71 replies to this topic

[cor]

People are reporting problems regardless how tricked our their machines are.

[Steve Williams]

The Lightroom support file is mostly the standard stuff as Mark suggests with one exception. It seems that the preferences files can be conflicting or damaged. A review of the LR webpages suggests that removing it and letting LR build a fresh one is helping some folks. It seemed to speed up my machine and the gradient tool is working again. If you want to give it a try here are the directions from the Adobe file;

Re-create the Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 and 1.x preferences files to
eliminate problems that a damaged preferences file might cause. If you do not
delete your 1.x preferences as well as your 2.0 preferences, other issues may
occur. To re-create the Photoshop Lightroom preferences file:

1. Quit Photoshop Lightroom.
2. Rename the Lightroom 2 Preferences.agprefs file (for example, to Lightroom 2 Preferencesagprefs.old) and the Lightroom Preferences.agprefs file (for example, to Lightroom Preferences.old) in the Documents andSettings/[Username ]/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom/Preferences folder.
3. Start Photoshop Lightroom. Photoshop Lightroom creates a new
preferences file.

If the problem continues, the preferences file isn't the cause. To restore custom settings, delete the new preferences file and restore the original name of the previous preferences file.

Just a quick thought before I go.
A quick review of the Windows System errors and Freezes instructions from Adobe is the best example I've ever seen to buy a Mac.

Have fun,
Steve

[loftus]

I can see the Apple ads now: "Hello I'm Lightroom, and I'm Aperture..................."

[bmyates]

Man oh man...Adobe isn't making it easy for people to become Lightroom converts, do they!

I bought LR 1.0 and immediately wasn't impressed, so uninstalled it and went back to using CS3 and figured LR was just a waste of money except for wedding photogs and others who needed to process kazillions of photos.

Then I roomed with Don Silcock in Indonesia a few months back, and he was still using the last version of Raw Shooter as if it was the puppy he'd always loved and couldn't bear to part with. RS really impressed me, but it unfortunately was apparently bought by Adobe and shelved, with only "parts" of it integrated into Lightroom...so I decided maybe I should give LR another look.

When you posted how great 2.0 looked, I immediately bought the upgrade (I'm still waiting for box to arrive - I'm an old-fashioned guy and like to have a disc), but it sounds like I should wait to install it until 2.1 is announced so I can install and download the fixes before actually using it. I really appreciate you bleeding-edge guys letting us know about stuff like that!

Not to hijack this rant-at-Adobe thread , but do those of you really familiar with LR consider it the best/closest product compared to Raw Shooter for simple, quick image processing?

[danielbrown]

While there shouldn't be (and generally isn't) a huge shift in code between beta and "GM" (Golden Master) versions of the app, there are occasions when, at the last minute, one chunk of code which is "safer" gets swapped out for one that's "optimized".

With that said, I'm hardly "in" on what happened here. I showed off Lightroom 1.4 at the Bonaire Digital Shootout in June, and have dabbled in (but not hammered on) LR 2.0 since then.

A glance through the Adobe Support forums for Lightroom 2.0 under the topic of performance:

http://www.adobeforu.../webx/.59b604cf

Shows several complaints, and several people wondering what the other people are talking about. There are some optimization tricks that seem to help, but my hunch is that people are using the retouching tools in LR 2.0 the same way they would in Photoshop and they are VERY different animals.

I'm sure they'll patch it quickly as the Lr team can be a bit more nimble and flexible than the Photoshop team. Hang tight.

As for Lightroom versus Aperture, I've no opinion either way since I no longer work for Adobe (though that may change...) My impressions of the two applications come from:

1. The fact that Lightroom is "cross-platform" and based on the number of responses from people on Windows machines, once can imagine that to be appealing.

2. The impressions I've received from talking to about 200 people who have used both intensively and prefer Lightroom over Aperture (rather vocally in some cases.)

In the end, it's personal preference; use what pisses you off the least 'cause, sooner or later, every piece of software is gonna do it.

Danielsan-->
"Wish I could take enough pictures worth keeping to slow Lightroom down"
www.downloadculture.com

[Steve Williams]

I'm sure they'll patch it quickly as the Lr team can be a bit more nimble and flexible than the Photoshop team. Hang tight.

Danielsan-->
"Wish I could take enough pictures worth keeping to slow Lightroom down"
www.downloadculture.com

Thanks for the insight Dan, hope your right.
Steve
" I'm good, I can crash it with one "

[ATJ]

For what it is worth, for me, LR 2 performs no worse than LR 1.4.1 (or LR 1.3.1) on my machine. I only have around 22k images in the library. I'm running on Windows XP Professional SP2 on a Pentium M 1.86GHz with 2GB of RAM. My images are actually on USB connected external drive which is not exactly lighting fast, but LR is still usable.

Of course, I have lots of other complaints about LR, but speed is not currently one of them.

[craig]

I have upgraded and am not having problems but I'm not doing much with it as of the moment.

Surely this thread isn't going to devolve into claims that Adobe has a monopoly on bugs, right? I wonder when Apple will decide to make iTunes something other than a steaming pile of crap. Apple makes their share of garbage, too. Who doesn't?

The worst performance problem I have with LR is when using the retouching features. They are absurdly slow once you have more than a few touch-ups on an image. It makes the tool almost useless for backscatter.

[loftus]

Surely this thread isn't going to devolve into claims that Adobe has a monopoly on bugs, right? I wonder when Apple will decide to make iTunes something other than a steaming pile of crap. Apple makes their share of garbage, too. Who doesn't?

I know, just felt like stirring the pot a little; I thought the new Apple ad concept quite amusing. My mother always told me not to rub it in when others have a problem as it would come back to haunt me, but I didn't listen.

[TimG]

I've just switched to a Mac from a PC on which I ran LR1.4 I was wondering whether to move LR to the Mac or go with Aperture 2.0. I think you guys have just helped me decide! Thanks.

[craig]

I've just switched to a Mac from a PC on which I ran LR1.4 I was wondering whether to move LR to the Mac or go with Aperture 2.0. I think you guys have just helped me decide! Thanks.

I think that's exactly where the damage is done.

There's plenty of reasons to choose one over the other but short-term bug issues shouldn't be one of them. Apple had to update Aperture 2 quickly as well. With Aperture's performance history, is Lightroom speed really a reason to choose Aperture instead?

Choose Aperture or Lightroom based on the RAW conversions you prefer, the workflow, and/or the metadata features. Don't do it based on a release hiccup.

[jeremypayne]

I guess I'm the rare happy LR 2 user. I keep my photos and my library on a striped RAID array and that seems to make a big difference performance-wise.

The camera profiles are terrific and beyond anything I had hoped for 2.0 ... between the multiple monitor support, the color profiles, the local correction tools, the post-crop vignetting tool, the flickr plugin, etc. I'm very happy with it.

I wasn't sure I was gonna upgrade - for me it was the camera profiles that got me to pay for the upgrade after comparing my first D700 NEFs in 1.4 to the in-camera JPEGs. The reds, yellows and oranges are just so much better with the Nikon profiles.

I work in software (kinda) and I'd say the amount of high-quality enhancements in this release is impressive. They clearly listened to their customers.

[cor]

Jeremy, I dont think it matters what your hardware is like. People have reported problems with seriously beefy machines. It's probably some specific chain of settings or environment. I have a pretty souped up machine myself, also with 2 x 1TB raid0/stripe for LR alone, and its just too slow. Im used to Extensis Portfolio, where browsing is just instant. I dont see why LR cant be like that in the Library module. It's just thumbnails. Thats last century technology

Cor

[jeremypayne]

I guess it hasn't slowed me down ... I'm gonna pay attention tonight and see what it is actually like. I hadn't been bothered, but I don't have a lot to compare it too either. iPhoto on a G4 laptop with 512mb of RAM was my last setup! Digital is still pretty fresh for me. I can still smell the darkroom when I close my eyes ...

I'm heading out right now to shoot the waterfall under the brooklyn bridge as the sun goes down with my new 17-35 on my new D700 with my new tripod.

[MatthewAddison]

I'm running an Intel Core Duo 2.4Ghz Macbook pro with 4GB. I downloaded 2.0 when it was released. I am sad to say that I have not seen a single issue with it on THIS machine after playing with it extensively.
I haven't installed it onto my workhorse PowerPC G4 yet... hmmmmm.

[ATJ]

Another thing you may want to check is Previews. I couldn't work out where all my disk space was going - I'd lost around 8GB in a few days for no obvious reason. While drilling down, I realised LR2 has created 1:1 previews of all the images in the library (>20k) and the preview folder was nearly 6GB. The preview folder for LR 1.4 was less than 1GB and that's only the photos I have imported in the last 30 days.

That might have an impact on speed.

[okuma]

Question:

I just ordered the disc, paid for by credit card - it's in the mail.

How do I reverse the process ? Return package unopened and cancel credit charge?

[sideways]

Question:

I just ordered the disc, paid for by credit card - it's in the mail.

Return package unopened and cancel credit charge?

That would seem like the easiest solution . I've been using it for a few days now. Yes, it's slow at times, but so was 1.1. I like the results I get for sure though.

[ATJ]

Another thing you may want to check is Previews. I couldn't work out where all my disk space was going - I'd lost around 8GB in a few days for no obvious reason. While drilling down, I realised LR2 has created 1:1 previews of all the images in the library (>20k) and the preview folder was nearly 6GB. The preview folder for LR 1.4 was less than 1GB and that's only the photos I have imported in the last 30 days.

That might have an impact on speed.

AAARRRGGGHHHH! I can't stop LR2 from creating the previews other than not running it. So I guess I will stop running it.

[Steve Williams]

Hey folks,
I'm with Craig on this one, I was very reluctant to post the original thread because I didn't want to yell "Fire" in the theatre. A whole bunch of people are loading LR2.0 and not having any problems. I don't want anyone to misunderstand, I love what Lightroom will be when they get the problem fixed. The new camera specific color profiles are worth the upgrade all by themselves (only work with Raw 4.5 or LR2) The gradient filter tool makes balancing exposures on over/unders a task that takes 3 secs versus 30 clicks in layers with CS3.

Okuma, load it up and give it a try, see what you think. The boys and girls at Adobe will get this figured out.

As Craig said don't do more damage by letting this scare you off. But just so the record is clear, the leaders at Adobe did this to themselves and caused the damage by releasing a product before it was ready for prime time. Sort of makes you wonder why smart guys would do that.
Steve