Lightroom performance ( Again)

[stamper]

Today I stumbled upon this video. I had already pared down my module loading to Library & develop but hadn't unloaded the rest. This might upset one or two members - possibly more - who are wishing for more bloat. It might be useful but difficult to measure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKlLjrDgAhc

[johnbeardy]

Why would it upset anyone? It's just one of those things that makes superficial sense, but modules don't eat significant resources until you activate them (someone did measure this but I can't find the post). You may as well just hide modules you don't use.

[stamper]

John it was a humourous jest with respect to this thread. 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=73458.0

[johnbeardy]

Yeah, yeah, though there was a serious point. Maybe start a Viz-style top tips column? "Keep Lightroom lean and mean by removing pictures from your catalogue after you've processed them." "Pay $150 for a set of presets and make all your friends think you haven't gone digital".

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Yeah, yeah, though there was a serious point. Maybe start a Viz-style top tips column? "Keep Lightroom lean and mean by removing pictures from your catalogue after you've processed them." "Pay $150 for a set of presets and make all your friends think you haven't gone digital".

Even better: "Keep Lightroom lean and mean by removing pictures from your catalogue before you've processed them." Saves lots of PP time!  

[stamper]

Eric you have hit the nail on the head! Too many photographers load all of their images into a catalogue before making a cull, especially the ones who do tethered camera to computer transfer. I use Faststone image viewer to cull and choose the keepers and load them into LR. Some might argue that you can load directly into LR and cull but the "art" - I believe it is an art - of culling shouldn't be done at once but over a period of time. If someone likes to leave them for a period and cull from LR then the catalogue can become unnecessarily bloated and you can lose track of the images. Import from folders what you want and only what you want. 

[johnbeardy]

I wouldn't agree with that, Stamper, but it's hard to make any kind of witticism about culling being pre-ingestion and LR's role in keeping track of images. I won't even try!

[stamper]

John the method I outlined is used by many. Perhaps if you sit down with a coffee in your favourite armchair, or office chair, and give it a good think then you might see an advantage?

[Rhossydd]

give it a good think then you might see an advantage?

No, that takes you back to the old days of having a separate RAW converter and DAM application. I can see no advantage at all.

[johnbeardy]

I see pros and cons, and I do use Photo Mechanic if I've just shot many hundreds of frames. But once something is worth keeping I'll manage it in LR. Why bother using LR if you have to remember where stuff is?

[stamper]

I see pros and cons, and I do use Photo Mechanic if I've just shot many hundreds of frames. But once something is worth keeping I'll manage it in LR. Why bother using LR if you have to remember where stuff is?

John, we are now more in agreement? To explain it a little better. If somebody shoots 500 images, or more, in a day's shooting and believes that ALL culling shouldn't be done straight after ingestion into a catalogue what should be done? The wisdom is to have one catalogue instead of many. Personally I cull obvious duds straight away but more gets culled days and weeks after. If I ingest 500 into a catalogue I wouldn't rate and keyword all of them because I know some will be culled therefore I have wasted time. I therefore look at the 500 in Faststone viewer and import the "best" and rate and keyword them. I may add others later when I have had a fresh look days better. The ingestion is done in stages.

[stamper]

No, that takes you back to the old days of having a separate RAW converter and DAM application. I can see no advantage at all.

Folders in the computer hard drive with names and dates. The "best" imported to LR after a review whilst in the folders. Rated and developed in LR. Where is the separation?

[johnbeardy]

Where we agree is there's a problem when you have lots of images, but I don't want stuff lying around in expectation of doing more than one ingestion. I cull the 500+ as far as possible, then get them into LR and maybe apply keywords etc  - in batches so little wasted time. If I then think it'll be faster to use PM for more culling, then I'll do so and update LR with Folder > Sync.

[Rory]

I use PhotoMechanic on large shoots as well before Lightroom import, but only because the Lightroom import module is not so good at rapidly reviewing images and tagging for inclusion/exclusion.

[stamper]

Correct. It is well documented that LR is a terrific program but not a good image browser.

[johnbeardy]

And if it were to become so I trust you'd be screaming "bloat"?

Import's the wrong place to make pick/trash decisions or to do a series of ingestions to put images from the same card into different folders, for example. How many more Library features should be duplicated to help folk do such things? We'd all be better off if Library had a PM-style preview browsing mode.

John

[Rendezvous]

I'm using a mac and I've found that when Lightroom slows right down it's generally because there isn't much free RAM, however there is plenty of "inactive" RAM. A simple way to clear this is to open terminal and type "purge". Wait a few seconds and the inactive RAM is now free.

[Philmar]

A simple way to clear this is to open terminal and type "purge". Wait a few seconds and the inactive RAM is now free.

Anyone know of a Windoze equivalent of this? Does in active RAM get released if you close and then reopen LR?

[sm906]

Anyone know of a Windoze equivalent of this? Does in active RAM get released if you close and then reopen LR?

Philmar,

have a look at Preferences --> File Handling --> Camera Cache Settings, there you have the "Purge Cache" option. That might help.

Thomas

[mac_paolo]

Philmar,

have a look at Preferences --> File Handling --> Camera Cache Settings, there you have the "Purge Cache" option. That might help.

Thomas

That's another thing. It's the ACR cache which is stored phisically on the SSD/HDD.