I have been a Lightroom user since version 1. I have come to love Lightroom and use it daily. I manage multiple catalogs, some small and some large.
From version 1 through version 5.7, I simply loved the software. I was using an HP workstation with 2.1 Ghz Quad-Core processor, 32Gig of 1600 speed RAM, 5400 RPM Hard Drives for my catalog, USB3 Drobos for my photo storage, and an Nvidia video card from 2003 that supported my two monitors (27" LG Monitors - neither is 4k or 5k)). Most of my images are Nikon RAW format from cameras with 12 or 16 megapixel FX sensors (D3, D5, D750, D500).
When Adobe announced the Creative Cloud, I was hesitant but in an effort to remain current, I dove in and began using all Cloud applications (Lightroom was not yet a cloud product). Soon after, Lightroom became a part of the cloud but still a stand alone piece for the most part.
With the advent of Lightroom CC, especially when the new GPU processing was introduced, I felt it was time to upgrade my PC. So, I custom configured a new workstation with 3.3 Ghz 12 Core processor, 64 Gig of 2400 speed RAM, 1 terabyte SSD internal PCI accelerated storage for my catalogs and software, the same USB3 Drobo units for my photos, an NVidia GEForce GTX Titan X Graphics card with 12 Gigi dedicated Video RAM, and the same two monitors.
Every piece of software I use is lightning fast! My computer boots completely from a restart in less than 90 seconds. Only Photoshop and Lightroom perform pitifully. I have spent countless hours working with support people from Adobe, managers from Adobe, and some of their lead engineers (so I'm told) and I have made no progress. After tweaking some settings in one of the last updates with an engineer from Adobe, it looked like it might be a little better. That was an illusion! It is not better and gets miraculously worse with every update. I even asked if I should change graphics cards and the engineer told me my card was fine and I will be okay for the near future with Lightroom. Obviously, this is not the case. In an effort (as per their suggestions) to speed things up, I have deleted all my smart collections and built and tested using brand new catalogs with a few hundred images - nothing seems to help! After an hour of editing, everything slows down so much that I need to exit Lightroom completely and then restart Lightroom - this does give a small measure of relief for a short time!!! I am even editing Smart Previews as they suggested recently and it is still too slow to use!
One thing that helps a little is to disable the GPU altogether in both Lightroom and Photoshop. This is far better for overall performance and gives me more time before I need to exit and restart Lightroom. Why should I need to do this? If the GPU implementation is designed to improve performance, how do I make that happen? I designed and bought this computer with the biggest (RAM) and fastest Graphics board made by NVidia at the time. How do I get the "better performance" promised from the GPU implementation? Adobe can't help or won't help or doesn't know - not sure which!
Along with many loyal Lightroom users, I have been playing with ON1 RAW and just installed the latest RAW update. Had a few issues when I first started to use it so I emailed tech support. A few hours later, I received an email with instructions to update to the latest Graphics driver and try again. They even suggested some settings to change in the graphics driver implementation to improve performance and it works! It simply works. It is not slow by any means and makes Lightroom look positively dead slow. Even Photoshop tools have become slower and are annoying to use now - not so in ON1 RAW.
There are still things missing in ON1 RAW holding me back from cancelling my Adobe cloud subscription and making me stay and SUFFER with Lightroom and Photoshop performance because I love some of the features in Lightroom that are not yet implemented in ON1 RAW. I suspect this issue will be resolved eventually and unless we get some relief from Adobe soon, I suspect many of us will be forced to abandon Lightroom and Photoshop in favor of ON1 RAW.
As always, Adobe is scarily quiet on this issue which has plagued Lightroom for the last few years.
Is it that Adobe does not care?
Does Lightroom perform speedily on Windows computers at Adobe?
Have they tried the graphics card I am using to see if Lightroom is compatible?
Will they even respond?
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