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Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: msbc on June 13, 2006, 07:18:41 pm

Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: msbc on June 13, 2006, 07:18:41 pm
This is my first try at LightRoom. Is it me or do others find Beta 3 so slow that it's almost unusable?

I imported, by ref, approx 1500 5D CR2 RAW's. On the Develop tab I find making any change takse a long time e.g. choosing a different white balance setting from the drop down - approx 4 seconds. My machine is a G5 Dual 2.0 with 4GB RAM.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: 61Dynamic on June 13, 2006, 07:54:02 pm
It can take some time for LR to build the cache which can cause slowdowns if you try to use it at the same time. Look at the top right and make sure there is no processes occurring while you work.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: msbc on June 13, 2006, 07:56:24 pm
Quote
It can take some time for LR to build the cache which can cause slowdowns if you try to use it at the same time. Look at the top right and make sure there is no processes occurring while you work.
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Hi Daniel,

Yes, I checked that. After importing I closed and restarted LightRoom - no other processes were happening when I started exploring the Develop tab.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: situgrrl on June 14, 2006, 04:26:46 am
Beta 3 seems a world faster than 2 on my Macbook Pro - I get the impressions that LR is fairly hardware intensive at the moment and Jeff's article suggests there won't be a massive improvement until v1 is out...

I just changed the WB on a random file shot with an olympus e1 - took less than a second.  I've got a MBP with 2.16 ghz and only 1 gig RAM. I know the file size is smaller but surely not that much?!
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: francois on June 14, 2006, 05:35:39 am
I just tried on a PowerMac G5 dual (Mac OS X 10.4.6) and LR beta 3 doesn't seem any slower than beta 2. I've checked how long white balance takes (1D2 and 5D files) and the change is reflected on screen immediately (well, about 1 second) although the "Working..." alert stays for about 3 seconds.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: william on June 16, 2006, 08:43:04 pm
Beta 3 is also MUCH slower than Beta 2 for me as well.  (Particularly in the Develop module).  Also, I don't like the updated UI.  (I do appreciate the added functionality, though)


Quote
I just tried on a PowerMac G5 dual (Mac OS X 10.4.6) and LR beta 3 doesn't seem any slower than beta 2. I've checked how long white balance takes (1D2 and 5D files) and the change is reflected on screen immediately (well, about 1 second) although the "Working..." alert stays for about 3 seconds.
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Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: francois on June 17, 2006, 05:58:25 am
Quote
Beta 3 is also MUCH slower than Beta 2 for me as well.  (Particularly in the Develop module).  Also, I don't like the updated UI.  (I do appreciate the added functionality, though)
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I'll just add that I didn't check the export function (RAW to Tiff for example) to see if it's slower or not. Other than that, I don't find it slower than Beta 2.
One thing that might worth noting is that CPU usage stays quite high for 3-6 seconds after having changed exposure or white balance (or any other setting) in the Develop tab.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: Christopher Sanderson on June 17, 2006, 09:14:37 am
As I edit the video for LR Beta 3 Tutorial, I hear Mark Hamburg and George Jardine saying that the optimization of LR code for speed is just about the last thing the developing team does. My guess is that real speed improvements will not be realized until 1.0 ships. The reason simply is that it makes little sense to optimize for speed when the basic code is still being written/revised.

Chris S
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: digitaldog on June 18, 2006, 10:07:01 am
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As I edit the video for LR Beta 3 Tutorial, I hear Mark Hamburg and George Jardine saying that the optimization of LR code for speed is just about the last thing the developing team does.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=68389\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

True indeed (my experience with doing beta on Photoshop over the years as well). The very last build is often much faster since they bugs found have all be squashed and now becomes the time for optimization.

That said, I find b3 slower but then I'm adding a lot more images to it. It also seems that when it's "doing something" the rest of the computer bogs down and I get a lot of SBBD's (Spinning Beach Ball of Death).
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: macgyver on June 20, 2006, 03:09:30 pm
For me (PB 1.6, gig of ram) Beta 3 is too slow to use most of the time.  It takes about 5 or 6 trys for it to launch without freezing and then is painfully slow.  A big step backwards.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: benInMA on June 28, 2006, 11:38:34 am
They might not even be compiling it with the optimizer turned on, hell it might even have the debug symbols in it.

However on my machine (G4) it is simply too slow to be useful.  Unless there is a trial period for the final version I simply won't be able to spend the money they are asking to "test" it.  

Is it much faster if you let it build/maintain the library itself?   Since I was just testing it out I told it to reference my files that were already on my hard drive.  It found 16,000 files in my pictures directory, most of which are 10D images with the newer ones being 5D images.

It took 27 hours for the import to complete.  After all the processes are done it is still so slow as to be useless.  Even to click on a thumbnail and view it in the loupe it seems like it takes 10+ seconds.

I have a license for Photo Mechanic, and it's so ridiculously fast on my modest Mac compared to anything else.   It's faster for me to just use Photo Mechanic and launch Photoshop & DPP for tasks then anything else I've tried so far.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: Concorde-SST on August 01, 2006, 11:01:20 am
Hi all,

yes I can notice that LR B3 really isn´t very fast. When I was importing
a big HDD´s archive (about 9000 pics) its VERY slow and in my opinion
doesn´t uses my computer´s resources very well. I´ve got a Pmac Dual 2GHZ
with 6 Gigs of RAM and with the Activity monitor on processor levels are quite
low all the time (when updating databases).

I hope the engineers will put in more adjusting for use with big processor load
tasks, so like "use all what is left" "background" "only when computer is idle".

Just a hint!

otherwise a great program!!

best,

Andreas.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: James DeMoss on August 02, 2006, 12:37:26 am
I have Beta tested for over 20 years and trust me, stability is the foundation of any software. My dualcore 3.2ghz handles this program well, as to tasks but my 1.6ghz laptop does not do so well.

On another machine, I tried the beta MS Vista... again slow but stable. May be a sign of things to come seeing that my son-in-law at HP here in Houston says that there is resrearch machines now using dual-quad core processors.

-James
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: 61Dynamic on August 02, 2006, 10:54:15 am
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On another machine, I tried the beta MS Vista... again slow but stable. May be a sign of things to come seeing that my son-in-law at HP here in Houston says that there is resrearch machines now using dual-quad core processors.

-James
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=72375\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
That has been evident in the computer industry for a couple years now. Silicon can only advance so far and we are at the limits of what it can handle. So until new materials can replace it, multi-core CPUs (as well as more advanced architectures) are a new means of adding processing power.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: James DeMoss on August 02, 2006, 04:27:56 pm
Quote
That has been evident in the computer industry for a couple years now. Silicon can only advance so far and we are at the limits of what it can handle. So until new materials can replace it, multi-core CPUs (as well as more advanced architectures) are a new means of adding processing power.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=72393\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


 LOL, Lightroom is slow cause our systems our slow... that's all. Time to upgrade...again :-) yeay
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: glenerrolrd on August 08, 2006, 03:10:00 pm
My version of Lightroom has also become terribly slow .  When I try to walkthru images in Library it seems to take forever to bring each image into focus.   The spinning dial indicates that another operation involving the thumbnails is in process.  Initially I started with importing everything into Lightroom itself...now I pull the images into a folder on the desktop and then reference them in place.  This avoids the have two sets of images on the HD .  I expect that we have a relational database performance issue..as the number of images undermanagement increases performance degrades.   Has anybody tried to address this when establishing their indexing scheme / their workflow.  
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: Mark D Segal on August 08, 2006, 04:24:48 pm
I tried to use this program for the first time yesterday. Confession: my computer is a four-year old Dell 8200 using a Pentium 4 processor operating at 2.3 Ghz with Windows XP. (Yes I know, it's time to up-grade!) I've bench-tested this computer for PSCS2 performance and it is absolutely par for the course in its class. It handles PSCS2 and the usual essential plug-ins (PK Sharpener, Noise Ninja) OK for its class - not a speed demon, but tolerable and stable. So far the only programs I've used that occasionally cause it to hang are Adobe Bridge and Lightroom for Windows - Lightroom more so than Bridge. It takes forever to do anything in Lightroom on this computer (even slower than Bridge), so until I up-grade the computer, I shall not be using Lightroom. I'm not blaming Lightroom, just observing something a four-year gap between hardware and software really reveals: that whether optimized or not, new generations of software will severly challenge older generations of hardware, and an after-thought: perhaps the hardware need not be as relatively "old" as mine for these issues to begin to appear.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: James DeMoss on August 08, 2006, 05:24:42 pm
Quote from: MarkDS,Aug 8 2006, 03:24 PM
I tried to use this program for the first time yesterday. Confession: my computer is a four-year old Dell 8200 using a Pentium 4 processor operating at 2.3 Ghz with Windows XP. (Yes I know, it's time to up-grade!) I've bench-tested t****snipped ****

LightRoom, IMO, just is not ready to stand alone as the sole image processor. THERE IS a lot I like, much more than I dislike, but it of itself is not ready for primetime. But I will own it when it is released because it is better the a lot of RAW convertors out there

-
James
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: joedevico on August 21, 2006, 10:29:00 pm
I downloaded and installed the Beta on a PC today. I don't care which RAW converter I use as long as it does a good job of conversion. That being said, I was using RAWshooter premium and it runs many times faster on my machine that the Lightroom BETA. If it doesn't run as fast or faster (than RAWshooter) when version 1.0 is released I won't be a user. Everything in the Lightroom BETA is slow.

We'll have to wait and see once 1.0 is released (I assume with a 30-day trial). I am certainly not going to buy a new machine to do what my current machines are doing just fine already.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: Mark D Segal on August 22, 2006, 12:09:30 am
Quote
As I edit the video for LR Beta 3 Tutorial, I hear Mark Hamburg and George Jardine saying that the optimization of LR code for speed is just about the last thing the developing team does. My guess is that real speed improvements will not be realized until 1.0 ships. The reason simply is that it makes little sense to optimize for speed when the basic code is still being written/revised.

Chris S
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=68389\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Chris this makes alot of sense, and won't matter for people with super up-to-date, fast computers, but for the rest of us, the whole idea of releasing the Beta versions is lost on us because it is so painful to use that it is better to skip the experience - which deprives Adobe (at least from those of us with "slow" machines) of the feedback they wanted by releasing it in this form. Anyhow, so be it, they'll probably get enough feedback from those who can use it efficiently, and the rest of us will wait till we either have better computers or they have optimized the program.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: James DeMoss on August 22, 2006, 09:43:33 am
Quote
Chris this makes alot of sense, and won't matter for people with super up-to-date, fast computers, but for the rest of us, the whole idea of releasing the Beta versions is lost on us because it is so painful to use that it is better to skip the experience - which deprives Adobe (at least from those of us with "slow" machines) of the feedback they wanted by releasing it in this form. Anyhow, so be it, they'll probably get enough feedback from those who can use it efficiently, and the rest of us will wait till we either have better computers or they have optimized the program.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=74045\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


No one doubts that LR is slow, but I think some of the RAW conversion are simply superior to ANY other contenders offered to date. That fact alone qualifies LR as now.

Instead of of us all lamenting about the speed, how well are your images being interpreted. LR has certainly, IMO, minimized additional time in PhotoShop. That says alot, even in LR's current state..

I just really think too many have focused on the one issue, which is a non-issue, because LR is doing what it is supposed to do - and it does lack a few things yet.... but I do not want this program to be another PhotoShop.  
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: Mark D Segal on August 22, 2006, 10:16:32 am
Quote
No one doubts that LR is slow, but I think some of the RAW conversion are simply superior to ANY other contenders offered to date. That fact alone qualifies LR as now.

Instead of of us all lamenting about the speed, how well are your images being interpreted. LR has certainly, IMO, minimized additional time in PhotoShop. That says alot, even in LR's current state..

I just really think too many have focused on the one issue, which is a non-issue, because LR is doing what it is supposed to do - and it does lack a few things yet.... but I do not want this program to be another PhotoShop. 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=74086\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

James, there is slow and there is slow.........when I talk about slow I'm talking about a program almost grinding my machine to a stop. This is completely unworkable regardless of how good the program is. Anything you do in Lightroom can be done in Photoshop, and for experienced Photoshop users it remains to be seen whether one workflow will necessarily be more efficient than the other - much will depend on the user and the particularities of the image processing requirements. But I agree - from what I have seen, basically Lightroom is a very attractive package and should more efficiently address the processing requirements of a great many people and images.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: picnic on August 22, 2006, 10:23:16 am
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James, there is slow and there is slow.........when I talk about slow I'm talking about a program almost grinding my machine to a stop. This is completely unworkable regardless of how good the program is. Anything you do in Lightroom can be done in Photoshop, and for experienced Photoshop users it remains to be seen whether one workflow will necessarily be more efficient than the other - much will depend on the user and the particularities of the image processing requirements. But I agree - from what I have seen, basically Lightroom is a very attractive package and should more efficiently address the processing requirements of a great many people and images.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=74092\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'm no apologist for LR--but hasn't it been stated pretty unequivocally (at least on the RSP/Pixmantic forums) that they know that LR is VERY slow and this will be addressed in future builds?  Also--pointed out pretty strongly not to use it for crucial work at present.  Personally, I have just imported some files to try it---and at that--have used the preference to reference them from present folders.  I'm reserving judgement--I like the idea of a freestanding RC--but I am getting quite good conversions with LR.

Diane
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: Mark D Segal on August 22, 2006, 10:29:22 am
Quote
I'm no apologist for LR--but hasn't it been stated pretty unequivocally (at least on the RSP/Pixmantic forums) that they know that LR is VERY slow and this will be addressed in future builds?  Also--pointed out pretty strongly not to use it for crucial work at present.  Personally, I have just imported some files to try it---and at that--have used the preference to reference them from present folders.  I'm reserving judgement--I like the idea of a freestanding RC--but I am getting quite good conversions with LR.

Diane
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Diane, just to be clear, no need to apologize for anything - two friends here in Toronto are using Lightroom for their final output and they are getting extremely good results with it. Both have totally up-to-date computers and they have not been troubled by the speed factor (or lack thereof).
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: andythom68 on August 22, 2006, 10:45:19 am
Quote
No one doubts that LR is slow, but I think some of the RAW conversion are simply superior to ANY other contenders offered to date. That fact alone qualifies LR as now.

Instead of of us all lamenting about the speed, how well are your images being interpreted. LR has certainly, IMO, minimized additional time in PhotoShop. That says alot, even in LR's current state..

I just really think too many have focused on the one issue, which is a non-issue, because LR is doing what it is supposed to do - and it does lack a few things yet.... but I do not want this program to be another PhotoShop. 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=74086\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hi James,

You have a valid point about the converter (it is good and I think will get better). The speed issue is central to the beta testing experience and is definitly not a "non-issue". A program that is unusable because of unacceptable response times (as preceived by some users) is a program that will not be tested by some people and that is a loss for the Beta Program.

I think there are actually 2 "speed issues": one for MACs and another for PCs. I have no experience with the MAC beta but I have been led to believe in the Adobe forums the PC version is slower and therefore less usable than the MAC version which has been in development longer and may have received some speed "tweeks" during the 3 beta releases. The PC version is much more of a "catch-up" release and really runs like a dog at the moment and is way to slow even on a good PC. I use a new Dell 9400 Dual Core 2.16GHz (2Gb RAM) and I could never consider using LR at the moment for serious work, simply because the program response is too slow. The issue for MAC users is (maybe, and this is just my opinion) more of a normal: "it's a beta what do you expect" issue and as has been hinted at will get the real optimization just prior to v1.0.

I have seen hints on the forums that Adobe are working on the issue for PC (and MAC) and because of that I would not be surprised if we saw some sort of improvement with the next beta release.

Is there anyone here who has used both the PC and MAC versions and able to compare on the relative speed of each with similar equipment? Or, is there a member of the Adobe LR team reading these posts that could comment on the speed difference (if there is indeed one and it is not just a myth) between MAC and PC? Is the PC version noticably slower than the MAC?

At the moment I will stick with ACR for working on images and I fiddle around with LR for testing.

I have every confidence that Adobe will get this issue ironed-out for v1.0 and then I can use it properly  :-)


Andy
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: 61Dynamic on August 22, 2006, 11:28:28 am
Here we have pre-alpa/alpha software and Adobe has stated numerous times that the speed will improve as the program develops and is optimized. I wonder what people hope to accomplish by complaining incessantly about its speed?

Before anyone continues with how awful it is using LR due to it's performance issues, ask yourself this: Would you rather the engineers at Adobe spend their time continuously optimizing and re-optimizing unfinished code or would you rather them actually finish the product?
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: Mark D Segal on August 22, 2006, 11:37:19 am
Quote
Here we have pre-alpa/alpha software and Adobe has stated numerous times that the speed will improve as the program develops and is optimized. I wonder what people hope to accomplish by complaining incessantly about its speed?

Before anyone continues with how awful it is using LR due to it's performance issues, ask yourself this: Would you rather the engineers at Adobe spend their time continuously optimizing and re-optimizing unfinished code or would you rather them actually finish the product?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=74105\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Daniel, setting aside rhetoric and hypothetical choices, the fact "from the trenches" is - that for me (recognizing each person's mileage and tether varies) - it is completely impractical  to use this program with Pentium 4, 2.3 Ghz and 1.536 GB of RDRAM. So until that situation changes (new computer or speed-optimized program) I'm using ACR+PSCS2, which functions tolerably on this computer. The more people who have this problem, the less beta-testing feedback Adobe will get, but as I said above, it probably doesn't matter for Adobe, because there are most likely enough people who can use LR satisfactorily and give them all the feedback they need. Amen.
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: digitaldog on August 22, 2006, 11:46:00 am
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Here we have pre-alpa/alpha software and Adobe has stated numerous times that the speed will improve as the program develops and is optimized. I wonder what people hope to accomplish by complaining incessantly about its speed?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=74105\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

One of the problems Adobe (and others) face in providing public beta's (LR is actually a public Alpha) to everyone and anyone who has NO experience in beta testing and "don't get it" is this kind of chatter.

I've been a beta tester for Photoshop since 2.0 and more recently an alpha tester not to mention a ton of other beta experience. You learn early on that speed optimization is pretty much the LAST task before a product goes golden master. If the beta is too slow, or if you're worried that prerelease software could hose your files, you shouldn't be working with the product(s)!

Anyone with beta experience will tell you, you don't do it for a free copy of the software (unless you are willing to bill yourself out for $1 an hour). You do it because you want to see a better product or (in the case of any Alpha or in this case LR) you want to have your feedback heard and maybe (maybe!) implemented. I also love to find a good, hard to find bug and file a report (others prefer to find needles in haystacks). Beta testing isn't for everyone. Apparently a lot of people are discovering this. They should move on.

Enough about the speed. How's the workflow? The rendering? The UI?
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: andythom68 on August 22, 2006, 11:46:16 am
Quote
Here we have pre-alpa/alpha software and Adobe has stated numerous times that the speed will improve as the program develops and is optimized. I wonder what people hope to accomplish by complaining incessantly about its speed?

Before anyone continues with how awful it is using LR due to it's performance issues, ask yourself this: Would you rather the engineers at Adobe spend their time continuously optimizing and re-optimizing unfinished code or would you rather them actually finish the product?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=74105\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]



Are you responding to my post? If so which specific part(s) are you objecting to? I thought it was quite balanced and optimistic ...
Title: Beta 3 REALLY slow
Post by: Mark D Segal on August 22, 2006, 12:14:57 pm
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Beta testing isn't for everyone. Apparently a lot of people are discovering this. They should move on.

[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=74108\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yup, and that is what I've done in this case, because I have no choice right now. We are each capable of making rational choices about whether to test or not to test based on our own technical circumstances. And I don't feel the least bit "inexperienced" as a consequence.