# LR Classic - future performance enhancements



## Colin Grant (Feb 8, 2018)

Operating System: High Sierra
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): 7.1

Read somewhere that the next Adobe update to LR Classic will improve performance but only in relation to  machines with 12 gig of ram or more. Not a huge amount of ram I agree but it does represent a shift away from the lower spec machines - even a late 2017 iMac 4k if it has 8 gig of ram. Unless this report is wrong I guess it is time to say goodbye to Adobe and look to one of the alternative solutions out there. I had considered LR CC but cannot see the point in that as to do complex editing PS is still required; it will not let you use external editors (yet anyway).

I rather like the feel of Luminar and with the dam coming out soon (for Mac) it might prove to be the solution and it plays nicely with external editors also. Failing that DxO PhotoLab must be a contender. I think it is a superb raw editor already and now having purchased Nik they have a great opportunity to grow.


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## Hal P Anderson (Feb 8, 2018)

It's the way things work. As memory becomes cheaper, software is written to take advantage of having more of it. LR will still work with however much memory you currently have. It'll just run faster if you add some.

Think of it as a relatively cheap way of getting better performance.


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 8, 2018)

Colin Grant said:


> Unless this report is wrong I guess it is time to say goodbye to Adobe and look to one of the alternative solutions out there.


I'm always surprised how easily people jump to conclusions. Yes, the improvements seem to concentrate on higher spec machines right now. Also multi-core (Lightroom had a problem with those kind of computers). But that doesn't mean Lightroom won't run anymore on lower spec machines, and I would first try and see it for yourself.


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## johnbeardy (Feb 8, 2018)

The way I would spin the enahncements is like this - users with higher spec machines (RAM, 4k) will see the kind of performance advantages that they thought they would get with those specs.

It's not a case of pulling up the drawbridge at the lower end.


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## clee01l (Feb 8, 2018)

Colin Grant said:


> shift away from the lower spec machines - even a late 2017 iMac 4k if it has 8 gig of ram. Unless this report is wrong I guess it is time to say goodbye to Adobe and look to one of the alternative solutions out there.


You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  Apple is not selling 8GB machines as performance wonders.  They are selling them because there are people that are willing to sacrifice performance for price.  There is only so much Adobe or anyone can do to improve performance on a low to medium spec machine.  Anything less than 4 cores and less than 12 GB can't meet the high performance demands.  Those of us with 16GB quad core machines are not unhappy with the performance of the current version of LR.  And if meeting the new specs means even better performance, then bring it on.


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## mcasan (Feb 8, 2018)

Memory and storage space, at least for desktop machines, are dirt cheap.   That is why I ordered my iMac with only 8GB and 512GB SSD from Apple.  I bumped up the memory to 24GB and connected my RAID HDD set for large cheap (fast for HDD) storage. 

For me me Skylum will need to do more than have a DAM.   There is no auto lens corrections.   And for me that means using raw file data, not 3rd party tables like LensFun.   There is no pano and HDR creation in Luminar; if you want HDR, you have to purchase Aurora.   Both Luminar and Aurora are missing good edge aware brush and eraser.   And don't look for luminosity and color range masking in either of them.   Aurora 2017 had decent luminosity masking and lost it in the 2018 version.    Put that scenario together with big improvements in Lr Classic 7.1 and I came back to Adobe.   For the time being, the combo of Lr Classic, Ps, and Topaz Studio is hard to beat.  Any and all improvements in Lr Classic are always welcome.  

I wish Skylum every success.  We all win when there is more competition in the marketplace.


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## PhilBurton (Feb 8, 2018)

clee01l said:


> You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  Apple is not selling 8GB machines as performance wonders.  They are selling them because there are people that are willing to sacrifice performance for price.  There is only so much Adobe or anyone can do to improve performance on a low to medium spec machine.  Anything less than 4 cores and less than 12 GB can't meet the high performance demands.  Those of us with 16GB quad core machines are not unhappy with the performance of the current version of LR.  And if meeting the new specs means even better performance, then bring it on.


Companies like Apple, in particular, try to maintain a price point for a given type of system targeted at a given segment of the market.  So does Intel.  As CPUs, memory, SSDs and rotating disks all get cheaper, the actual definition of that point-point for the market system gets more powerful.

Software companies in turn consider what is the profile of the average system in their target market *segments*.  If they assume that the average system is underpowered, relative to their targets, then they are artificially limiting features and performance.  

So netting this out, Adobe may have concluded that the profile of their target markets is a system of 12 GB or more.  Simple (or as complex) as that.  If some other company wants to serve a market with a lower performance profile, they are either software geniuses or else deliberately not adding all potential features in a bid to capture that market.

Conclusion:  nothing is free.

Second conclusion:  Adobe and others may have features on a TO DO list that require more CPU+RAM than most users have today.  However, given the continued performance enhancements in hardware, they could plan to do these features in 2-3-4 years.  Or they could introduce these features now, but only a small percentage of their users can make good use of them.


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 10, 2018)

BTW, I just talked to some people at Adobe about this, and they assured me that machines with less than 12 GB and even a humble 2 core processor will also see speed improvements. Just not by the same margin, perhaps.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Feb 10, 2018)

Think of it this way: In systems with more cores and more ram, Adobe has more opportunity for performance improvement.

Imagine if you had 2 carpenters building a house, or 12 carpenters building a house.  And the rules are the house itself can't be changed, you have to build the same house (i.e. Classic remains basically Classic, you don't get to revamp its architecture fundamentally). 

With two carpenters, since a lot of tasks need two people, there's only one way to do things -- pretty much things go smoothly and sequentially, and there is not a lot of opportunity for improvement by rearranging order. Put another way, there's not even all that much opportunity for them to get in each other's way, unless they are really stupid (let's assume they are not).

With 12 carpenters you might manage it badly, they are bumping into each other all the time, one waiting for another, and things slow down.  OR, you might have a great plan where everything goes very smoothly.  It takes a LOT more planning and skill to manage 12 going at one time on the same job than 2.

I think you should view older Lightrooms on large core processors, to some extent, like the 12 carpenters managed badly; newer versions are that they got their act together.

But in getting their act together there's just not that much opportunity for the two cores... I mean carpenter... to improve; it's not a question of lack of desire to improve it, or lack of trying to improve it, but there's just not nearly as much opportunity.


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## PhilBurton (Feb 10, 2018)

Ferguson said:


> Think of it this way: In systems with more cores and more ram, Adobe has more opportunity for performance improvement.
> 
> Imagine if you had 2 carpenters building a house, or 12 carpenters building a house.  And the rules are the house itself can't be changed, you have to build the same house (i.e. Classic remains basically Classic, you don't get to revamp its architecture fundamentally).
> 
> ...


Very good and simple explanation.

Phil


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## Jimmsp (Feb 11, 2018)

Puget Systems just published a very good summary of tests they have run.
Lightroom Classic CC Version 7.2 Performance

The improvements look pretty good.


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## Jim Wilde (Feb 11, 2018)

Yes, quite impressive.....some of those speeds are insanely fast compared to my oldish four core system.


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## LouieSherwin (Feb 11, 2018)

Jimmsp said:


> Puget Systems just published a very good summary of tests they have run.
> Lightroom Classic CC Version 7.2 Performance
> 
> The improvements look pretty good.



Yes they do for the things that they tested. All of the test they did are for parts of Lightroom that can be easily broken up into parallel processes and sent to an individual core. If you spend all your time exporting you will be pretty happy. 

I think that for many users the biggest performance issues are in the Develop module especially when using high resolution images (30 Mp and above). Figuring out how to break up the parametric develop pipeline is a much bigger challenge. It is an intrinsically serial process, some things simply have to be completed before you do the next step. 

Adobe's current solution is to provide interim, low resolution results as they work through the pipeline. This is easy to see as the low res results are displayed as we make  changes to the develop settings and is often a question asked on the forums. This can become very noticeable on an image as you add local adjustments. If you then go back and adjust the color temp it can take  a second or two for the screen to update. 

The only solution for this is still having the fastest CPU with plenty or RAM. Adding cores will not help. So if you are an event photographer and have to export hundreds of images at a time then load up on cores. Otherwise consider how you normally use Lightroom and spend your dollars on CPU speed.

-louie


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## Linwood Ferguson (Feb 11, 2018)

LouieSherwin said:


> The only solution for this is still having the fastest CPU with plenty or RAM. Adding cores will not help. So if you are an event photographer and have to export hundreds of images at a time then load up on cores. Otherwise consider how you normally use Lightroom and spend your dollars on CPU speed.


CPU speed is still king, I think many of us are hoping for better GPU integration so that you can buy more "slider" smoothness and speed with better GPU's, but it has not happened yet.

Even so, the additional parallelism has a side benefit.  I find that I am often slowed down in develop because I still have a preview-build going, or a publish step.  So having these go faster (even if it slows down things a bit more) is actually better.

All that said, I am getting better performance by limiting how often I go into develop.  I crop and straighten and cull outside lightroom, then I use the quick develop panel to do basic WB and exposure correction. Probably 80% of the shots, on a good daylight shoot, are then done, and only a few times do I go into the slow-zone that is develop.

But...CPU speed is king. Memory is your friend.


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## johnbeardy (Feb 11, 2018)

Have any of you been generating smart previews and enabling the preference to use them?


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## Linwood Ferguson (Feb 11, 2018)

johnbeardy said:


> Have any of you been generating smart previews and enabling the preference to use them?


That's a good question; I have not, and also wonder if people are finding them faster-enough to give up editing with the full resolution?

I also suspect this might differ by people with very high res monitors - I have a 27" monitor but it's only 2560x1440 so it's not really that pixel-large that it needs as much horsepower as those with like 6k pixels across.


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