Quick Collection) can speed it up slightly.įinally, rather than trying to delete one photo at a time, consider marking them as rejects. Lightroom also has to redraw the grid view as photos disappear, so switching to a different folder or collection (e.g. Moving or deleting photos is also affected by drive speeds – both for the original images as they’re moved, and also the catalog as the image records are updated. Remember to optimize the catalog regularly, as this saves Lightroom skipping around the catalog to find the information it needs. It also helps to minimize the amount of work Lightroom has to do, especially closing the Collections, Metadata and Keyword panels if you’re not using them. So again, putting the catalog/previews on an SSD makes a notable difference. Putting the catalog/previews on an SSD can make Library browsing smoother.Īpplying metadata is mainly limited by the speed of the drive containing the catalog. Once the previews are built, the drive speed for the catalog/previews is next in line.
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If you’ve made Develop edits since building the previews, don’t forget to rebuild them, otherwise they’ll have to update when you select the photo. Otherwise, standard sized previews (set to Auto in Catalog Settings) will be plenty. If you need to zoom in, you’ll need 1:1 previews. You can speed up viewing in the Library module by building the right size previews in advance. Also, you only need to build the previews you actually use, so if you never zoom in the Library module, there’s no need to build 1:1 previews. The simplest solution for building previews is simply to let them build overnight, or at another time when you don’t need the computer. So, it’s worth keeping an eye on Resource Monitor (Windows) / Activity Monitor (Mac) to see which computer components are reaching their limits. If you’re running low on RAM and having to use temp files, this may slow you down further. Improving preview build times frequently requires a newer CPU, so it’s not an easy fix. The time it takes to build previews is largely dependent on your computer’s processing power, but also the drive speed for the catalog and original images. Just take care that the photos are on a hard drive, not a memory card.įinally, the additional work you ask Lightroom to do immediately after import can prolong the import time, especially conversion to DNG format or building previews. If you choose to add the photos at their current location, this is a lot quicker than moving/copying the files. Many photographers send their second copies to a NAS, which can reduce the speed further. If these are on external drives, the connection speed (USB2 vs USB3, etc.) is usually the main issue. USB 3) are available to help improve the import speed.įor the destination, there are potentially two drives in play: the main Destination folder and also the Second Copy location. This includes the speed of the source – whether that’s a camera cable, card reader or hard drive – and the speed of the destination drive(s).įor the source, card readers are usually more reliable than direct camera connections, and faster USB card readers (e.g.
Importing photos is also primarily limited by file transfer rates. However, we wouldn’t recommend breaking the catalog up into smaller catalogs to solve this, as this causes more problems than it solves for most people. Load time is also affected by the size of the catalog. If you’re finding it slow to load, replacing your spinning drive with an SSD can help, and is a relatively inexpensive upgrade. This affects both the OS/program files and also the catalog. Loading the Lightroom program is primarily dependent on your drive speeds. In this final post, we’ll summarize the main places to look for improvement, based on what specifically is slow. In the first post, we said simply saying “Lightroom is slow” doesn’t help, because different areas of the program benefit from different optimizations. Over the past 7 weeks, we’ve learned the pros and cons of non-destructive editing, how different computer components affect different areas of the program, and the ways you can adjust your Lightroom workflow to get the best performance.