Disappointed with Lightroom 3 [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

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Rider

14-Jul-2010, 18:25

Is anyone else disappointed with Lightroom 3?

For me it's a lot slower than Lightroom 2.7.

Affects mostly high volume digital work, no so much LF.

I am thinking of downgrading to 2.7 until it's been sorted out. It's a pain though because the catalogue cannot be downgraded.

Juergen Sattler

14-Jul-2010, 18:58

This topic is being discussed on most boards, incl. Adobe's. There seems to be some bug where LR3 eats up your RAM and does not release it. I have the same issue with a beast of a computer (24GB of Ram, i7 extreme, Raptor HDD, Win7 64, etc. etc.) and yet after some time LR3 slows down dramatically. Hopefully Adobe will come out with a fix real soon.

Rider

14-Jul-2010, 19:21

With me it's slow from the moment I open it.

Juergen Sattler

14-Jul-2010, 19:25

What machine are you running and what OS?

Rider

14-Jul-2010, 20:08

Win 7 64 bit, intel Quadcore with 8 Gig RAM.

Juergen Sattler

14-Jul-2010, 21:33

Should be flying - that's for sure.

Kirk Gittings

14-Jul-2010, 21:52

Rider

14-Jul-2010, 21:56

JMyerz

19-Jul-2010, 10:26

Kirk Gittings

19-Jul-2010, 10:30

I just did a Google search and it seems to affect some people but not others. Hopefully they'll fix it by the time I come back from vacation with two 16 Gig SD cards filled!

I've been meaning to try the tethered feature. Are you using that on the road for architecture or just in the studio?

I don't do studio work really. I have been using it on the road, working with art directors and doing location demos with my students.

mrladewig

19-Jul-2010, 18:32

For me it has basically had a meltdown any time I've tried to view a large scan. Some things are faster, others are not. Running XP on an E6300 with 3GB. I have felt a bit let down by this version though.

Kirk Gittings

4-Aug-2010, 17:49

A few days ago I installed it on my workhorse PC where I do most of my commercial image processing. On files up to 200GB it seems to work fine, even flipping images back and forth between LR3 and CS4 on an 8GB Core two Quad.

For processing digital captures there is allot to this upgrade. The noise reduction is second to none-blowing away IME plugins like my previous standby, Noise Ninja.

Rider

5-Aug-2010, 06:17

Kirk,

You have 200GB files?? Perhaps you meant 200MB files?

I have lots of small files (mostly RAW digital images). My problem has been that it doesn't do a preview of each file fast enough for my liking.

Kirk Gittings

5-Aug-2010, 07:32

Yes 200MB sorry.

Jeremy Moore

5-Aug-2010, 08:26

My problem has been that it doesn't do a preview of each file fast enough for my liking.

You can always tell it to create 1:1 thumbnails when you ingest your files. It will take longer to ingest, but preview will be much quicker. I would also look at your settings and see how long LR is keeping your previews--if it's dumping them quickly then you may be reinventing the proverbial jpg preview wheel every week or so, which would slow down the previews, too.

Armin Seeholzer

5-Aug-2010, 15:22

Switch to Aperture its anyway better, but smells for a Mac!?!

Cheers Armin

Rider

11-Aug-2010, 17:21

Version 3.2 RC has been released, and one of the dozens of bug fixes seems to address this issue. I will try it out and see if helps.

Rider

11-Aug-2010, 17:26

It only took me 5 seconds using the new version 3.2 RC to see that the issue has been addressed. It now feels at least as fast as Lightroom 2 on my system.

Armin, I don't want to start a flame war, but Windows rocks, and Apple is rotten to the core. Just kidding. Cheers :)

venchka

1-Sep-2010, 14:19

Lightroom 3.2 (Final) has been released in the last day or 2.

roteague

1-Sep-2010, 17:45

I am using it on an old MacBook Pro, 2.33 Core 2 Duo with only 3gb Ram, mainly for the tethering feature and quick edits of digital capture before being saved. I upgraded from LR1. Most of my edits go on in PS. But LR seems to work fine on my machine?

Different OSs handle memory in different ways. Your experience on your Mac, with how memory is used, in no way corresponds to what a user will have on Windows 7, since Abobe will have to write custom modules for each OS.

Kirk Gittings

1-Sep-2010, 19:17

Different OSs handle memory in different ways. Your experience on your Mac, with how memory is used, in no way corresponds to what a user will have on Windows 7, since Abobe will have to write custom modules for each OS.

LR 3 64 bit also works fine on my Core 2 Quad PC with Vista and 8GB Ram.

roteague

1-Sep-2010, 22:24

LR 3 64 bit also works fine on my Core 2 Quad PC with Vista and 8GB Ram.

That's good to hear. I'm still running LR1, so I don't have much insight into how LR3 works other than what I read. Thanks for the clarification; I'm glad to hear you haven't been having any problems.

John Bowen

2-Sep-2010, 04:47

Robert,

Welcome Back!

roteague

2-Sep-2010, 12:48

Thanks John, I've been just too busy the past year or so to spend much time on Internet forums, but I'm trying to get reconnected with my love for LF, before film disappears....

D. Bryant

4-Sep-2010, 17:22

I've got LR3 on both my location laptop and studio computers (All mac with the latest OSX). They all run way faster than previous versions and I've not noticed any slowdowns at all and I use it everyday all day.

Must be a lucky one?
From reading various posts on different forums it seems that LR3 typically runs better on Macs than PCs (regardless of Windows version), but that is only an anecdotal observation.

For me LR3 has performed poorly compared to LR2, that is it runs much more slowly. The Spot Clone/Heal tool behaves bizarrely and is almost impossible to use.

I'm currently running LR 3.2 and this latest release does seem to improve performance a bit. Still I'm enthusiastic about the product and will continue to use it as much as possible.

I'm still undecided about upgrading to CS5 though I probably will soon. I've become particularly fond of using collections to organize my work and can do most editing chores in LR rather than Photoshop, but this is primarily when I'm editing digital files created with a DSLR.

For scanned film I prefer PS.

Don Bryant

Rider

6-Sep-2010, 18:38

From reading various posts on different forums it seems that LR3 typically runs better on Macs than PCs (regardless of Windows version), but that is only an anecdotal observation.

I wonder if this is at least in part a perception caused by the fact that LR 3 was the first Mac version that was 64-bit, so Mac users noticed an improvement over 32bit LR2, while LR2 for Windows was already 64-bit so there wasn't a potential improvement. Add to that a couple of bugs that were present in LR3 for Windows.

For me, LR3.2 is much better than LR3; it's still not as snappy as LR2, but it's no longer unbearable (LR 3 was unbearable on my 8 GB Quad-core Win 7 system).

Kirk Gittings

6-Sep-2010, 18:43

But aside from speed issues, I think there is much to like in LR3, image processing quality to name the most important. The new sharpening/noise reduction controls are a big step forward.

D. Bryant

7-Sep-2010, 06:46

But aside from speed issues, I think there is much to like in LR3, image processing quality to name the most important.

Again this observation maybe anecdotal but it seems that keeping the Catalog optimized helps performance. I optimize each time after I Import or exit LR.

The new sharpening/noise reduction controls are a big step forward.

Absolutely!

The first time I processed high ISO files (1600 ISO +) made with my Canon 50D was like receiving a new camera. It was instantly apparent that the old engine used for ACR/Lightroom had a very flawed NR engine.

I had already stopped using NR and sharpening for RAW processing having found Nik Define or Noise Ninja to do a much superior job immediately after rendering the file prior to any other processing. That was followed by capture sharpening with Nik Sharpener. All of which was sort of pain but necessary evil.

Hopefully Adobe will iron out some more of the performance issues.

Don