Lightroom sluggish some times

[Dave A]

For those with good computer knowledge.

I have been using Lightroom almost exclusively now to edit my images but it has seemed a little sluggish at times. After loading new images from the SD card in RAW format I find that when I open an image from the film strip along the bottom of the screen it sometimes takes several seconds, up to about 5 - 7 seconds, to focus the image. What I mean is the image opens right away but is a little blurry at first until it focuses, about 5 -7 seconds. Do others here have this happening to them?

I'm using an HP Pavilion Notebook P390NR. It is connected to a 26" high def monitor. I only use this computer for running Lightroom and even leave it not connected to the internet so it doesn't try to update while I'm working in Lightroom. Once a month I connect it to the internet so it can do it's HP and Windows updates.

I'm running Lightroom 6 installed from a disc, not the cloud version.

The specs are:
Windows 10 Home 64
AMD Quad-Core A10-7300 APU with Radeon R6 Graphics (1.9 GHz, 4 MB cache)
8 GB DDR3L SDRAM (1 x 8 GB)
1 TB 5400 rpm SATA
AMD Radeon R6 Graphics

Dave

[Manfred M]

Dave - are all of your files in a single catalogue or have you broken them up in multiple catalogs?

If I were to guess I would suspect the former as these are symptoms of the catalog getting to large. Your HDD is not blazingly fast and the software has to load the data from it.

[Dave A]

Dave - are all of your files in a single catalogue or have you broken them up in multiple catalogs?

If I were to guess I would suspect the former as these are symptoms of the catalog getting to large. Your HDD is not blazingly fast and the software has to load the data from it.

I haven't set up catalogs so I suspect all files are in just one......good point. I will change that and see what happens. Yes the HDD is that standard slow 5400 so I was also thinking of putting in a 500 GB SDD drive, but would prefer to not have to.

Dave

[NorthernFocus]

When you import images into LR how do you have the "previews" set up, minimal or standard? Also does the problem occur on images that you just imported or only when opening images imported a long time ago? If you have previews set to minimal when you import then when you open a larger view LR has to generate the image at that point in time. And the preview images get deleted if they haven't been used in a long time and have to be re-created. I think the default is 30 days.

[Manfred M]

I switched from a 1TB HDD to a 500GB SSD on my laptop. Best move I ever made. Blazing speed now on boot up, loading software and files.

[Dave A]

When you import images into LR how do you have the "previews" set up, minimal or standard? Also does the problem occur on images that you just imported or only when opening images imported a long time ago? If you have previews set to minimal when you import then when you open a larger view LR has to generate the image at that point in time. And the preview images get deleted if they haven't been used in a long time and have to be re-created. I think the default is 30 days.

Dan I believe I'm using standard previews. I'm at work but will double check when I get home.

Dave

[Black Pearl]

Have a look to see if Lightroom is using your GPU, if it is try switching it off as slower/older GPU's can cause LR to render slower - if it sin't try highlighting to see if it helps.

Another trick is to put the files on an external drive but when you import make sure you create a Smart Preview - then disconnect the drive. Lightroom will now use the Preview file which is tiny but still allows full manipulation and will run far, far faster. When you're finished fiddling with the images connect the drive and Export the stuff you want, LR will then render from the main file but you can just walk away and leave it to it. This is also handy as the drive doesn't need to be connected when you want to work on stuff so you can do so away from your desktop or even away from home/studio without having to carry a HDD which can be fragile.

[Shadowman]

How often do you shut down the system?

[Dave A]

How often do you shut down the system?

John it's always shut down unless I'm using it. It's not my main computer.

Dave

[Shadowman]

John it's always shut down unless I'm using it. It's not my main computer.

Dave

Dave,

Here are some tips. I'll have to give them a try myself.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb...lightroom.html

[lunaticitizen]

Like Manfred I strongly suspect that the HDD is the bottleneck here.

1. open "Task Manager" (just in case you don't know how to do that: right-click anywhere on your desktop and choose "Task Manager")
2. on the "Processes" tab look at the "Disk" column,
3. and then try opening your image in Lightroom

If my suspicion is right then you'll see that the disk is operating at nearly 100% of its capacity.

[proseak]

Two comments - you seem to have everything running off a slow HDD. The other is that the CPU is also pretty slow; here's link showing it's performance scores.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...00+APU&id=2287

[Dave A]

Yes it does look like my computer that is only running LR is not a speed demon. But it's only 6 month old so I'm stuck with it for awhile anyways.
John thanks for the link. Good tips to speed of performance.

Dave