# Lightroom and new M1 macs.



## mhs (Jan 1, 2021)

Hello everyone. And happy new year to you all. 

I’m thinking about replacing my current Mac Book Pro. Given the increased performance from the new M1 Apple chip Macs, I was wondering if I can decently run Lightroom Classic from the new M1 Mac Book Air. Any thoughts? I am not a heavy user. I currently shoot moderate volume NS with 24 Mega Pixel camera. I might change to a larger sensor at some point, but again I shoot low volume. Any thoughts? I’d love to not have to purchase a Pro version Mac again if I can avoid it. Thanks. m.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 1, 2021)

That should be no problem. I do not have personal experience, but the news I read is that Lightroom Classic runs well on an M1 MacBook Air, even under Rosetta 2. Once it becomes native it will only run better. Lightroom Classic on Apple Silicon Macs


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## clee01l (Jan 1, 2021)

Just looking at the Specs, I would opt for the 16GB RAM/512 GB SSD Model but I consider 16GB RAM to be the minimum for Lightroom Classic.  Lightroom like lots of RAM and local of room for working storage.  You may fill that SSD quickly with large mp images.   Be prepared to add an External Storage for your image inventory.


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## Zenon (Jan 1, 2021)

Apparently 16GB is more than enough. I read that these new machines are very fast and efficient. I have 512GB SSD drive on 2019 iMac and it is plenty. Not even half used. I keep all my files on an external drive.  Also Adobe recommends 20% of free hard drive (SSD) space. Unofficial rule of thumb is 100GB.


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## clee01l (Jan 1, 2021)

Zenon said:


> Apparently 16GB is more than enough. I read that these new machines are very fast and efficient. I have 512GB SSD drive on 2019 iMac and it is plenty. Not even half used. I keep all my files on an external drive.  Also Adobe recommends 20% of free hard drive (SSD) space. Unofficial rule of thumb is 100GB.


On that 513 GB SSD, 20% would be 103 GB.   Big Sur consumes ~20GB, leaving only ~390GB for apps and critical user files.


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## Zenon (Jan 1, 2021)

I'm on Big Sur. Outside of photography I don't have a lot of other space consuming apps and I don't do video.  I'm just over 200GB which I why I went with 500 again, same as the previous machine. Of course that suits my needs but ma not for many others.


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## clee01l (Jan 1, 2021)

Zenon said:


> I'm on Big Sur. Outside of photography I don't have a lot of other space consuming apps and I don't do video.  I'm just over 200GB which I why I went with 500 again, same as the previous machine. Of course that suits my needs but ma not for many others.


I just point that space limitation out because some like me have nearly 2TB of images cataloged in LrC.    When I got my last iMac, I opted for the 1TB primary SSD.   Of that 1TB, I only have 335GB free or roughly 1/3 of the disk.  When  had a MBP, it only had 512GB of primary storage and I was constantly running up against storage limits.   I replaced the MBP with an iPadPro with 1TB SSD.


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## Zenon (Jan 1, 2021)

I see. Thanks for the info.


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## mhs (Jan 4, 2021)

Thanks everyone for the responses. Very helpful. If anyone has first hand experience on using Lightroom Classic on an M1 Mac Book Air and can shar about it, that would also be nice. I have external storage, so I can handle that portion well. I like however to have a large SD (currently have a 2TB one), because I like to keep local the project images that I am working with. Certainly will not need 2TB though. Thanks!


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## jon515 (Jan 6, 2021)

mhs said:


> Thanks everyone for the responses. Very helpful. If anyone has first hand experience on using Lightroom Classic on an M1 Mac Book Air and can shar about it, that would also be nice. I have external storage, so I can handle that portion well. I like however to have a large SD (currently have a 2TB one), because I like to keep local the project images that I am working with. Certainly will not need 2TB though. Thanks!


I have the M1 MacBook Pro, the biggest difference is the fan.  It runs pretty well, like others recommended I'd go with 16gb of Ram.  I went with 16 ram and 1TB hard drive and haven't had any problems!  If you have any specific questions shoot me a message and I"m happy to check and get back to you.


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## BrianG_44 (Jan 27, 2021)

Good experience here too.  However LRC is running quite slow, especially, in Library in creating thumbnails for importing or rebuilding previews.  LrC is not native to Apple Silicon and runs ok with Rosetta.    16 gb is not a limitation - the memory paradigm has definitely shifted from intel based machines.  I have the M1 Macbook Pro, 16gb, 1TB drive.


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## johnrellis (Jan 27, 2021)

There have been reports on the forums of issues running LR on M1 Macbooks:
Lr Classic on M1 MacBook Air is glacial 
https://community.adobe.com/t5/ligh...-macs-with-rosetta-beware/m-p/11678631?page=1Lightroom Classic freezes on Apple M1 (Mac mini, and MacBook Air) 
https://feedback.photoshop.com/conv...m1-macs-with-rosetta/5fd7cefe7288d52d004c5a1chttps://feedback.photoshop.com/conv...me-slowness-unusable/600a04ab004894379b8e0b3a
Of course, people have a tendency to leap to conclusions when encountering a problem. In particular, some or all of these reports could be unrelated to the M1, rather caused by the general problems of LR 10 on Mac OS.


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## GadgetComa (Jan 27, 2021)

I recently bought an M1 Mac mini 8G with a 256G SSD. It's connected to a Benq 34" 4K monitor. This was to replace a 2009 Mini that was used solely for home automation and whole house audio. Since I couldn't resist, I installed Lightroom and the Photoshop beta that supports the M1. It's running beautifully. There have been times when I've had it running for a while (several hours at least) and the memory use creeps up to the point where some operations slow down - especially loading images when a preview hasn't been built, but even sometimes applying filters to large areas. I think the 16G RAM is worth it. The current performance isn't a big deal since this isn't going to be my primary Lightroom machine.


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## dexionsmith (Feb 17, 2021)

When is the Lightroom Classic native version for M1 Apple hardware coming out?  Any rumours?


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## happycranker (Feb 19, 2021)

I have read another problem is that M1 can currently only output YUV color, rather than RGB. This means you currently cannot calibrate a monitor attached to M1 machines. Monitors such as BenQ and Eizo do not as yet support this format.


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## emoroch (Feb 19, 2021)

I too am considering the purchase of an M1 Mac. Several years ago I used Lightroom 6 on a late-2015 Retina iMac w/16G memory. I thought the performance was less than perfect. When Adobe moved to the subscription payment plan, I immediately moved to other photo editing tools only to be disappointed and I came back to Lightroom Classic. This time I’m using a 2017 MBP, also with 16G memory. However, this MBP has a much better discreet graphics card than the 2015 iMac, and thus better performance. But, I’m always looking for great performance.

 Almost all reviews of the M1 Macs I have read (or watched on YouTube) focus on import performance, export performance, HDR merge, and/or panoramic merge. I can walk away from the computer and get a cup of coffee  while those operations take place. I don’t care if they take half as long or twice as long on an M1 Mac. What’s important to me is slider performance. My old iMac was very poor in this regard. I would need to move the sliders very, very slowly to allow Lightroom to render the changes I was making.

Can ANYBODY report on Lightroom Classic slider performance on the M1 Macs?
Thanks in advance for your help.


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## kimballistic (Feb 20, 2021)

emoroch said:


> Can ANYBODY report on Lightroom Classic slider performance on the M1 Macs?



Max Tech on Youtube tests this.  But honestly, it doesn't mean much until Lightroom Classic is properly ported to the M1 architecture.


That video link should take you to about 18 minutes and 25 seconds into the video where they move Lightroom sliders and apply some brushstrokes.

You can see the M1 using Rosetta 2 emulation for Lightroom Classic holds its own against the Intel Macbook Pro.

Also note that external displays with high resolutions (4k and above) will potentially perform _very_ differently.

The biggest performance issue with Lightroom Classic is running it on high resolution displays.

For example, switching from 1080p to 4k causes LrC to operate on 4x the data in order to display things on screen.


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## Dan Lit (Mar 8, 2021)

Running the M1 MacBook Pro with 16 ram 2tb drive...runs flawlessly.  Calibrated by external monitor with Spyder 5 pro as well. No issues. Very responsive..  Catalog has 200,000 images.


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## damion (Mar 10, 2021)

Hello. I'm hoping for some help/tips.
I have the macmini m1 and running with Benq SW271. Everything is crystal clear until I load Lightroom Classic.
I'm finding that the menus and text are fuzzy and only when I zoom into images do i see a sharpness. (the text stays fuzzy).
I've tried running PS and I do not see the same issue on text/menus. 
Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

(I'm connecting via USB-C to USB-C)

Thank you


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