Adobe Lightroom may be the RAW photo editor of choice for many photographers, but working with large volumes of large files means that speed is often the main complaint. Older computers in particular may suffer from slower imports and delays during editing. But tweaking some settings can help Lightroom users achieve faster speeds, even on an older device.
Try these seven ways to speed up Lightroom Classic, as well as a few that apply to Lightroom CC as well.
Optimize your hardware
A major part of any software’s performance is the hardware that runs it. While upgrading to the latest and greatest computer, especially one with four or more processor cores and lots of RAM, will help Lightroom run faster, you can probably squeeze a bit more performance out of your current computer by optimizing it or upgrading individual components.
First, make sure your hard drive is not full. Lightroom (and almost any other program) will work best if at least 20% of the hard drive is empty. If your hard drive is more than 80% full, move files to an external hard drive or delete unnecessary files.
Also make sure your operating system is up to date. Updating your OS in most cases also updates your graphics driver and can often improve the overall performance of your machine.
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You can also improve performance by upgrading your RAM, graphics card (GPU), or hard drive. Some computers, such as all-in-ones or laptops, may limit what components you have access to, but even here you can add a fast external solid-state drive (SSD) via Thunderbolt 3 or USB-3 that can improve performance by offering faster flow or simply more space to store more photos.
Store your catalog in an appropriate location
In most cases, the best place to store your Lightroom Classic catalog is on your computer’s built-in hard drive, as this is usually the fastest drive. Previews are stored in the same location, so if the computer has to access a different drive, performance will slow down. However, you can store the original image files on an external drive to avoid filling up the internal hard drive. Again, a fast external SSD is recommended for speed, but traditional spinning hard drives are larger and cheaper.
On Lightroom CC, working with Creative Cloud means that speed depends on your internet connection. In the settings, you’ll find an option under Local Storage to “store a copy of all originals in a specified location.” Select this to store your photos locally on a drive of your choice. This will help the images to load faster as they don’t have to be accessed from the internet. Don’t worry, everything will still be backed up to the cloud, and any photos added from another device will automatically be downloaded to the specified hard drive.
If you don’t have enough space to store all your photos locally, you can also choose to store only smart previews. These are compressed copies of your photos that reflect your editing decisions, but are smaller than the original files stored in the cloud. Storing smart previews locally will help speed up image rendering, but in some cases it will still be necessary to download the original files, such as exporting.
Avoid using multiple catalogs (Lightroom Classic only)
Using multiple smaller catalogs to speed up Lightroom’s performance is largely a myth. Adobe says most users should stick to one catalog — even users who have accumulated millions of images. The only reason to use separate catalogs is for organization, such as professionals having one catalog for work and one for personal photos.
However, you can optimize the catalog. To go File > Optimize Catalog for better performance.
Use the correct preview settings (Lightroom Classic only)
Image used with permission of the copyright holder
While original files can be stored on an external drive, Lightroom previews are stored with the catalog. This means that preview settings can play a role in Lightroom’s performance. Adobe recommends using the built-in JPEG settings, which use the same built-in JPEG previews generated by your camera for display on the back of the camera. This will allow you to start removing photos as the other images are still being imported.
When importing, select at the top right Built-in auxiliary trailer from the Build Previews drop-down menu.
Update Lightroom
Lightroom is regularly updated for performance, especially Lightroom Classic. Check back regularly for updates. Within Creative Cloud app settings, you can turn on automatic updates so you always have the latest versions of Lightroom, Photoshop, and other Adobe apps installed.
Delete unused presets
Image used with permission of the copyright holder
Those free presets you downloaded could be slowing down Lightroom. Take the time to go through and delete any unused presets. Right-click on a preset or preset group to see the delete option. Besides making it easier to find the ones you actually use, this could help improve speed, especially if you’ve gone a little crazy and have 2,000 presets or more. Check out the presets and brush presets.
Quit background processes
The more multitasking your machine is, the slower it will run. Close all programs you are not using. Older devices especially have trouble handling Lightroom with another program, so listen to Spotify on your phone while editing on your computer and close those web browsers.
To speed up Lightroom while you’re editing, pause any Creative Cloud syncing, as well as address lookup and face recognition, and resume when you’re done. Click the arrow next to your name in the upper left corner in Lightroom Classic to pause all processes.
For Lightroom CC, especially when working with photos that are not stored locally, other applications that use Internet bandwidth can also affect performance. If you’re syncing files with something like Dropbox or Google Drive, this could affect the time it takes to load images in Lightroom.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn