Is there anyway to make culling faster in LR4?

I've tried going photo by photo in "loope mode" and "develop mode" ... both are painfully slow.

I don't recall it being this bad in LR3.

Any suggestions?

NOTE: during my culling process, I usually rate the images with stars or "reject" them. No editing on the first pass. The second pass, maybe a little WB adjustment and/or cropping.

I presume you are referring to processor time which I can offer no help. My only tip is to hit the caps lock which will advance to the next image as you rate (with keyboard numbers).

Rob

I had to build a new computer after switching to LR4. My old laptop with a Celeron T3000 dual core processor (1.80GHz) and 3gb of RAM simply didn't cut it any more. It's one of those vicious cycles. Computers get faster so software developers utilize that speed to do more, which forces people to buy faster computers, etc, etc, etc.

If you have LR4.1, set Renders Preview to "Embedded & Sidecar" under File Handling when you import images. This alone will speed it up for you.

I am using LR 4.1. I still have LR3 installed. When I run a batch through LR3, I cull through it with decent speed, so my Core i7 w/16GB RAM is not slow. However in LR4, it is noticeably slower.

Would just using embedded previews make it faster then waiting for it render the standard previews before going through the images? I thought when you view an image in full-screen, it ends up rendering a standard preview. Am I wrong in that assumption?

2 things.

First on the speed thing. I've mentioned this a couple of times before but for me I found by far the biggest impact on LR4 speed is an SSD drive as my OS and LR4 install drive.

I built my i5 16gb system as lr4 had shown my old dual core 4gig system could not run it .(so much lag it was not even usable) but I had a DOA motherboard so while I waited for the replacement I tried the ssd in the old system with the OS and lr4 (the really slow 4.0) and it was quite usable.
As an experiment I have since tried my new system with the OS and lr4 (4.1) installed on a sata plater drive (ok not the fastest one around) and it was very slow. Faster than on the old system but still quite laggy.


The way I cull,

Pretty much like you I flag (and sometimes rate ) as I cull.
I set LR to only show unflagged items. So then as if flag (as either pick or reject) it automatically goes onto the next image .

If you zoom in to 1:1 for your culling then it will need to build a preview that provides 1:1.
In the develop module it will convert the raw file and build a preview.

It is perhaps best to tell Lr to build 1:1 previews for the imported files and then go to bed or have dinner while it chugs away. When you get back to Lr it will work a lot faster in the library module because the previews are ready to go in the preview cache, and somewhat faster in the develop module because the raw files are partially decoded in the ACR cache.

Make sure that your preview cache is big enough to cope (the default may be too small). You'll only need about 10GB for the ACR cache.

You can have Lr apply preset processing to each image as it is imported, such as for sharpening, auto exposure controls, noise reduction, etc. The extra processing burden will not seem to slow it down too much if you stick with the library module and leave it alone for a while as described above but the develop module will reapply those settings every time you open an image and that will seem slow. I do not reject any images without first editing them because a simple exposure error or WB error can be fixed automatically enough to prevent me rejecting an image. Capture sharpening is essential too and might as well be done before I reject a photo for being too soft.


I import my images to Lr via an auto-import folder on my SSD. Then I do the initial processing and culling there before I transfer them to an HDD with more space for more leisurely and selective processing.


The auto advance can be set as a preference without needing to have Lr hide already-flagged images or using the caps lock key, but auto-hiding can be very useful for getting things out of the way. It is done via an attribute filter.

- Alan

It might also pay to make sure that nothing in the Lr preview cache, the acr cache or the Lr database is being processed by any file indexing or antivirus programs.

I use FastStone Image Viewer to cull. There's an initial import of cards to a folder that gets backed up gets a run through of selected images. I import only those images to a Lightroom catalog.

It is much faster than anything Lightroom will be able to do, and also trims down the size of catalogs.

Something to possibly consider.

blob loblaw wrote:
I use FastStone Image Viewer to cull. There's an initial import of cards to a folder that gets backed up gets a run through of selected images. I import only those images to a Lightroom catalog.

It is much faster than anything Lightroom will be able to do, and also trims down the size of catalogs.

Something to possibly consider.


I have FSviewer, but how do I tag ratings to the images and keep that info for LR later? There are images that I don't delete but keep at rating "0" for use later, if I need it for something.

I also build 1:1 previews on import.

Even on an i7 with 27 GB of RAM, a good graphics card (GTX 560 with 2GB DDR5), SSD's, and RAID 0, it takes quite a bit of time. So I separate the import & editing process.


The way I edit in LR is the same way that I used to edit in Breeze Browser for 10+ years.

After the renders are built, I do an "Impromptu Slide Show." You can set the default Slide Show Template to use for this under the "Slide Show" menu.

I set mine to 3.5 seconds, .2 seconds transition.


I watch the slide show 3 times to do an edit:

1) I watch all images and usually only rate the absolute best, "5" star. But the goal is just to look, not rate.


2) I watch the slide show again, and try to rate every image. A "1" or a "2" means the image is not worth looking at again.

A "3" will get reviewed, but nothing special. The "4" and "5" stars are the keepers, depending on whether I am sharing the top 8 images (5), or top 20 (4&5) out of, say, 100 images.


3) I look through the 5, and bump down if necessary. I look through the 4, and bump up or down. Then I look through the 3, and again bump up or down.

The 3 passes do not take too long, depending on the number of images maybe 1/2 hour.


I like to do "standard workflows" like that for my all of my editing.

I used to type up all of my steps as a guide at the computer. Now that I am getting settled in to LR 4 and just rebuilt my computer, I will type those up again for myself (the whole process, just so I don't keep changing things on a whim.)

Good luck!

Best,
Michael

Michael, that is a good idea to write it down. I sometimes do change things on a whim and having it written down will probably "stop" me from doing that. I'll give it a try.

The keyboard shortcut 'shift+x' and 'shift+p' will flag as rejected or pick, respectively, and advance to the next image. I don't have it hide unflagged images since sometimes I'm not sure which ones I want to keep and want to look back, but I'll give it 1-2 stars if I think it's worth a second look/comparison.

Usually the first pass is to flag obvious rejects and rough sort based on gut feeling, with subsequent passes to refine the chosen few. On the 2nd pass I may start using quick develop changes.

jchin wrote:
blob loblaw wrote:
I use FastStone Image Viewer to cull. There's an initial import of cards to a folder that gets backed up gets a run through of selected images. I import only those images to a Lightroom catalog.

It is much faster than anything Lightroom will be able to do, and also trims down the size of catalogs.

Something to possibly consider.


I have FSviewer, but how do I tag ratings to the images and keep that info for LR later? There are images that I don't delete but keep at rating "0" for use later, if I need it for something.


I use FSviewer for two things: to delete obvious ones and to tag for LR import. After tagging, I move to a 'selects' folder. I still keep the photos that are not imported to LR in the original folder.

jchin wrote:
Michael, that is a good idea to write it down. I sometimes do change things on a whim and having it written down will probably "stop" me from doing that. I'll give it a try.

Yes, especially with all of the "metadata" steps in the process flows. It can be important to be consistent.

If you use filters to sort, or key words to search, etc. it really helps not to change the process over time. Or use "Blue" to mean something now, then "Yellow" to mean the same thing 3 months from now.

And of course all of teh time you are learning better ways to work and changing things.

I actually have memory issues too, but that is a separate question.


I really would like to see Adobe take the work flow to the next level. Where you could configure the entire work flow to be repeatible - save al of the "Import" steps, have it move only to the correct fields with drop downs, etc. Maybe some day ...

I am still learning though.

Cheers!
Michael

jchin wrote:
Michael, that is a good idea to write it down. I sometimes do change things on a whim and having it written down will probably "stop" me from doing that. I'll give it a try.

Try this....
Create a folder called 'ratings' and add the date to the end of that name. In it create five other folders numbered 1 through to 5, and follow each number with what that number of stars represents for you in Lr. Now add those folders to Lr to give yourself a permanent reminder of what the star ratings are.

If you change your definitions then create a new folder set with a different date and import it too. You can minimise the old set but it will be there to facilitate transferring new ratings to old files.

Now do something similar for labels. A parent folder that says what labels represent. Eg 'quality' or 'first impression' or whatever. Then create the five sub folders and start the name of each one with the standard colour plus extra text to describe what that colour means. As before, import these folders into Lr so that they're always handy.

With labels you can go an extra step in Lr and create a new label set complete with the words to describe what each colour means.


I have recently decided to make labels represent my first impressions of an image without regard to image quality, and the ratings represent aspects of image quality such as great, ok, needs work, can't be fixed, crappy. I'll be using smart collections based on the combination of ratings and labels to identify my best and worst images, and which ones to show to others.

I'm doing it this way because I've recognised that I often like images despite poor quality, or hate them despite good quality, and various other combinations. Five stars is simply not enough to cope with all of them.

Also, because the iq assessment takes longer than deciding on a first impression I can defer the ratings effort by starting with the images that have the higher-ranked labels.

At any stage I can reject images that obviously need to be deleted. They get zapped at the end of the session.

I've also started applying auto tone and auto wb to my images on import to facilitate the first impression lebelling. That gets fixed when I do the iq ratings. This way my first impressions are not greatly affected by a poor exposure.

- Alan