Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: John Schweikert on April 07, 2007, 11:15:17 pm

Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: John Schweikert on April 07, 2007, 11:15:17 pm
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Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: jani on April 09, 2007, 05:49:48 am
Quote
I do hope the program gets peppier or it will be less of an option for me in working a lot of images. While Capture One just doesn't have all the incredible image tweaking features of Lightroom, CO makes my life easier, it's quicker just in operating (excluding raw conversion time) and that keeps my blood pressure down. Lightroom definitely raises my BP.

Anyone else have similar feelings?
Yes, and I have the latest Quad G5, with the same amount of RAM as you do.

According to Jeff Schewe, we shouldn't have been nagging about performance during the beta test, because they'd fix that in the final release.

Unfortunately, it appears that Jeff was wrong. Either that, or "1.0" is a beta too, just not in the name.

That being said, I've found the software useful enough to purchase a license anyway; the general user interface is so far the one that's matched my needs best.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: BernardLanguillier on April 09, 2007, 09:17:02 am
I am using a 2.5 years old 2x Xeon 3.06 Ghz with 2 GB RAM, which is still a decent, and Lightroom feels slow.

- previews are slow,
- final conversions are slow.

I didn't do any detailed comparison, but RSP felt faster.

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: stefpix on April 09, 2007, 09:40:07 am
LR is faster than working on images one by one in Photoshop -
but it is way slower than iView to browse thru images -
Performance should be better - but I wonder if it is possible when it has to read/write  from/to a large database file.

I keep my library on an external portable USB 2 drive - I wonder if that affects the performance a lot.

but I wish it was faster in the scrolling/rendering. sometimes it hangs after going back and forth a few times beteween 2 images in the develop module
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: marclile on April 09, 2007, 09:55:27 am
i agree.  although, i might be able to excuse the slowness in the develop module if the library module was fast.  i still can't get over how the most mundane function, browsing thumbnails, is slow.  if anything in LR should be fast, it should be that.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: theophilus on April 09, 2007, 11:46:32 am
I'm glad some other people are bringing this up.  I was planning on running some experiments to see if I could pinpoint some point of slowdown:

1) removing all keywords
2) smaller database size (I'm currently at 17,000)
3) moving the database to a different physical hard drive inside my desktop

I've also noticed that the "loading" for a 1:1 screen view is instantaneous if I have the image set to "zero'd" first.  I believe if there is no sharpening applied the full-size preview loads instantly.

Also, Lightroom seems very hard-drive dependent.  I'm wondering if sticking the database on a 10,000 rpm drive at the first physical partition would make a difference.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: ErikKaffehr on April 09, 2007, 02:15:20 pm
Hi!

I think that Lightroom takes a lot of time to "ingest" a bunch of pictures and to create "previews", once it is finished with that i can be reasonably fast. I'm using Windows right now, I hope it will be faster when I move to Mac.

Best regards

Erik

Quote
I'm glad some other people are bringing this up.  I was planning on running some experiments to see if I could pinpoint some point of slowdown:

1) removing all keywords
2) smaller database size (I'm currently at 17,000)
3) moving the database to a different physical hard drive inside my desktop

I've also noticed that the "loading" for a 1:1 screen view is instantaneous if I have the image set to "zero'd" first.  I believe if there is no sharpening applied the full-size preview loads instantly.

Also, Lightroom seems very hard-drive dependent.  I'm wondering if sticking the database on a 10,000 rpm drive at the first physical partition would make a difference.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111484\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: stefpix on April 09, 2007, 02:48:47 pm
I wonder if it would be faster if I kept the library on my internal  drive - but I work on a macbook and I don't have such a hugehard drive space - I don't know how large the library can get.

I keep everything on a 5400 rpm USB portable drive - should try on a 7200 rpm firewire drive -
but I like to work at different locations -
so until LR will be able to merge databases  I am stuck -
I hope it happens fast as since I am shooting RAW I think I will fill a mobile drive in less than a year.

speed has really to be improved - sometimes slowdowns are random - but if I had to show images to a client - iView might be a safer otion on the spot - no embarassing beachballs.

but LR is great to edit the master files at once without filling the hard drive with versions and duplicates it is hard to keep track of.
in this respect it is faster -

but so far maybe the best bet is to have different libraries on different drives  and use something like iView to keep a catalog of all the images off and online.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: rogerjporter on April 09, 2007, 02:58:06 pm
I am no hardware/software expert, but the computers mentioned here sound like they are G5 macs and older pc's, is anyone running lightroom on an intel duo 2 core mac or comparable pc and experiencing the same speed problems?
I assume since lightroom came out just recently it was written with the universal intel core coding, and is faster on the intel macs (and current pcs).  
Running any program through Rosetta will slow it down like molasses.
just a thought!
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: stefpix on April 09, 2007, 03:18:52 pm
i am running it on a macbook 2.0 Ghz intel core duo 1GB ram.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: tve1964 on April 10, 2007, 12:32:55 pm
I have noticed that most apps that run on Mac AND Windows tend to be resource hungry and slower.
I know a bit about software (being in the industry myself, although not a developer), and if someone wants to write software to run on both platforms, naturally, one wishes to reuse as much code as possible. This means that one uses either special "layers" (extra software) to handle the specifics about the respective platforms, or use interpreted code. This approach saves a lot of time and money, but the shortfall is that it isn't possible to use all the native features of an OS. This translates into extra memory requirements and more to do for the CPUs. Have you noticed how much is happening on your computer before Photoshop or LR actually show up on your screen?
I have read on the Web that LightRoom has 40% of its code written in the LUA language (an interpreted language). Now that is a lot, and even if LUA seems to be one of the bests in its category, I still have a hard time believing one can get the same performance when 40% of your code is not compiled, than with a compiled executable that shares a lot of the native libraries of the OS. If this info is confirmed, it's going to take a while until we see a significant performance leap in LR. I guess Adobe bet that over time folks will upgrade their HW and it will be less and less of an issue.
I don't see it that way, because I hate it when software developers get lazy and take the easy way at the expense of the end-user. Why would I need a new computer? I still do Digital Photography, word processing and web surfing 99% of my computer time, yet to do the same things I have done in the last 3 years I need to upgrade my HW that is otherwise just fine?

I suspect this is true for Adobe's products in general and LightRoom in particular.

TVE
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: fractalgfx on April 11, 2007, 09:07:19 pm
Quote
I have noticed that most apps that run on Mac AND Windows tend to be resource hungry and slower.

This is usual the result of software companies prioritizing the development of new features over software quality, and is has little to do with supporting multiple  platforms.

Quote
I don't see it that way, because I hate it when software developers get lazy and take the easy way at the expense of the end-user.

Don't be quick to criticize the Lightroom developers, you are basing your opinion on two invalid assumptions.

Tasks requiring heavy computation (such as image processing) will be significantly slower when using an interpreted language, but interpreted languages are more than fast enough for many applications.  I just wrote two simple programs to count up from zero for one second.  The program written in a compiled language was about five times faster than the program that was interpreted, but the interpreted program was still able to count past 400,000.  By comparison, the number of instructions required to process simple events such as mouse clicks and keystrokes is small enough that your brain can't perceive the difference.  Most likely, the difference is probably smaller than the your monitor refresh rate.

Your second argument, that bad performance is the result of extra "layers" of code, is based on two faulty assumptions.  First, it is incorrect to even assume that a cross platform app has more layers of code than a program written for one operating system.  There are many approaches to cross platform development, one approach is to separate a programs code into a section that is platform independent, and to maintain two separate sections for handling windows and mac specific code.  This code will operate at the same "layer" as any pure Windows or Mac application.  It is also wrong to assume that a native application is not built upon multiple layers.  Most OSX applications are written using one of two programming API's, Cocoa and Carbon.  Cocoa and Carbon are software "layers" which are built on top of low level OSX components, such as Quartz.  Some cross platform applications might use an extra layer on top of Cocoa or Carbon, but the performance impact will still be negligible.  It is even possible to completely bypass Cocoa and Carbon and develop an application at a lower level than some off apples on software products.

I do share your opinion that Lightroom is inexcusably slow, but I was happy to discover that 40% of Lightroom's code was written in Lua.  The use of interpreted languages can greatly increase programmer productivity and reduce the number of bugs, in the long term this is a good thing for users.

PS:
  Lightroom's performance problems are mostly the result of poor memory management.  I have noticed that Lightroom's memory usage will unexpectedly balloon for no apparent reason.  (If it means anything to you, I suspect the culprit may be a poorly designed garbage collection system.)
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: macgyver on April 11, 2007, 10:05:17 pm
Interesting,  I'm running it on a G4 1.6 ghz with 1 gig of ram and my performance sounds about the same as that which many of you, with far beefier machines, describe.  It's quite usable, but still slow.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: fractalgfx on April 12, 2007, 12:11:16 pm
Quote
But I just don't feel the program is quick. My 2GHz Dual Core G5 6.5GB RAM machine seems to be plenty for other software I use and other raw developers, but with Lightroom, selecting images, waiting for the 'loading' and waiting for the grayed out Develop functions to become active is just annoying when working on many images.

You should demand your money back from whoever sold your computer.  A 32 bit operating system can't use more than 4gb of memory and some memory controllers can't handle more than 3gb.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: fractalgfx on April 12, 2007, 12:16:51 pm
Quote
You should demand your money back from whoever sold your computer.  A 32 bit operating system can't use more than 4gb of memory and some memory controllers can't handle more than 3gb.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112043\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I should have more specific, not all applications can take advantage of a 64bit operating system.  Even if you are running the 64bit version of OSX, 32 bit applications will still be limited to 4gb of memory.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: marclile on April 12, 2007, 12:36:29 pm
I think i would have to agree with John.  I don't really care about what code was used or why.  I'm the end user and the only thing that i care about is the responsiveness of the application.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: marcsitkin on April 12, 2007, 02:48:38 pm
Quote
I am no hardware/software expert, but the computers mentioned here sound like they are G5 macs and older pc's, is anyone running lightroom on an intel duo 2 core mac or comparable pc and experiencing the same speed problems?
I assume since lightroom came out just recently it was written with the universal intel core coding, and is faster on the intel macs (and current pcs). 
Running any program through Rosetta will slow it down like molasses.
just a thought!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111524\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I'm running an Intel Core 2 duo with 4Gig Ram and the speed of LightRoom seems reasonable to me. My biggest collection is about 1200 images, it loads pretty much instantly. A typical folder for me is around 30 10meg RAWS also previews instantly. Plenty of other Nags to complain about, but not speed on this platform.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: theophilus on April 15, 2007, 07:14:13 pm
Quote
I'm glad some other people are bringing this up.  I was planning on running some experiments to see if I could pinpoint some point of slowdown:

1) removing all keywords
2) smaller database size (I'm currently at 17,000)
3) moving the database to a different physical hard drive inside my desktop

I've also noticed that the "loading" for a 1:1 screen view is instantaneous if I have the image set to "zero'd" first.  I believe if there is no sharpening applied the full-size preview loads instantly.

Also, Lightroom seems very hard-drive dependent.  I'm wondering if sticking the database on a 10,000 rpm drive at the first physical partition would make a difference.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111484\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Responding to my own post from earlier, I tried #3 above.  I moved the Lightroom Database to a different physical hard drive than the photos I was working on.  Startup time is nearly instantaneous now, whereas before it took at least 1 minute to load all the previews and go through the database.  I saw no change in the "Loading" behavior.  Perhaps there is an issue with writing the XMP files?

FYI, I'm running an Athlon 64 3500+ (single core) with 2 gigs of RAM.  I built the system myself (my 6th overall), and Photoshop CS2/CS3 is very fast on it.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: stefpix on April 15, 2007, 07:28:59 pm
Quote
Responding to my own post from earlier, I tried #3 above.  I moved the Lightroom Database to a different physical hard drive than the photos I was working on.  Startup time is nearly instantaneous now, whereas before it took at least 1 minute to load all the previews and go through the database.  I saw no change in the "Loading" behavior.  Perhaps there is an issue with writing the XMP files?

FYI, I'm running an Athlon 64 3500+ (single core) with 2 gigs of RAM.  I built the system myself (my 6th overall), and Photoshop CS2/CS3 is very fast on it.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112577\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

i keep database and photos on a portable drive - temporary solution until it gets filled up -
anyway it randomly slow down -
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: BernardLanguillier on April 15, 2007, 09:52:30 pm
Quote
Responding to my own post from earlier, I tried #3 above.  I moved the Lightroom Database to a different physical hard drive than the photos I was working on.  Startup time is nearly instantaneous now, whereas before it took at least 1 minute to load all the previews and go through the database.  I saw no change in the "Loading" behavior.  Perhaps there is an issue with writing the XMP files?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=112577\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks a lot for the test results.

That's what I feared most. The very idea of LR is to keep data live for quick and easy access. This is not practially doable with workstation HD as soon as you go beyond a few thousand images.

My personnal conclusion is that LR, and Bridge for that matter, appear to be basically unusable with a NAS for anyone needing to be productive.

The only solutions that are realistic from a performance standpoint become firewire, eSATA, SCSI or fiber channel arrays... all these being significantly more expensive that NAS.

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: jani on April 16, 2007, 02:15:46 am
Quote
i keep database and photos on a portable drive - temporary solution until it gets filled up -
anyway it randomly slow down -
If that portable drive is a USB drive, that's something you just have to expect and live with, unless you're willing to dig pretty into the technicalities of your motherboard construction.

Basically, if there is more than one USB device on a USB controller, that device can disturb or be disturbed by other USB devices. With some controllers, you even risk that USB 2.0 high-speed devices ("480 Mbps") could be brought down to low USB 1.1 speeds (2 Mbps).
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: tve1964 on April 16, 2007, 09:53:37 am
Quote
This is usual the result of software companies prioritizing the development of new features over software quality, and is has little to do with supporting multiple  platforms.
Don't be quick to criticize the Lightroom developers, you are basing your opinion on two invalid assumptions.

I do share your opinion that Lightroom is inexcusably slow, but I was happy to discover that 40% of Lightroom's code was written in Lua.  The use of interpreted languages can greatly increase programmer productivity and reduce the number of bugs, in the long term this is a good thing for users.

PS:
  Lightroom's performance problems are mostly the result of poor memory management.  I have noticed that Lightroom's memory usage will unexpectedly balloon for no apparent reason.  (If it means anything to you, I suspect the culprit may be a poorly designed garbage collection system.)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111958\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks for the response:
I accept that my "possible" explanations may be wrong, not knowing for sure.
Since this is a photography forum, I guess we shouldn't get too technical. But we are users and like others who commented here, I couldn't care less if one or another language is used, provided that our experience is not unacceptably degraded. Most of us working on a "normal" but "not beefed up machine" think LR's speed IS a problem (when I buy a PC, I choose a fast but not top of the line machine and then keep it for 5 or 6 years, only upgrading subsystems like HD, memory,etc.. when needs arise. My next is for Vista, but not before at least one year).
My multiplatform hypothesis is an observation, not a demonstration. I did not aim to discredit Lua or interpreted languages whatsoever.  Moreover, I agree that there could be ways to make multiplatform software as fast on all platform (FrameMaker, that Adobe acquired many years ago, is such software). But I have observed that the shortcuts (compromises) often made in crossplatform software DO cost performance. Probably that the effort to NOT compromise are deemed unecessary, assuming folks will upgrade their machines sooner or later.
Anyway, I did not intend to create an argument. Regardless of the multiplatform development'relevance to this discussion I would simply point out that it might be a sort of wishful thought that LR's speed improve dramatically in the short term since it is probably resulting from design choices that would be hard to fix. Owning a version of the software, I can only hope to be proven wrong, but when I look at other Adobe software, I can tell that performance, minimal memory usage etc. is really not something Adobe spends a lot of effort fine tuning.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: macgyver on April 16, 2007, 11:30:32 am
I would be interested to hear what Jeff has to say about any of this; if he could give us any insight into if Adobe recognizes the issue or if it's "in the works" as they say.  I want to say I remember his talking about how V1 would be siginificantly faster than the betas.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: theophilus on April 16, 2007, 12:36:03 pm
Quote
Thanks a lot for the test results.

That's what I feared most. The very idea of LR is to keep data live for quick and easy access. This is not practially doable with workstation HD as soon as you go beyond a few thousand images.

My personnal conclusion is that LR, and Bridge for that matter, appear to be basically unusable with a NAS for anyone needing to be productive.

The only solutions that are realistic from a performance standpoint become firewire, eSATA, SCSI or fiber channel arrays... all these being significantly more expensive that NAS.

Cheers,
Bernard
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=112599\")

Yes, I think eSATA is the best solution for portability with Lightroom, with some 10,000 rpm hard drives.

It doesn't appear to be too expensive
[a href=\"http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=eSATA&x=0&y=0]http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....n=eSATA&x=0&y=0[/url]

eSATA enclosure: $35 US (need 2 or more for raid)
eSATA card for PC: $60-$75 US (has raid controller)
eSATA cables: $5 ea for 4 feet
eSATA expresscard for notebook: $60-$80

plus HDD costs.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: theophilus on April 16, 2007, 12:37:07 pm
I would also say that moving the Lightroom database shows good speed improvements for switching between different folders.  The preview cache is ready much sooner.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: Ben Rubinstein on April 16, 2007, 04:48:00 pm
I use LR only for choosing and then developing the photos, as yet I haven't bought into the whole 'library' idea and prefer Bridge as a real browser.

As such I import a folder only to rank and then develop the photos with automatic export to .xmp, as soon as I'm done the folder is deleted from the library. That means that I'm working with a library of only a few images at a time.

Today I processed a short portrait shoot of 90 images. The time that LR takes to show a 1:1 preview is inexcuseably slow and ditto the time it takes to stop bloody well 'Working' and let me process. This is on a Dual 2ghz with 2 gig ram, remember the library is practically empty!

I can open a file in Bridge to ACR and view it a 100% in about 3 seconds on my machine. In LR it's 10-15 seconds. Why should that be acceptable?
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: fahrenhyde on April 21, 2007, 07:01:40 pm
hello. what do you think if having a better graphics card would increase lr's speed? i've read almost everything now in this thread, but nothing about using a different graphics card. the reason why i'm asking is because i'm planning to buy a new card cuz someone told me i could accelerate things in lightroom as well.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: BernardLanguillier on April 21, 2007, 07:16:08 pm
Quote
hello. what do you think if having a better graphics card would increase lr's speed? i've read almost everything now in this thread, but nothing about using a different graphics card. the reason why i'm asking is because i'm planning to buy a new card cuz someone told me i could accelerate things in lightroom as well.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=113580\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'd be very surprised if a "faster" graphic card helped at all. Those fast cards are fast at rendering the facets of 3D objects used in games, they aren't any faster than good old Matrox for the type of 2D rendering used by Lightroom.

Regards,
Bernard
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: timhurst on April 22, 2007, 06:34:59 pm
Perceptions shift...

I've been using LR since version one was released and I have gotten quite used to the feel/speed of the interface. I'm running a dual core Pentium D at 3.4ghz, 2gig of ram, win xp home, separate physical esata disks for windows/programs, files and data and page/scratch files. Hardly cutting edge but a solid system. When dealing with 16MP RAWS LR feels a little laggy/jumpy in responsiveness when in develop module but still productive. I was even starting to feel like it was running pretty nicely...

BUT THEN ... I went back into Rawshooter for the first time in ages and what a revelation.  Near instant 1:1 preview generation, real time update of histograms and previews when editing and a totally fluid feel to the controls. It was as if I had just upgraded my computer.

LR now feels like a snail again and the time it takes to generate previews is frankly ridiculous.

Is it wishful thinking to hope that LR will ever be as responsive as RS?
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: jani on April 23, 2007, 04:58:41 am
Quote
I'd be very surprised if a "faster" graphic card helped at all. Those fast cards are fast at rendering the facets of 3D objects used in games, they aren't any faster than good old Matrox for the type of 2D rendering used by Lightroom.
Well, actually, they can be, and they are (as far as I know; modern tests usually don't concern themselves with ancient hardware, but there seems to be a steady improvement anyway).

However, whether you can actually get at this improved performance depends on whether the functionality in these modern graphics chips is utilized or not.

Perhaps what you say is true for Lightroom, but it certainly doesn't seem to be true for Aperture.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: francois on April 23, 2007, 05:32:20 am
Quote
...Perhaps what you say is true for Lightroom, but it certainly doesn't seem to be true for Aperture.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=113750\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Yes, this is right. Aperture is much faster with a top-of-the-line graphic card. It looks like Photoshop CS3 can also take advantage of fast graphic cards. Here's a screenshot of PSCS3 preferences (taken from Martin Evening what's new in PCSCS3 document). I must say that I haven't been able to test for improved performances as I'm still waiting for my upgrade to arrive.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: timhurst on April 23, 2007, 06:07:52 am
Quote
Yes, this is right. Aperture is much faster with a top-of-the-line graphic card. It looks like Photoshop CS3 can also take advantage of fast graphic cards. Here's a screenshot of PSCS3 preferences (taken from Martin Evening what's new in PCSCS3 document). I must say that I haven't been able to test for improved performances as I'm still waiting for my upgrade to arrive.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=113751\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

No luck I'm afraid, in Extended version only and just used for rendering of 3D layers...

From the documentation:

"Enable 3D Acceleration (Adobe® Photoshop® CS3 Extended)
Enabling 3D acceleration lets you override software rendering of 3D layers."
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: francois on April 23, 2007, 06:19:14 am
Quote
No luck I'm afraid, in Extended version only and just used for rendering of 3D layers...
....

It looked too good to be true, unfortuntely!

 
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: jeffok on April 25, 2007, 04:49:32 pm
Quote
I am no hardware/software expert, but the computers mentioned here sound like they are G5 macs and older pc's, is anyone running lightroom on an intel duo 2 core mac or comparable pc and experiencing the same speed problems?
I assume since lightroom came out just recently it was written with the universal intel core coding, and is faster on the intel macs (and current pcs). 
Running any program through Rosetta will slow it down like molasses.
just a thought!
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=111524\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I am running a quad core 2.66 Ghz Mac Pro with 2 GB RAM. My images are stored on an external Lacie 320 GB Firewire 800 drive and copied simultaneously onto my internal 500 GB drive. The performance of LR is very good, no significant delays in importing files and rendering standard size previews. I am even importing large psd files with layers off a network drive linked to a PC, renaming , adding metatags and saving to dual disks. While that DOES slow things down, given the operations being performed, it is quite acceptable.

I think the expectations here may be either too much, or some of you ought to consider upgrading your mac's.
Title: Lightroom's speed is just so-so
Post by: The View on May 05, 2007, 02:08:40 am
I am surprised to find that LR is considered slow.

I have read several reviews on the web, and they all stated that LR was much faster than aperture, especially on "older" macs (I have an iMac g5 2.1 ghz 16 months old, 1.5 gig ram).

I was considering lightroom for this speed issue, but now, after reading this thread I'm not so sure any more.

Hay anybody experience with both programs?