LR previews (minimal vs 1:1) performance confusion

[trale]

Hey guys, I'm trying to optimize up my Lightroom workflow. And one the most common suggestions is that during the Import dialog, choose Build Previews: "1:1", then make dinner as all the full previews get built. The idea is that this benefit me later as I navigate and work on each photo.

Supposedly, if I only choose to build Minimal previews during Import, then as I navigate the photos later and edit them, LR will need to build 1:1 previews anyway whenever I try to do a full zoom on a photo.

My problem is that, from what I'm experiencing, whether I choose Minimal or 1:1 previews during import, when I'm editing and navigating the images, each time I navigate to a new image and zoom in, there is a stutter before the full resolution image is displayed (and the [Loading] message appears on screen). And when I use the arrow keys to quickly go back to a previous image (that was already fully loaded a few seconds ago), that image still takes a little while to render fully. If generating 1:1 previews during import is suppose to make things much faster later on, I'm not seeing it. Or may just be slightly faster and I'm not detecting the difference in speed.

Has anyone else experience this? What are your experiences?

If the later-on-performance "improvement" of 1:1 previews during import is negligible, it just seems to make more sense to always choose Minimal previews during import.

Does anyone have some suggestions for me to test exactly what the resulting performance difference there is between Minimal and 1:1 previews during import?

[rdonson]

Some of this depends on how you use Lr and the nature of the photography you practice.

For example, if you're into sports photography and you take 700-1000 photos for each event it will take a LONG time to generate 1:1 previews for each image.  In this scenario you're also more likely to initially use "grid view" to separate the wheat from the chaff. 

So.... how do you use Lightroom and what is your style of photography?

[trale]

I do mostly landscape these days. A typical outing nets me around 100 shots or so.

For the majority of shots, I can just work on one photo and sync it to rest, but for 20% of them or so, I pay them individual attention and do things like localized adjustments. I often navigate back and forth between similar shots to see which one I like more. (that's where the stutter and "Loading" message each time becomes annoying)

[fdisilvestro]

Hi,

Ordinary previews, including 1:1, are used in the Library module to speed up the display of images while you select, tag, view. They do not play a significant role in the develop module.
Make sure your cache is in a fast drive and is large enough to improve performance in the develop module

[Simon Garrett]

Hi,

Ordinary previews, including 1:1, are used in the Library module to speed up the display of images while you select, tag, view. They do not play a significant role in the develop module.
Make sure your cache is in a fast drive and is large enough to improve performance in the develop module

Agreed, previews don't affect Develop module.  That uses the raw cache, so potentially rendering in develop module is a bit quicker if there's an up-to-date rendering in the raw cache. 

Obviously if you do anything to an image in Develop module, that invalidates any preview for Library Module too.  It seems to me that Lightoom doesn't always get this right.  Sometimes it seems to want to re-render a Library module preview even when you haven't changed it. 

I set preview size to "auto", but if I'm about to do edit a batch I sometimes select them all and tell it to build 1:1 previews.  No need to go for coffee - it will build them in the background with minimal impact on foreground performance (so long as you have a multi-core processor). 

[trale]

Hi,

Ordinary previews, including 1:1, are used in the Library module to speed up the display of images while you select, tag, view. They do not play a significant role in the develop module.
Make sure your cache is in a fast drive and is large enough to improve performance in the develop module

So... since I barely spend any time in the Library module, it doesn't matter at all which preview size I choose during import?

So basically, I should just choose Minimal previews, skip making coffee, then jump straight into Develop module for post processing. And the only thing that affects the performance of image navigation in the Dev module (going between images, zooming in/out, panning) is my processor speed and Raw cache drive speed?


Or maybe I should change my work flow. Instead of staying in the Dev module all the time, I should adopt a habit of staying in the Library module for image navigation tasks (jumping back  & forth to compare similar images), and only jump into the dev module when I'm intent on editing a particular photo. I may need to get use to E and D keyboard switch between modules.

[trale]

Agreed, previews don't affect Develop module.  That uses the raw cache.

Obviously if you do anything to an image in Develop module, that invalidates any preview for Library Module too. 

I think you've hit upon a critical insight. You see, when I work on a set of similar images in the Dev module, I often then switch to Compare View (C), which is part of the Library module. Since I just made changes, LR will need to re-render 1:1 previews for both images, and thus the "loading..." message each time and the perceived slow-down. This boggles me since I've just got done viewing both images in 1:1 view while in Dev.

At least now I know why LR behaves this way.

So thanks for this insight.