There’s been a lot of discussion recently about Lightroom 5’s performance, and whether it’s faster or slower than Lightroom 4. Jim Wilde, one of our gurus on Lightroom Forums, decided to run a few benchmarks. In summary, he said:
The main finding is that in almost every test that I ran, LR5 (specifically the 5.2 Release Candidate) did indeed outperform LR4 (version 4.4). In some cases the improvement was only marginal, although in others (notably where Luminance NR was used, or when doing exports to smaller sizes) the improvement was much more obvious.
In conducting these tests I also noted the following:
– When ACR cache entries exist, and are on the same fast local storage type as the catalog, there is no performance benefit when using Smart Previews. On the contrary, there was some evidence that they may in fact have a small negative impact during image loading into the Develop module (although this seems logical to me). I would expect, however, a different result in other setups such as when using DNG files with Fast Load Data on slower storage such as a NAS, or when ACR Cache entries don’t exist.
– When Luminance Noise Reduction is used, LR5.2 RC would seem to process it more efficiently than LR4.4, both in 1:1 Preview Rendering, and Exports.
– There is some evidence that thread utilisation when Hyper-Threading is enabled has slightly improved in LR5.2 RC, though performance was still better with it disabled.
A major caveat is that these conclusions apply to the tests that I ran on my particular system only. Other users may experience different results.
You can read his full report, complete with measurements and charts, at https://www.lightroomqueen.com/downloads/usefuldocs/jimw-lr5-performance.pdf
How are you finding the performance of Lightroom 5.2 RC compared to Lightroom 4.4?
LR 5 opens much more slowly that LR 4 for me. Is that the general rule, or should I check into something?
No, it shouldn’t be slower – how much slower are we talking about? And which OS?
Thx. LR 4 used to open right up. LR5 takes long enough that I have gotten into the habit of starting it and going away to do something else while it opens, It takes at least a good minute if not longer. Software OS X 10.8.5 (12F37)
That sounds really frustrating. You don’t have a fusion disk in your Mac, I don’t suppose? Does the same happen if you open a clean catalog by holding down to Opt key while starting Lightroom?
Since I don’t know what a fusion disk is I assume I don’t have one. And I don’t know how to open a ‘clean catalog’. 🙂
Just go to File menu > New Catalog and store it somewhere like your desktop. Then import a few photos into it, just to test it, and see if it’s must faster than your normal catalog. If it is, then we have somewhere to start looking. To switch back to your normal catalog to carry on working, go to File menu > Open Recent and it’ll be listed there.
It opened much faster from the New Catalog.
Ok, drop me an email via the Contact button at the top of the webpage and we’ll talk through further troubleshooting steps and options.
hi i upgraded from LR4 to LR5 (now 5.2) some months ago but have returned to LR4 as it is so slow in the develop mode. I prefer to use the adjust options in the histogram rather than move the sliders and specifically when i move from one photo to the next in LR4 the cursor changes from the pointer to the upright with the 2 arrows immediately so i can work on the photo but in LR5 it takes a second or two to do this. Doesnt sound much but over a 1500 image wedding it really p******es me off, so much so that i have reverted to LR4
Can anyone out there help
You could post on this bug report to see if you can get a response from a staff member. http://clkuk.tradedoubler.com/click?p(265883)a(2791170)g(22913796)url(http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lr5_histogram_slider_activation_delay-s2weh)
I run LR4 on a very fast machine and find that it never utilises anywhere near all of my CPU, RAM or SSD performance. Apparently they detuned it so it will behave nicely on lesser systems but the side effect is that it won’t utilise the full power available. Is LR5 any different? We need an “allow Lightroom to hammer the machine” option.
Some things like Export are throttled so that you can carry on working, although you can work around that by setting multiple exports running at the same time. I’d love an “allow Lightroom to hammer the machine” option too!
yeah noticed that … i’d much prefer LR use the expensive powerful hardware I’m running on … it sits there twiddling it’s thumbs! Even flicking around in modules where i notice a small lag (OK im being pedantic i know) … but the machine has tons of horsepower spare. The exports thign is probably no big deal (but it’s still a “go make a coffee and read the newspaper” moment when exporting a thousand or two images”
LR5 has kept me away from the pain of migrating to a different app such as DarkTable for Linux. The speed increase for me running LR through a Windows 8 virtual machine (VirtualBox) has been considerably noticeable from 4 to 5. I however agree that milage may vary based on system and setup. I feel like a lot of great photographers out there really have a hard time grasping storage and what all these preview images mean and do and the crazy ACR cache, and that stems into slower setups.
That or people can just switch their workflow to Instagram and simply give up on life. 🙂
It’s great to hear you’ve seen an improvement too Rubin! I run through all the different previews and caches and how they affect the speed in my book if anyone gets stuck.