thread in this post has gotten a bit long, so I may have missed the following (if it was already brought up)

This via a completely different post having little to do with the subject at hand, otherr than, perhaps tunning out of space.

Inquiry: How large do you allow your Camera RAW CACHE to get?

The default 5 GB? As in way way too small

or something more on the lines of 20 GB?? Probably the proper bare bones minimum (I would go for more like 70 GB)

AND

Has the Camera RAW CACHE been filled up, at the max you selected?

Perhaps purging the CACHE will help????

[C.Cella]

@Redauser LrCC has a Local Mode in which you can browse files and edit them...access it on the upper left corner.

It's a file browser just as Bridge but with more seamless direct editing.

LrCC has no Snapshots so you might want to use ACR if you use Snaps during your workflow.

Editing wise all the 3 apps are the same, they all use the Camera Raw engine.

 LrCC and ACR have no edits limit NOR  have poor performance with masking like LrC.