Mikep996 Posted March 28 Share #1 Posted March 28 (edited) Advertisement (gone after registration) As I mentioned in another thread, I use Apple Photos for my (minimal) processing. So I thought with the my new Q3 I'd give LR a try. It was very slow to load photos. Two Q3 DNGs took nearly a minute. Is this normal? A couple of features seemed use seemed useful to me but it seems to take a long time to import the pics. I have no experience with photo programs other than Apple Photos (and Aperture years ago). Apple Photos loads the Q3 mages in seconds. Is LR trial version slower than the "real" version? Edited March 28 by Mikep996 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 28 Posted March 28 Hi Mikep996, Take a look here Tried Lightroom Trial.... I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Simone_DF Posted March 28 Share #2 Posted March 28 No, it shouldn’t be so slow. Mine loads pictures immediately. I have my LR library living on an external hard drive, and even with that, I see no lag. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarekith Posted March 28 Share #3 Posted March 28 It’s not normal here, but you didn’t say what computer you’re using so hard to know if it’s normal for you. Also what do you mean by “load photos”? As in import from your camera, or just being able to view and edit a photo when you first launch the app? 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corius Posted March 28 Share #4 Posted March 28 Are you using LR Desktop or LR Classic? If you are using LR Classic where are your photos stored? If they are in iCloud (or another cloud service) then are they already downloaded to your Mac or could it be that they are only in the cloud and have to be downloaded locally when you edit them? That might explain the delay. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luetz Posted March 28 Share #5 Posted March 28 Sounds like "computer hardware" limitation. I have been using LR Classic for years and never experienced "slow" uploading images into LR. Is it also "slow" when in the "Develop" module? 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted March 28 Share #6 Posted March 28 2 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhotoCruiser Posted March 28 Share #7 Posted March 28 Advertisement (gone after registration) I don't think that the trial version is slower than normal as that would be not very convincing to new customers. My All Photos catalog has about 80K photos and it's not slow at all, nor on my old M1 MacBooks nor on my actual M3 18/32GB meory MacBooks As already mentioned: a) what computer/cellphone/tablet b) loading from where (Disk/SD Card/Camera/Cloud, etc) c) how much memory has your device and how much is free d) what Lightroom; Lightroom CC or Lightroom Classic e) does this happen also with other photos or only with Leica DNG Chris 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted March 28 Share #8 Posted March 28 Mostly the problem is caused by LR creating large previews for a high number of images. As soon as it is finished it is quite fast Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikep996 Posted March 28 Author Share #9 Posted March 28 Using 2021 MacBook Pro Apple M1 chip. Loading from 64MB SD card removed from the Q3 MacBook has 500GB memory, 84GB of available memory Lightroom 7 day trial - whatever "program' it is, I don't know. Pics I tried to download from SD card were Leica DNGs and JPEGs both were slow to load into lightroom from the card; DNGs were much slower. I didn't time it but I'd estimate it took 20-30 seconds to download a DNG. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhotoCruiser Posted March 29 Share #10 Posted March 29 vor 7 Stunden schrieb Mikep996: MacBook has 500GB memory, 84GB of available memory This is your SSD space, what matters much more is your unified memory aka RAM, however your SSD is almost full and that penalize your MB's speed and not only in Lightroom. There are not many ways to clean up the SSD space, one would be CleanMyMac, the other is to to a total reset, install MacOS again and then all the software you really need and only and exclusively from the apple store or manufacturers website and not use any backup from anywhere to rebuild the working environment. Once your MBP is up and running then restore your personal data from iCloud or external storage devices. Do at least 2 backups on two different devices before the reset and make sure you have all passwords, serial numbers, etc to activate your software again. The unfortunately much expensive solution would be to buy a new Mac, if you don't need the portability of a MacBook then for about 1400$ you get a M4 1TB 36GB Mac Mini and thats a absolute bargain, if you search for a top notch M3 Pro Mac Mini wi you may get similar price as for a M4 Mac Mini. However, the processor speed influence much less on LR speed than enough memory, rather 64GB memory and a lower speed processor than a Pro processor and 18GB memory. Do not spend money for a 2TB or more SSD, 1 TB is more than enough and your photos stay on the external disk if you have many, use external drives instead. This one for example: https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini/apple-m4-chip-with-10-core-cpu-and-10-core-gpu-24gb-memory-512gb To work reasonable well with Lightroom Classic on a MacBook you need at least 18GB of unified memory for many photos i suggest 36 GB what is for me enough to work with the catalog containing all my 80K photos in it. Chris 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikep996 Posted March 29 Author Share #11 Posted March 29 Good info, thanks! my MacBook pro has 16GB of RAM. I understand the points you mentioned but I don't yet understand why my MacBook Pro can download a Leica DNG from the SSD card into Apple Photos in a couple of seconds but the same file takes nearly 30 seconds to load into the trial version of LR. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhotoCruiser Posted March 29 Share #12 Posted March 29 (edited) I can not tell you why, too many factors who can lead to that behaviour. The first reason i guess is your full SSD where the catalog may be scattered all around the SSD what cost time. Doing a clean-up or better a full reset as i wrote will 90% help with that, ans also overall speed up your Mac. It is definitively not Lightroom who generally is slow to import files but it need to analyze and build the previews for every DNG file. Start the Activity Monitor under Apple Others and watch the values for CPU, Memory and Disk, they tell a lot about what is going on. Chris Edited March 29 by PhotoCruiser Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikep996 Posted March 31 Author Share #13 Posted March 31 Further experimentation ... I had loaded the LR trial referred to previously from the adobe site. I then realized it was probably available on the Apple App store so I downloaded it from there. With that "version" running there was no delay at all pulling pics in from the SD card - full resolution DNGs downloaded in a couple of seconds. Don't understand why that difference existed between the program loaded from Adobe and the one loaded from Apple. In any case it now works quickly and I can evaluate its offerings/decide if there is enough for ME to pay a monthly fee as opposed to the free Apple app. As I've mentioned, I'm not a big user of "post processing" in the digital domain (unlike B&W film/darkroom, which I enjoy) but we'll see... 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LocalHero1953 Posted March 31 Share #14 Posted March 31 (edited) But do you know yet which app you are using: Lightroom CC or Lightroom Classic? The programme icon for Lightroom CC is a blue 'Lr' on a black background. Lightroom Classic is blue 'LrC' on black. The apps have quite different interfaces, ways of managing image files (and where), and available tools. In short, Lightroom CC is good for managing images in the cloud and across multiple devices. Lightroom Classic manages images primarily on local disks, and is much more powerful in its functionality. You can make them work together, but you need to understand what you're doing. I use Lightroom Classic almost all the time, but Lightroom CC when travelling. Edited March 31 by LocalHero1953 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhotoCruiser Posted March 31 Share #15 Posted March 31 As LocalHero1953 wrote, the Version from the Apple Store is Lightroom CC and does not include Lightroom Classic, but once signed up you will be able to download Lightroom Classic from the Adobe Website. Not sure what went wrong with your first installation of either LR CC or LRC (what is not clear from your tread!) As LR CC works online it may be that your photos where loaded quicker and directly to Adobe CC (Creative Cloud) then storing them on your almost full disk. 🤷♂️ Or it was just a installation problem, solved when you installed again the Apple Store version 🤷♂️ May ypou tell us what as the first version you installed? LR CC or LRC? Again, LRC is absolutely not slow on importing photos, not a few and not thousands so the problem is somewhere on your computer or a compromised installation. LRCC + LRC is 11.99/month, the photography package including Photoshop is 19.99$/month and i believe that this is a fair price. Chris Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikep996 Posted March 31 Author Share #16 Posted March 31 (edited) Per the info on the program from Apple it is "Adobe Lightroom 8.2" I don't know what the specific program was direct from Adobe, I deleted the program I had downloaded from Adobe after it seemed unusably slow. Edited March 31 by Mikep996 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTLeica Posted March 31 Share #17 Posted March 31 On 3/29/2025 at 12:26 PM, Mikep996 said: Good info, thanks! my MacBook pro has 16GB of RAM. I understand the points you mentioned but I don't yet understand why my MacBook Pro can download a Leica DNG from the SSD card into Apple Photos in a couple of seconds but the same file takes nearly 30 seconds to load into the trial version of LR. Mike west speed is your SD card? Is it an old card? Could download a free disk speed test programme and select it as the target drive. You’re going to see 100-200mb/s ideally. 84gb of 500gb remaining isn’t ideal but not a reason for your issues. Do you have lightroom set to 100% previews for each image? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LocalHero1953 Posted March 31 Share #18 Posted March 31 (edited) 1 hour ago, Mikep996 said: Per the info on the program from Apple it is "Adobe Lightroom 8.2" I don't know what the specific program was direct from Adobe, I deleted the program I had downloaded from Adobe after it seemed unusably slow. This is Lightroom CC, I.e. the one designed for cloud and mobile photography. I wouldn’t mind betting it was trying to upload your photos to the cloud as you loaded them. Personally, I would start with Lightroom Classic, which should be around v14.2, and includes file management that interfaces with your existing file system, and doesn’t try to reorganise it Lightroom CC is unable to print, and can only interface with Photoshop as an alternative editor, not useful tools like Silverefex or Topaz. Edited March 31 by LocalHero1953 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kozonoh Posted April 1 Share #19 Posted April 1 Excellent alternative to cleanmymac is freeware onyx Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris W Posted April 1 Share #20 Posted April 1 On 3/29/2025 at 7:52 AM, PhotoCruiser said: The unfortunately much expensive solution would be to buy a new Mac, if you don't need the portability of a MacBook then for about 1400$ you get a M4 1TB 36GB Mac Mini and thats a absolute bargain I have a 2020 MacBook Air that works fine with LR and imports images almost instantly. It might be an issue with the SD card being slow. I always drag and drop my images to an external SSD drive, then import them into Lightroom. You also don't want to clog up your Mac memory with dozens of DNGs. Portable SSDs are cheap, $100? The MacBook doesn't have an SD card slot, so whatever reader being used could be slow. For me it's the card and/or the method of getting the card data into LR that is slow (and cheap to fix), not the MacBook Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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