# LR4 vs Lr3 Speed



## quantum (Mar 19, 2012)

*LR4 vs Lr3 Speed of editing*

I have just started playing with LR4. I am a pro and don;t get much time to do this sort of thing. 
...However, it seems to take longer to do the achieve the end result I got with LR3. I know it's probably a familarity thing but when I follow the top-down approach to the sliders I seem to have to go over the previous ones again to fine tune as one slider seems to affect another more in this version.

I have read theat the final result is better with v4 but will I really see a difference? I haven't seen enough to warrant the change of process version.

I guess I can upgrade to LR4 but still use 2010 version? Obviously I'll then still have some new finctionality such as books and maps - which I don;t expect to use.....Is there any point to upgrading if I stick to 2010 version I ask myself?

Will compatibilty be maintained as LR and PS go forward if I sticl to LR3?

John


----------



## quantum (Mar 19, 2012)

What's happened to the flourishing forum then?


----------



## clee01l (Mar 19, 2012)

I think everyone is busy using all the new LR4 features.  The images that I have reprocessed using Process 2012 have been better.  I do not see a noticeable lag in speed with LR4.  And I haven't had any issues attributable to the half dozen bugs that have been noted by Adobe.  I think we will soon see a version 4.01 or 4.1 that will address some of the problems that some are having, I also thing the decimal release will be better tuned than the 4.0 version so speed issues for those that have them won't be a problem.  I would suggest that you go forward with LR 4.0 and adopy 4.01/4.1 as soon as it is released. The new development process is worth the switch.


----------



## Happy Haggis (Mar 19, 2012)

There's definitely a learning curve with PV2012, but I'm finding it easier now after some practice. You can retain PV2010 if you want, but if you have no need for the new modules and don't have time to 'play' with the new sliders, it's probably not worth upgrading. As a Pro, you have to decide if the time spent learning is cost effective or not. I'm no Pro so cost considerations are not significant to me, but many here and on U2U forums seem to think the new PV is worthwhile.


----------



## Chris_M (Mar 20, 2012)

Having now had time to process some photos in LR4, I find although it starts up a bit more sharpish than LR3.5,
that actually processing some photos is taking longer then with LR3.5.
The main reason of the longer time with LR4 is the extremely unsmooth action of the sliders due to lag, which I never had with LR3.5.
It sometimes takes a good 5 seconds to react, with up to a further five seconds to update the loupe view on my second monitor.

I deleted all previews, purged the video cache and reduced it to the minimum 1 GB since I don't use it anyway,
and also deleted the ACR cache, defragmented my drive, and it stills lags like crazy.

This should not happen to this extent on my system specs, and although LR4 brought a bit of a price reduction,
if I had known about the lag, I would have invested in some other hardware until the first or second update of LR4 was available.


----------



## Brad Snyder (Mar 20, 2012)

Chris, have you tried without using the second monitor? There's all sorts of anecdotal evidence coming in about slider lagging, particularly with Lr enabled on the 2nd monitor, particularly with nVidia GTX adapters.  No smoking guns for the engineers, but something idiosyncratic is happening on some systems, and not others.


----------



## quantum (Mar 20, 2012)

I have now changed my title to reflect my issue with v4 - namely the *speed of editing* images rather than the speed of the program to carry out processes which I have not seen any issue.
Maybe the lack of response is the fact everyone is spending ages adjusting their photos?!


----------



## Jim Wilde (Mar 20, 2012)

I don't think it's that, John...it's more likely we haven't got very much to offer in the way of a solution. The whole performance issue is difficult to understand, especially why so many high performance systems such as yours are struggling in some areas. During the beta I found that slider action/response was REALLY slow, but expected an improvement come the final release. That indeed happened, but I was still getting some lagging especially using the adjustment brush....so a few days ago I deleted my preview cache, and purged my ACR cache, then rebuilt 1:1 previews....and since then things seem much better. I know others have done that with little benefit, while for others it's worked well. 

Sorry I can't be more helpful.


----------



## Chris_M (Mar 20, 2012)

*@ Brad*, things update at normal speed on my main monitor,
unfortunately, that is not the monitor I use to judge what needs changing, my main monitor is over 10 years old,
and is just fine for everything else I need to do on this computer, but colors and things like that I need to check on the second monitor.
It's closest to the colors that my pronter produces. And since it is the bigger of the two monitors,
it needs to remain my main monitor for other work I do on this computer.

Whereas my main monitor dulls the colors a bit, and I cannot get a sharply focused picture from it any more,
even text on websites is blurred enough to make me have to lean real close to the monitor to read it.
The funkiest part however, is that even the manufacturer of my main monitor is no longer aware of it's existance!
A search on thier website shows 0 results, and Google could do no better than to produce 32-bit drivers, which I already had.

But back on topic, it has to be something to do with the new LR4, since this did NOT happen, and still does not happen when I use LR3.5.


----------



## clee01l (Mar 20, 2012)

Chris_M said:


> *@ Brad*, things update at normal speed on my main monitor,
> unfortunately, that is not the monitor I use to judge what needs changing, my main monitor is over 10 years old,..


Why not just make the default display the newer monitor?  {right click on the desktop background and choose "Screen Resolution" from the context menu.  Click on te newer monitor and choose "Make Default"  (I think that is what the option states).


----------



## Chris_M (Mar 20, 2012)

Because my second monitor is also an old Dell 15-inch, and if I use that for the main LR screen,
then I also lose a third of the screen space to the develop module sliders,
making a small enough displayed photo even smaller, thereby also losing detail.

The point however is that it _did not, and does not_ happen when I run LR3.5, on the same machine (I still have both installed).


----------



## Chris_M (Mar 20, 2012)

Ok, I just did a test, since I had to develop 4 photos anyway. I used LR4 and LR3.5, *on the same machine*, freshly rebooted.

First I did the four photos in LR3.5, no problems, the whole process done rather quickly, and no noticable lag.
The Loupe view on my second monitor, on occasion, was refreshed before my main monitor got refreshed. 

LR4 however, a whole other can o' worms.
By the time I applied a gradient to even out exposure, and clicked on the first slider, there was definate noticeable lag,
then by the time I clicked on the second of the four photos to start developing, the lag was really bad,
and the screen updating was as I described before, main monitor took up to 5 seconds to reflect whatever I changed,
and my secondary monitor took up to a *further* 5 seconds to reflect the change.
By the time I was at the 4th photo, I was wondering "what the hell am I doing using this laggy crap".

Just to be thorough, I rebooted and reversed the sequence, that is to say, I used LR4 First, and then used LR3.5,
on the same photos, on the same machine, with exactly the same result.

So for me, I am going back to LR3.5 until such time as Adobe fix whatever it is they broke in LR4...


----------



## quantum (Mar 27, 2012)

Did anyone actually read my original question - and then my follow up ?


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Mar 27, 2012)

Hi John, sorry, I'm flying in and out at the moment.

Yes you can use PV2010 in LR4, although I'd say the new sliders are well worth learning.  Once I got my head round them, the results are generally nicer.  There's a post on my blog with some tips if it helps.

If you use PV2010, it will still be compatible with CS5.  PV2012 will be compatible with ACR 6.7 in CS5, which is currently a release candidate.  If they make any changes after this (i.e. 4.1) then PV2012 may only be fully compatible with CS6, although I wouldn't expect any huge differences.

Did I miss any bits?


----------



## quantum (Mar 28, 2012)

Thanks Vic



			
				
...the results are generally nicer.
[/QUOTE said:
			
		

> I dare say there's improvements to quality.. otherwise why change? However it's the learning curve and needing to change more sliders to basically do the same, versus needing any improvements.
> IMHO LR had a nice speedy workflow, which with each release doesn't get quicker to process large quantities of file which I believe it should do as it's prime raison d'etre. We have photoshop for ultra critical editing after all...


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Mar 28, 2012)

You can stick with earlier version if you prefer it.  General consensus that I've heard is that people want their pictures to look better, even if it means it takes a bit of a change of mindset.  It doesn't mean that everyone will feel the same way though.


----------



## MirekE (Mar 30, 2012)

I hate to offer solutions that I did not try myself, but I've seen several reports from people who resolved the slider lag issue by using Export as Catalog and using the new catalog instead of the original one. I don't see the slider lag on my computer and can't confirm that it really works.


----------



## sun2me (Mar 30, 2012)

quantum said:


> Did anyone actually read my original question - and then my follow up ?



Sure did... 

There's an update to LR4, it's a RC version (release candidate), not perfect for sure, but it has made my LR4 a bit faster. Here's a link: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom4-1/


----------



## quantum (Mar 30, 2012)

No you didn't sun2me!!!

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT SPEED OF COMPUTER PERFORMANCE.

Speed of correcting images is what I mean...!
JK


----------



## Brad Snyder (Mar 31, 2012)

Ahem, let's take a deep cleansing breath....


----------



## sun2me (Mar 31, 2012)

*Correcting images vs. processing pictures*



quantum said:


> No you didn't sun2me!!!
> 
> I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT SPEED OF COMPUTER PERFORMANCE.
> 
> ...



OK, OK...whoooaaa... English is not my first language, but in my experience, that is exactly what the update does, makes it possible for you to process your pictures faster... unless you mean something completely different by the speed of correcting images...

This was my first post to this forum... what a welcome... hmmm... :hm:


----------



## Jim Wilde (Mar 31, 2012)

Hi, sun2me....welcome to the forum! 

Don't worry....stick around and you'll soon find that this forum is almost always a very friendly place to talk about Lightroom! Look forward to your input...


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Apr 1, 2012)

Welcome to the forum sun2me!  Sorry, frustrations with LR4 are running a little high right now.    And your English is great, btw.

John, are you settled on staying with PV2010 now?  Or can we help improve your speed with PV2012?


----------



## Chris_M (Apr 2, 2012)

As far as 'the speed of editing', which mean to me the speed at which the program processes what I do with the sliders,
I definately confirmed that in my case, what Brad suggested in post #6 is in fact my problem.
I run a nVidia GTX 460, and the lag is definately tied to running the dual monitor function of LR4.

During some restoration work today, after the third picture,
it got to the point where I was waiting up to 20 seconds for the picture to reflect the changes I made.
I turned off the dual display function of LR4, and right away, the sliders responded fluidly.

So yes, it does take me longer to achive the end results I got with LR3.5, but only because Adobe broke something in LR4.
And reading one of the posts about the update to LR4.1, it looks like I won't be updating to that either,
because apparently, at least in the RC, they broke the update that was supposed to fix whatever it was they broke in the first place.

I'm guessing however, that when they finally get it right, LR4 _will_ be faster than LR3.5.


----------



## sun2me (Apr 2, 2012)

TNG said:


> Hi, sun2me....welcome to the forum!
> 
> Don't worry....stick around and you'll soon find that this forum is almost always a very friendly place to talk about Lightroom! Look forward to your input...



Thanks Jim

I will hang around... and I like what you said.... "almost always"... 

Ebbe


----------



## quantum (Mar 19, 2012)

*LR4 vs Lr3 Speed of editing*

I have just started playing with LR4. I am a pro and don;t get much time to do this sort of thing. 
...However, it seems to take longer to do the achieve the end result I got with LR3. I know it's probably a familarity thing but when I follow the top-down approach to the sliders I seem to have to go over the previous ones again to fine tune as one slider seems to affect another more in this version.

I have read theat the final result is better with v4 but will I really see a difference? I haven't seen enough to warrant the change of process version.

I guess I can upgrade to LR4 but still use 2010 version? Obviously I'll then still have some new finctionality such as books and maps - which I don;t expect to use.....Is there any point to upgrading if I stick to 2010 version I ask myself?

Will compatibilty be maintained as LR and PS go forward if I sticl to LR3?

John


----------



## sun2me (Apr 2, 2012)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Welcome to the forum sun2me!  Sorry, frustrations with LR4 are running a little high right now.
> Thanks Victoria
> 
> I know... it's no big problem... the amount of good stuff luckily surpasses the few hiccups...
> ...


----------



## dwbl (Apr 2, 2012)

how often do we actually separate our computer performance from our processing time?  the more lag, the slower our processing time; faulty 'Edit In' issues really mess up processing time for those who need to roundtrip. 

BUT to try to answer what I think you were asking:
in terms of managing your database and overall workflow in processing a high volume of images, i would say LR4 doesn't make things faster, by nature of itself.  It doesn't revolutionize the flow of processing - that is pretty much the same since LR's inception.  

My understanding is that LR4/PV2012 merely changes the way image tonality is identified, weighted, and controlled, while also expanding the capability of local adjustment brushes/gradients (but this is probably the reason for much of the lag).  the added video/book/proof features are simply that, extra features/modules.
...

Therefore, I think actual improved processing time/efficiency, as always, depends on the individual's own workflow (ie. whether you do a lot of batch/paste adjustments vs fine-tuning every image).  And like anything, with practice/mastery comes quickness.  That being said, the learning curve of LR4/PV2012 probably decreased everyone's processing time, initially.  

note:
i do think the re-organization of Exposure/Recovery/Brightness/Blacks into Whites/Highlights/Shadows/Blacks with -0+ is more logical/flexible, but figuring out the qualitative effect of each compared to 3.x is tricky.  Took me a while, still learning.  So if that intuitive understanding of tone allows you to work faster, then so be it.

In general though, the more resource-intensive computer performance has increased my processing time.  But I'm also integrating new techniques with every successive project/set, so it's hard to say.


----------

