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Archive 2017 · lightroom and hardware

  
 
hokiejokey
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · lightroom and hardware


I'm looking to possibly purchase a new computer. I use lightroom to process photos, but I'm not a pro and don't have millions of photos to process. But I do notice my current setup takes a fare amount of time to upload the photos from the card, then every time I bring up an image on the monitor it takes a few seconds to resolve.

What specs drive the upload time and the image load time? Is it mostly just RAM, or does having an SSD help here? What about the memory card reader?



Mar 10, 2017 at 10:34 AM
hokiejokey
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · lightroom and hardware


Or perhaps is there some tradeoff between number of cores and frequency?


Mar 10, 2017 at 10:53 AM
15Bit
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · lightroom and hardware


If you can spare 10 secs to use the search function you will discover this has been debated ad-infinitum already.


Mar 10, 2017 at 12:32 PM
hokiejokey
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · lightroom and hardware


15Bit wrote:
If you can spare 10 secs to use the search function you will discover this has been debated ad-infinitum already.


I did a quick internet search. I only got 86, 435 hits. Nowhere near the infinity you claim.

Pretty much every topic on FM can be found "ad-infinitum" all over the internet. I'm hoping to start a discussion that I can ask more detailed follow up questions that may be more difficult to get answered by simple internet searches. That is one of the reasons we have these forums.



Mar 10, 2017 at 01:11 PM
15Bit
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · lightroom and hardware


I meant the search function on FM, not google


Mar 10, 2017 at 01:16 PM
starlights
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · lightroom and hardware


With regards to your upload time question, RAM & SSD will definitely help a lot. However, there are a couple of other important factors that will influence greatly and you should take them into consideration as well.

First, how do you upload? Do you connect the camera to the computer directly? Are you trying to import via LR or doing a drag and drop into a folder without using LR for importing?

Second, assuming you are uploading via USB, is it USB2 or 3?

In my workflow, I create a suitably named folder (usually by date or location or event etc) and locate it in the proper directory on my computer (I have created one for every year since 2005). Then, using a SD card reader (not connecting the camera to the computer), I drag and drop all the relevant files into this folder. Transferring by this method, the transfer is usually very fast. Once I have all the relevant files in the folder, then I start my LR and Import the images into its database.

If i attempt to import images from the SD Card using LR as the intermediary, it takes forever and ever - even on a very fast machine. Hope this helps.


Regarding processing times in LR, having a fast multi core processor, fast multicore GPU, lots of RAM and SSD will all help, although keep in mind that LR as an application is not uber fast and depending on your file size of the images you may still experience slower than expected speeds.



Mar 10, 2017 at 02:00 PM
schlotz
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · lightroom and hardware


A little more specific, LR is not designed (at the moment) to really take advantage of multiple cores. A fast core however, is the key. Fast i7 @4GHz vs slower i5's. Here is were you will see the best improvement regarding processing speed (not I/O). After the processor it's RAM. Min of 8Gb ram, better is 16Gb.

Card reading: which interface? what speed are the cards? next, the speed of the reader? Remember the final flow rate is determined by the weakest link in this chain.

Computer drives: best is pci-e connected SSD's then 7200 rpm hard drives. You want SSD if you can afford it. IMO a min of 500Gb but 1Tb is better.

JMTC
Matt



Mar 10, 2017 at 02:33 PM
hokiejokey
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · lightroom and hardware


It seems HP/Dell and perhaps others offer options with a smaller SSD (say 256 or 512) to run programs and a larger (say 2TB) HDD for data. My fear is that if I am offloading my images onto the HDD, then I'm not taking advantage of the SSD capabilities.


Mar 10, 2017 at 03:12 PM
15Bit
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · lightroom and hardware


Ok, it seems like this will turn into another LR performance discussion thread anyway. Why do we bother having a search function?

There is some confusion with respect to LR and multicore performance. Actually there is a lot of confusion. This arises because there are many facets to the LR workflow, and they scale quite differently with CPU core count. It is however untrue to say that LR does not take advantage of multiple cores, because it does. And some tasks scale well with core-count. There is also some GPU contribution, but most of the work still seems to be done by the CPU. In more detail:

Import is generally limited by the read-write speed of the memory cards and hard drives. If you render previews at the same time, that will probably be CPU bound but will scale well with core count because each individual image can be rendered by an individual core. In some tests (especially with higher core count CPUs) it might appear that the import+render combined process doesn't scale well with core count, but that is most likely because copying data off the card is too slow to keep the CPU fed with data.

Image exporting scales very well with CPU core count, because each core can be fed an individual image to render.

It is notable that whenever you see LR benchmarks they are generally of the import or export functions, simply because they can be easily and reliably timed.

The problem is that we spend most time in the develop module editing images one by one, and this is where we most perceive slowness. Performance in the develop module is pretty much entirely CPU-bound (with some limited GPU assistance). Unfortunately the rendering of a single image is not as easy to multithread as the rendering of several images parallel. I also have a feeling that the Adobe rendering engine has some legacy issues either relating to old code or an approach to raw rendering that inherently doesn't multithread well. Either way, editing of an individual image doesn't scale all that well with CPU core count (though it does use multiple cores), and so responds much better to clockspeed that core-count. In order to speed up things when developing the only significant variables that folk have found are the image sharpening and noise reduction. These can noticably slow things down, so it is best to leave them until the end. There is some debate about the impact of SSD's, and certainly lower latency read characteristics won't hurt. That said, a typical raw file of 15-50MB is going to take a fraction of a second to read from any disk subsystem, whilst render times are in the order of seconds. So the disk subsystem is not the biggest bottleneck.



Mar 10, 2017 at 03:23 PM
Paul Mo
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · lightroom and hardware


Remember also that performance is subjective and often what people are seeing is perfectly normal.

Of course there are variables such as drive setup and file size, but without sitting next to you as you work... the next variable, being human.

We all expect more from our tech. but often in such discussions impatience is the biggest factor.



Mar 10, 2017 at 07:22 PM
rdeloe
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · lightroom and hardware


15bit's summary of the situation is excellent. Develop is where I see the most drag, and that mostly has to do with rendering the image.

Nobody has posted this link in this thread yet so here you go: advice from Adobe on how to make the most of it.
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

I found that putting my catalogue on a good SSD helped a bit. Standard advice is sharpen and noise reduction as the last thing you do, but I haven't noticed that approach making a useful difference relative to my workflow.



Mar 10, 2017 at 07:34 PM
schlotz
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · lightroom and hardware


15Bit: yes you are correct in that technically LR does in some aspects utilize multiple cores. I should have been more specific in my post as I was referring to the Develop module.

hokie: no question SSD for everything is best but depending on space required for photos that could get very expensive (photo's alone here are over 6Tb ) What I've found to work best in my case is to keep the catalog files on a pci-e connected SSD and maintain the photos on 7200 spinners. Properly backed up, of course. Really don't experience much of any performance hit using LR in this manner. YMMV



Mar 11, 2017 at 10:43 AM
hokiejokey
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · lightroom and hardware


Thanks for all the help.

I ended up getting a gaming machine. Open box at Best Buy that they ended up screwing up the labeling on so they ordered me a brand new one for the open box price

Has 256GB SSD, 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD
16 gb RAM, expandable to 64
Nvidia 1080 graphics card

My plan is to use an expansion slot to install the 512GB SSD that's currently in my failing laptop. After moving the data over, I'll format the drive. All of my software will live on the 256, my catalog files on the 512, and the photos on the HDD. Now I just have to figure out how to configure LR to do that



Mar 13, 2017 at 09:14 AM
Eric Larsen
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · lightroom and hardware


hokiejokey wrote:
Now I just have to figure out how to configure LR to do that


Please share how you end-up pulling that off!



Mar 13, 2017 at 09:41 AM
hokiejokey
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · lightroom and hardware


Eric Larsen wrote:
Please share how you end-up pulling that off!


It appears its easy enough in LR to start a catalog and define it's location. The photos I can just import with my CF reader onto the HDD.

As to getting LR to install an internal SSD, move data and format the drive, as well as do my laundry, dishes, cook, and other chores, I haven't found that in the manual yet. But perhaps in the next version...



Mar 13, 2017 at 12:17 PM
Eric Larsen
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · lightroom and hardware


hokiejokey wrote:
It appears its easy enough in LR to start a catalog and define it's location. The photos I can just import with my CF reader onto the HDD.

As to getting LR to install an internal SSD, move data and format the drive, as well as do my laundry, dishes, cook, and other chores, I haven't found that in the manual yet. But perhaps in the next version...


HA! Cheers



Mar 13, 2017 at 07:53 PM
Alan321
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · lightroom and hardware


hokiejokey wrote:
... then every time I bring up an image on the monitor it takes a few seconds to resolve....


Is this in the Develop module ? The Library module will be much faster once you build the previews but that can take several seconds. In the Develop module it is not unusual.

The develop module reloads the image data almost from scratch - but it can be done quicker if the raw file has been converted already and the partial conversion data is still saved in the ACR cache. The more you use the Develop module instead of the Library module, and then also the faster you move from image to image, the slower Lr will be. In the Develop module it always rebuilds the previews even if it already did so a few seconds or minutes ago. That's how it gives you the most accurate data to work with but I wish it was better managed, especially on PCs with tons of RAM and speedy SSDs.

I have not timed Lr in quite a while but it was certainly snappier on my laptop computers when I used SSDs instead of HDDs. However, the extent to which that might be an improvement for you will likely depend on how big your library is and how much the files are spread all over the place and how much of what you want to see is in the drive cache or OS cache or ACR cache when you you want it. Fragmented HDDs with large libraries and out-of-sequence viewing are likely to be slower. On the other hand, good SSDs (not just any SSD) have minimal latency no matter where the data is stored and respond quickly. Even better if the caches and catalog are also on a speedy SSD.

Opinions differ considerably and I put that variation down to the factors just mentioned.

The bottom line is that Lr is inherently slow, probably because much of it is largely single threaded but also because files are getting bigger with each new camera upgrade.


I suggest that you get your images off the cards and onto the computer without using Lr. Put them where they belong, use some other software such as faststone image viewer (for jpegs; free) or fast raw viewer (for raws; not free) to weed out the more obvious outtakes and then import the rest into Lr. If you have the time, let it build 1:1 previews while you get a coffee. and dinner. and watch a movie.

My new desktop pc processes 30Mpx raw files in a little under half of the time that my laptop took (about 4-5 seconds each instead of 10seconds, with 1:1 previews). The CPU clock speed is not twice as fast and so other hardware is making at least some difference. However, it might be that the laptop had choked hardware performance by sharing available data bandwidth whereas the desptop pc does not have to do so much sharing between devices.

On one occasion I was using a 2011 macbook pro with a 4-core i7 and I found that if I disabled three of the cpu cores then I was able to get a faster clock speed from the cpu and then Lr did almost everything faster by the same amount. With newer i7s on windows pcs I can get the faster speeds without disabling all but one core.



Mar 18, 2017 at 10:27 AM





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