Significant performance issues in Lightroom 7.3 with a specific file.

[Stuartr414]

I am having some performance problems on Lightroom with a particular file. I have followed the optimize lightroom performance recommendations, and tried turning the GPU on and off.

I am using a MacPro 2013 with 64gb of RAM and D500 graphics. My monitor is an Eizo CG318-4k. The catalog and most images are located on an external OWC Thunderbay with a SoftRAID RAID-0 SSD array of 4 drives. Tested performance is over 1000mb/s read and write. I had previously had my catalog on a PCI-e SSD that was running about 500mb+ per second. Moving the catalog did not affect performance. My lightroom catalog is around 70,000 images.

The file is a black and white 16bit file of around 140mb. Generally this has not been an issue in my edits, but in this particular case, getting a preview of the 1:1 image takes over 15seconds.  Holding down the option key to see a preview of the radius takes 42 seconds. Moving the slider takes long enough to update that it is unusable. I have never had this problem in previous versions. I tried downgrading to 7.2, but the issue seems the same. The rest of my computer is snappy. I tried editing a composited film scan that is over 2.4gb, and that seems to work more or less instantly. The only other program that is open is chrome (as I type this) and ColorNavigator. My OS is up to date, ColorNavigator is up to date. I have 114gb free space on my system drive, and over 540gb free on my RAID array. I work as a print studio and photographer, so I am using lightroom every day for work, so I have a very good idea of what is typical performance. Unless something has dramatically changed, this is not typical performance. Any particular thoughts as to why this file might be so slow? It is on the same drive as the rest, and in most ways it is unremarkable...

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

What is the size in pixels of this image?

Did you do something unusual to this file, like apply lots of brushing and/or lots of spot healing?

[Stuartr414]

Yes, that was it. It was a long time since I worked on the file, and I had forgotten. It had seven separate adjustment brush layers, and some spot healing. The file is 8937x7149, a full resolution 16bit X5 scan from a 6x7 neg. So even though the file size is not large, I guess it demands a lot of thought from the computer. I edited a copy with lightroom adjustments in photoshop and saved it, and the resulting file is quick to edit again, so it must just be all the adjustments. I was treating lightroom like the analog darkroom in terms of manipulating the file with lots of local dodges and burns, but I guess for big files this is still better done in photoshop...