Looking to get some feedback on how Lightroom 3/4 would run on a decently equipped editing station.. Would especially appreciate input from people who've used both versions of Lightroom extensively for mass editing (aka wedding photographers) on a similar system as my new build:
Intel Core i7-3930K + Asus SABERTOOTH X79 + Corsair 16gb RAM + Patriot Wildfire 240GB + Windows 7 Pro
Please refer to the Poll for the rest & for those of you who prefer an edition over the other for speed purposes, please also share some of your recommended Lightroom tips!
I'm running LR4 on a first-generation Core i7 860 (2.8 GHz) with 8GB of RAM and it is quite responsive processing RAW files from a Canon 1Ds3. I noticed only a very slight degradation in response after upgrading from LR3.6 to LR4. And I really like the new LR4 user interface. I find that I can achieve the results I want much easier (and faster) with LR4. So even though LR4 runs just a bit slower than LR3, it saves me a lot of time overall.
Looking to get some feedback on how Lightroom 3/4 would run on a decently equipped editing station.. Would especially appreciate input from people who've used both versions of Lightroom extensively for mass editing (aka wedding photographers) on a similar system as my new build:
Intel Core i7-3930K + Asus SABERTOOTH X79 + Corsair 16gb RAM + Patriot Wildfire 240GB + Windows 7 Pro
Please refer to the Poll for the rest & for those of you who prefer an edition over the other for speed purposes, please also share some of your recommended Lightroom tips!
Thanks in advance,
I don't think you will see any issues with LR4 at all on that system.
I just built a new machine as 4 ran like a dog on my old machine that could handle 3 ok.
I built mine : i5 2500k (not over clocked yet) 16gb ddr3 , gigabite z68 mobo, crucial 128bg SSD . And a freh install of win7ult 64bit.
And on that LR4 runs like a charm. And that's the 4.0 which was hopeless on my old machine . (4RC1 was a bit better).
I think the main benefit comes from the fast ssd drive though.
When I was in the build process I had to get a replacement mobo as the first one was DOA . So while I was waiting I decided to have a play with the ssd on my old system. (non of the other bits were usable without the mobo) . So I installed a fresh install of win7 64bit and LR 4.0 on the ssd in my old machine (dual core pent , 4 gig ram) . And actually lightroom 4.0 was quite usable. A tiny bit of lag but nothing that was an issue.
So I probably could have just got away with the ssd upgrade. But hey at least I now have a machine capable enough for a couple of years
Ian.Dobinson wrote:
I don't think you will see any issues with LR4 at all on that system.
I think the main benefit comes from the fast ssd drive though. When I was in the build process I had to get a replacement mobo as the first one was DOA . So while I was waiting I decided to have a play with the ssd on my old system. (non of the other bits were usable without the mobo) . So I installed a fresh install of win7 64bit and LR 4.0 on the ssd in my old machine (dual core pent , 4 gig ram) . And actually lightroom 4.0 was quite usable. A tiny bit of lag but nothing that was an issue.
So I probably could have just got away with the ssd upgrade. But hey at least I now have a machine capable enough for a couple of years...Show more →
my current mobo is so old that I don't think a SSD even works on it (haha), but in any event, I chose a full revamp over a minimal upgrade just for that reason - don't want to worry about system/speed capabilities being a restraint for the next 3 years ast least..
using Lightroom 3.6 on my current machine, my main complaint is RAW to TIFF rendering speeds.. when I batch 10+ photos, it seems like the machine takes about 8-10 seconds per file.. which slows down my workflow noticeably + adds up over the course of a 300+ photo wedding/event shoot..
hoping the new build will speed that up by at least 15-20% while offering improved general function/interface speed within Lightroom as well..
thanks everyone for taking the time to give feedback + voting!
When you say raw to tiff, do you mean exporting to tiff?
If so then I think you will be quite happy. I've not needed to export much in the week or so I've had this machine up and running but the few files I have exported have been really quick.
Another example .
Ive been going back thru my cat to cull out any unwanted stuff. I to easily got into the habit of just importing everything and then letting it stay there. I would then play with the stuff I liked and upload to smug ect , but would still have a hat drive full of crap that would never ever be wanted again.
I know the saying is storage is cheap , but when you consider backup drives and of site back ups as well it started to seem silly to waste the gigs
Anyway the usual way I would do it is flag stuff for rejection and then move all rejects to a separate folder . After a while I could go thru the rejects to make sure I had not rejected something I wanted to keep (accidents happen) and then start selecting multiples and deleting. On my old system I could do about 80 at a time and have to wait while it counted down and then do another 80 . If I went much more than 80 it would normally fail to complete.
Well when I did the same on the new machine I could select the whole lot of nearly a 1000 images (mostly raw) and it had them deleted from the hard drive so fast I didn't even have time to get out of my chair to put the kettle on
Ian.Dobinson wrote:
When you say raw to tiff, do you mean exporting to tiff?
If so then I think you will be quite happy. I've not needed to export much in the week or so I've had this machine up and running but the few files I have exported have been really quick.
Another example .
Ive been going back thru my cat to cull out any unwanted stuff. I to easily got into the habit of just importing everything and then letting it stay there. I would then play with the stuff I liked and upload to smug ect , but would still have a hat drive full of crap that would never ever be wanted again.
I know the saying is storage is cheap , but when you consider backup drives and of site back ups as well it started to seem silly to waste the gigs
Anyway the usual way I would do it is flag stuff for rejection and then move all rejects to a separate folder . After a while I could go thru the rejects to make sure I had not rejected something I wanted to keep (accidents happen) and then start selecting multiples and deleting. On my old system I could do about 80 at a time and have to wait while it counted down and then do another 80 . If I went much more than 80 it would normally fail to complete.
Well when I did the same on the new machine I could select the whole lot of nearly a 1000 images (mostly raw) and it had them deleted from the hard drive so fast I didn't even have time to get out of my chair to put the kettle on...Show more →
Thanks Ian, yes what I meant was exporting from RAW to TIFF..
1DmkIII & 40D RAW files seem a breeze by comparison (2-5 seconds per file I'd say) but the full 21MP 1Ds3 RAW files seem to come out no faster than 6-10 seconds per file on my current system (LR3.6 + WindowsXPPro + Core2Duo 2.83GHz + 3gig RAM viewable + 7200RPM Seagate HD) which is getting to be quite the drag..
1DmkIV RAW files seem to export noticeably faster as well.. it's just those pesky 1Ds3 RAW files, but i'm more confident now that the new system should be able to handle them fine, even on a slightly slower LR4.. I'll probably do a series of timings with both LR3.6 + LR4 with the same 50 RAW files once all the new parts arrive in a week or so + share those results!
Much appreciated once again for sharing your experiences everyone!
I've just downloaded the 4.1 RC2 and installed it on my venerable Q6600 (not overclocked) and it seems to run ok. Its a touch slower moving to the next image, but not much, and even in develop mode once its pre-rendered the image it loads instantly. I'm booting from an SSD and storing the LR cache on there, and running the LR cat and images off a 7200 rpm drive. Files are from a 5D.
I've quite a bit more playing around to fully test it out, but if first impressions are correct i might call off my planned hardware upgrade...
Ian - i also sort my files in a similar fashion: Cull, check, delete. I don't see much point filling up hard disks with images i know i don't want.
) . So I installed a fresh install of win7 64bit and LR 4.0 on the ssd in my old machine (dual core pent , 4 gig ram) . And actually lightroom 4.0 was quite usable. A tiny bit of lag but nothing that was an issue.