Speed issues - moving files

[paulgodard]

I have been doing a lot of re-organization in my images after managing to import the metadata from my previous mysql database into LR2... and I still like LR2 a lot but...

Speed is a concern!

I only have an old G5 dual 1.8 with 4GB RAM and 1 TB internal and I find that some operations are really slow, even operations that do not involve any image processing : especially moving images from one folder to another, synchronizing LR2 with a folder, writing metadata to files...

In this regard, is there a way to improve the speed of moving images across folders?

How to select only all the images whose internal metadata are in conlict with the ones in LR database, and then ask to solve the conflic one way or another?

How to delete parent folder if it only contains one folder (i.e. folder A only contains folder B that contains a series of sub-folder - I obviously want to get rid of folder A that forces all its content to be indented to the right, loosing precious readibility of sub-folder names)?

 

[Mark Sirota]

I'm surprised LR is slow when moving images across folders on the same disk. Are you running anti-virus software on your Mac? If so, try disabling it to see if it makes a difference. Or try moving them in the Finder rather than in Lightroom -- is it much faster? (After doing this, restart Lightroom and right-click on the highest-level red folder, choose "Locate missing folder", and navigate to the new location.)

To delete a parent folder, just drag the subfolder to the top level (or do it in the Finder, as described above) and then delete the empty folder.

 

[paulgodard]

Hi Mark

No antivirus. Sometimes it is the normal speed, but sometimes it becomes very slow and it even hangs, more often when there are a lot of files to move (> 5''). I haven't figure what is really causing it.

If I do it in the finder (where it is the normal speed) and open LR afterwards, I was used to use 'synchronize', which also takes a lot of time. I haven't used 'locate missing finder yet'. I will see. Thanks.

Regarding deleting the parent folder, your suggestion will not work. The top folder seen in LR is now 'Pictures' (under user/Paul). This folder contains 5 folders but only one folder -- called 'Originals' -- with images. I do not want the folder 'Originals' to move up, I simply want to make the folder 'Pictures' invisible in LR -- such as its parent 'Paul'. Do you understand my intention? Simple but how?

BTW, it is a good or bad idea to have only 1 catalogue with all the images -- distributed in different folders on the hd, and is it good or bad to have these about 3'' GB dng/psd files on the same drive as the OS?

 

[patrickt]

I suspect maximizing speed might be something they do after they've finished working with the new features. This is the first beta.

 

[Mark Sirota]

Regarding deleting the parent folder, your suggestion will not work. The top folder seen in LR is now 'Pictures' (under user/Paul). This folder contains 5 folders but only one folder -- called 'Originals' -- with images. I do not want the folder 'Originals' to move up, I simply want to make the folder 'Pictures' invisible in LR -- such as its parent 'Paul'. Do you understand my intention? Simple but how?

Ah, sorry, now I understand. Yeah, the only way to do that today is to export everything as a new catalog. That's not a pretty easy solution, though it does seem like overkill for something that seems like it should be so simple.

BTW, it is a good or bad idea to have only 1 catalogue with all the images -- distributed in different folders on the hd, and is it good or bad to have these about 3'' GB dng/psd files on the same drive as the OS?

You can find many opinions on whether to split into multiple catalogs. I favor the single large catalog approach myself, assuming you've got the computing resources to handle it.

No problem having the images distributed, so long as they're organized enough for you to find what you're looking for and to manage your backups and the like.

No problem having them on the same drive as the OS either, though that's not my preferred approach. In terms of performance, you're best off if they're not on the same drive as the catalog and previews. There may be other reasons to separate them from the OS (for example, backups, OS upgrades, hardware upgrades, etc.) but it's not going to affect Lightroom one way or the other.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

How to delete parent folder if it only contains one folder (i.e. folder A only contains folder B that contains a series of sub-folder - I obviously want to get rid of folder A that forces all its content to be indented to the right, loosing precious readibility of sub-folder names)?

Select that folder, right click, choose Delete. It'll bring up a dialog asking you whether to Promote Subfolders - and the answer is yes!

Probably best to run a backup first, but I've never seen any problems with that yet. The word 'Delete' just sounds scary - it should say 'Remove and Promote' instead.