I am not so sure about your conclusions regarding LR4.1.

I have processed over 700 images in the last 3 weeks and even though my collections are ^&%$%$&%^  beyond repair and I have "?" of death all through my volumes, the program works as good as it ever has and I have been around since 1.0.

You must be having something else going on I am afraid to say. These guys can help you if there is a solution to be found.

What module name is mentioned in the crash screens?  Do the problems occur when using the 32-bit version of LR as compared to the 64-bit version of LR?  Are the same catalog and photos being used or does each system have its own catalog and set of photos?  Are the systems certified from the manufacturer or are they hand-built?  The most common issues I remember mentioned over the years are from imperfect video drivers and iffy memory.

"Not doubting your experiences, but it is strange that many of us have found LR4.1 (and by and large 4.0) to work near faultlessly.  No crashes, performance similar to LR3.6 (a tad slower at some operations, mostly pretty similar) and massively improved basic panel controls.

+1.

howmanypigginnamesdoitry wrote:

Adobe flatly refused to give me a refund and I have an outstanding civil court case to force them to refund me, as LR4.1 is not fit for the purpose it was designed for.

It clearly is  fit for purpose, and - as has been pointed out to you many times - until you definitively rule out your local environment as the cause of the problems, you're going to lose the argument, especially given the number of very satisfied Lr 4 customers here and everywhere else.

The simple fact is that you've provided no evidence whatsoever that Lr 4 is the cause of your problems - none - and a vague reference to "thousands of people" having problems with Lr 4 won't get you anywhere in a court case.

Aside from the fact that you have no way to substantiate that guesstimate, all Adobe needs to say is something like "thousands, eh? We've sold 4 million Lr 4 licenses..."

Lr4.1/PV2012 rocks! AFAIK.

Nevertheless, I do sympathize with those having difficulties with performance, and trickiness of new controls.

I tried CaptureOne-Pro again when Lr4b first came out, as I will forever be in search of the best way to develop my raws.

Unfortunately, the quality of results obtainable with CaptureOne-Pro is not as good as the quality of results obtainable in Lightroom, in my opinion. Maybe it is if you use a PhaseOne back, but not for my DSLR...

So despite it's warts, Lr4.1 wins, for me.

PS - I'm posting this because I thought it seemed germaine to the subject, not to thumb my nose at those having a less fortunate experience with Lightroom.

Reminder: *Many* people had performance problems with Lr3 in it's early days. Some people's problems persisted through 3.3, others were solved @3.1...

Consider trying Lightroom again when 4.2 comes out, if you're not too fed up I mean .

Cheers,

Rob

web-weaver wrote:

 

Sympathy, yes. And helping them, if they ask for it.

But it seems to me also that one also has to make an honest effort to make the program work.

A perfectly legitimate argument from someone who has never had any of the problems that others are experiencing. There's no question that there are performance problems that are worse for some than for others. In my opinion, there's a design problem somewhere. It isn't serious enough to prevent me from using Lightroom 4.1, but sometimes my 32-bit system drops to its knees and I have to start over. Not very often, but it's frustrating when that happens. I know, upgrade to a 64-bit system. An easy solution until I have to figure out how to pay for it. Maybe someday, but not right now.

So, I'm happily using Lightroom 4.1. It's just that occasionally I get a little frustrated with it. But I like it well enough that I'm not going to quit using it.

JimHess wrote:

 

So, I'm happily using Lightroom 4.1. It's just that occasionally I get a little frustrated with it. But I like it well enough that I'm not going to quit using it.

Ditto. - far from perfect it is, but still the best option, as long as performance isn't prohibitive, in my opinion.

R

Sorry - I think I misunderstood.

It seems every release of Photoshop and Lightroom there is a segment of users who have serious issues.  I'm sure those issues are real, but Adobe simply cannot test every configuration prior to release.   They are, though, very good at working with those who have issues.  So, I think your time would be better spent working with Adobe than trying to "out" them on their website.

JimHess wrote:

 

 

A perfectly legitimate argument from someone who has never had any of the problems that others are experiencing.

But Jim, it's not as if "A Problem With Some Software" is a concept that came into being only with the release of Lr 4.

Like most people, I've had my share of software problems over the years - and for the record I do sympathise with people who have problems - but the world over, since the Year Dot, you deal properly with software issues by first ruling yourself out of the equation.

It is an inescapable conclusion that the problems being reported are not solely down to how Lr is coded, because if they were, we'd all have them. The only thing that can explain them is some interaction between the code and the local environment on which it is running. It simply cannot be otherwise, or every last one of us would be complaining.

Try as I might, I can't come to any other conclusion: if software is good on my machine and bad on someone else's, the difference has to be the machines it is running on.

LIke (it seems) everyone else on here, I have an IT background - I've been a system designer, a system tester and an incident analyst for some of the biggest mainframe systems involved in UK Government business delivery (pretty mission-critical stuff) - and the principles I learned back then still stand, chief among which is that it's not just the software that you need to look at when something's not right.

Basic testing of any software requires ruling-out local environmental issues before you start digging around in the code.

Now, I know it's going to be a bugger to do that - I'm glad I don't have to - but the conclusion is still unavoidable that if software runs well on one box and badly on another, logically the other box must be the problem, because some unanticipated interaction between software and local system must be what's stuffing things up.

It must be.

I agree with the original poster that LR 4.1 performance is a big disappointment.

While its features are great, I am still waiting for the day that I have a snappy fast Lightroom experience. My current install of LR 4.1 is basically unusable. E.g. spot healing can take nearly 1-2 minutes to complete....   And my CPU is not even getting properly utilized.

What kind of a system do I need to buy to run LR4.1 fast enough? Does such a system exist?

Here my setup:

i7-2720QM

SSD

8GB RAM

Nvidia NVS-4200M 512 Mb

chrphoto,

As you most probably know, there is more to computer and Lr performance than CPU and RAM.

Just as a powerful engine and a big gas tank alone doesn't make a good racing car, so in a computer there is more than the CPU and RAM - you know that. And all the components have to be at the same level of quality and speed. A system can only be as fast as the weakest (slowest) component allows. Your observation that your CPU does not get properly utilized just proves this fact. But the fault of slow performance is not necessarily due to the software (Lr), most probably there is a hardware bottleneck somewhere.

I have read so often on this forum posts similar to yours, describing some (mostly CPU and RAM) components of their system and asking - complaining - that Lr does not run smoothly. But Lr runs smoothly on my system and on the system of many other users, so why not on yours? That is the question that has to be asked; that's the question you have to find the answer for.

I realize that it is probably out of the question that you buy a new computer but there are most probably quite a few things that you can do to get Lr to perform better.

Read here what Adobe has to say about optimization of LR: http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.htm l

Read here about SSDs: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/blog/will-an-ssd-improve-adobe-lightr oom-performance/

An important point in the configuration of your system is the hard drives. Do you have only the one SSD?

Read my post about hard drive configuration here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4496194#4496194

It's post # 9, but also see post # 10 of this thread.