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My understanding is you need 8Gb to do well.

mrgooch wrote in post #16729302
My understanding is you need 8Gb to do well.

Even 24GB doesn't speed things up all that much. [I have a good PC machine, 24GB RAM, SSD system disk, two RAID Arrays driven by an add-on controller, running quad core CPU at 3.8GHz and I still don't think it is as fast as it should be. I think Adobe has huge amounts of legacy code that is just slow because it's built on many layers of old code.

mrgooch wrote in post #16729302
My understanding is you need 8Gb to do well.

Is the quality of the processing withing LR4 etc influenced by the lack of mem like in my case, or is it only speed in processing the edits and saving that will suffer?

P.

Pagman wrote in post #16729322
Is the quality of the processing withing LR4 etc influenced by the lack of mem like in my case, or is it only speed in processing the edits and saving that will suffer?

P.

Quality is not affected just the ability to move faster in your editing.

I have advanced system care by 10bit on my laptop, and it has a boost option that does seem to help speed things up abit by relesing abit of memory.

P.

DwightMcCann wrote in post #16729319
I think Adobe has huge amounts of legacy code that is just slow because it's built on many layers of old code.

That could well be.

And each version seemed to get a bit slower - which might be the result of adding more and more features.

When I do a lot of edits in LR - particularly when using the brush - it really slows down - really sluggish.

If I do a number of edits and it's getting sluggish, I save my CR2 file to a TIFF, then continue doing the edits on the TIFF. What happens (I think) is that LR doesn't have to keep processing the previous parametric edits done on the CR2 file so it runs faster.

The drawback is I now have two "originals" on my HDD. However I only do this on a very few images, thereby limiting the use of space.

Glenn

This is going to sound real daft - when in LR after you have finished editing in develope and then you want to move the file around, after clicking on a file i find it takes a few minutes to settle down and load as i find the picture can be slightly out of focus, anyway - if i move a jpeg copy of this to another file within LR, do i have to wait for it to load properly before moving it, or will it just settle down and load correctly when moved, or will it be not loaded correctly if moved while it is still loading.


P.

I ask the above because i am finding some of my files when saved as a 100% jpeg and opened in my windows defauly picture hard drive viewer - just basic windows 7 viewer, some of my pictures are not as good as the original in LR, i save the raw file and convert to jpeg at its highest save setting, and the copy of the jpeg within LR is fine, just some of the Windows jpegs are flat and lack sharpness and dynamic range.


P.

I'm not sure of what you are doing...if you want a jpeg that shows the edits you have done in Lightroom, you have to Export the image to a jpeg. When exporting you can "place" the jpeg wherever you want, and a Windows viewer will "see" the editing you have done.

Your description of what you are doing is, well, unclear...maybe try to be more clear on the specifics?

Do you mean "to another FOLDER"? It will be easier to understand if you use the right terms.

I have many saved folders each with a date or name, i keep all my raws in a folder called NEFS, when i go back into a NEF and re work it when im finished a save it back into a destination folder normaly as a jpeg, but this saving process can take sometime, my quiry was about saving any file to its original location or another, if i do this before it has loaded fully will the saved version be faulty or does it just automaticaly.
This is probably down to my slow laptop as even opening picure files in LR can take a while before it settles down into focus.


P.

mrgooch wrote in post #16729244
I recently added another set of 4 GB each [8GB] to my computer making a total of 16Mb. I have noticed a slowdown when using LR4. Does this seem possible?

From your post, it sounds like you have 4 DIMM slots on your motherboard. Did you add the same Make and Type of memory of both 4 GB sticks? It's possible that your motherboard or RAM is not recognizing your RAM setup as a dual-channel memory setup which could significantly hurt performance.

Pagman wrote in post #16738696
I have many saved folders each with a date or name, i keep all my raws in a folder called NEFS, when i go back into a NEF and re work it when im finished a save it back into a destination folder normaly as a jpeg, but this saving process can take sometime, my quiry was about saving any file to its original location or another, if i do this before it has loaded fully will the saved version be faulty or does it just automaticaly.
This is probably down to my slow laptop as even opening picure files in LR can take a while before it settles down into focus.


P.

OK, my advice would be to move to a more efficient workflow that makes use of Lightroom's good workflow/organization capabilities!

Here's my workflow:

First off, when I do a shoot, I put the card into a reader and use Lightroom to Import the whole shoot. Some people start off with deleting bad shots, that's an option, I just don't take that approach -- I delete the duds in LR. Either way, when you Import from the card into Lightroom you have several useful options: 1) Your default "parent" folder will be set to the last one chosen (I import to a "current shoots" folder) 2) You can name a "Subfolder" to create and import your folders to (I name a folder with the date and a description of the shoot) and 3) You can assign a name to the files as they are being imported (I copy and paste the folder name for the "base" file name and use a template to give each file a sequence#).

This way all the files have a unique name and are already stored in a location/folder that will be "permanent" because I move the whole folder into a "Library" location sectioned off by year for permanent reference in my catalog and my file system after short-term work has been done.

Another thing to consider:

With Lightroom you really don't need to create copies of your images unless you are ready to put them out for a final use or you need to edit them in an external app such as Photoshop. For simple storage/library reference the Raw files can be kept "as-is" and the Lightroom catalog keeps all the metadata about edits, keywords and such as long as you have LR keep track of the location of those Raw files (meaning that if you want to move them it's good to use Lightroom to make the move).

If you do want a different "version" of an image alongside of the work that you are doing with the original Raw, Lightroom provides a nifty utility called Virtual Copies where you can right-click on one or more selected files and choose "Create Virtual Copy/Copies" and LR creates a copy in your catalog and memory without creating a separate file/copy. So, for example, you can work on a full-color image but then you could create a Virtual Copy and convert it to B&W/Grayscale and work on that version separately from the color version.

The purpose of the above remarks is to keep your Library/file system from getting cluttered with unneeded files. Know, though, that if you do want to do editing in an external editor you can do that using the LR "Edit in..." command. If you do that then LR will create a copy of the image as a file that the external editor can work with. Photoshop can work with tiff, psd and jpeg files (as well as dng). Other editors may be confined to tiff, but still many editors and plug-ins work well with Lightroom.

But, many of us have found that a lot of our images don't require an external editor and so we don't create those un-needed copies. Our libraries and systems are not cluttered with extra file copies, which to us makes for a more efficient setup and also of course which saves us disk space (and since you use a laptop that would be a real consideration).

Now, a lot of people use external apps and/or plug-ins for tweaking the final output image, for "output sharpening" for example, and that's a choice: do you then store the final tweaked image (you can keep it in Lightroom alongside your Raw file if you wish) or do you want to just do a quick tweak and then output as a jpeg for a final use? That's up to you, you may want to take one approach and then in time take another approach. The important thing to me would be to decide what you want to do and then "structure" things to where your work doesn't get lost -- keep your Digital Asset Management (DAM) workflow working for you, not against you!

And then, there's the output! You mention keeping a jpeg copy of your images, but many (if not most) of us Lightroom users don't bother with creating jpegs until we are ready to actually output an image for a final use, such as printing, uploading to the Web, or sharing via email or on a disk. For each of these purposes, yeah, you want a jpeg, you can use Lightroom to Export an image (or a set of images) re-sized to a needed resolution and converted to a desired color space (sRGB is the "safe" color space, whereas LR by default works in a derivative of the ProPhotoRGB color space, which is not good for "sharing". You can use the LR Export dialog to quickly set these things up, no muss and no fuss. This way, you can work on a batch of photos, and when done Export them to jpegs (choosing an appropriate folder/location in which to put them). When done, you can you can use them to output however you choose, and then it's up to you whether to keep those jpegs for either future use or as an "archive". A lot of people delete the jpegs right off the bat. I myself keep them as an "archive", although they are separate from my Raw files and my Lightroom Library...no clutter!

Anyway, there are a lot of different possibilities, a large variety of approaches to choose from. I can't dictate a particular workflow to you, but I do like to see folks make good use of the efficiencies of the LR DAM workflow capabilities!

Thanks Tony, i do most the same as you and keep LR as my parent editer, i too export direct into LR and only work on my files in there, my reason for converting to a finished jpeg in LR is to save memory as im currently thrashing my 1.25GB memory with having over 500 Raws in there along with the jpegs. After i have worked a file and am happy that its as good as it will get, i save my raws to disc and just keep the jpegs.
Also i try to avoid openeing LR if all i want to do is view my jpegs in the windows picture viewer, that i believe is a default program with windows, this again is to help kep my memory consumption as low as possible, and if i have LR open i see my memory usage go through the roof and hit 100% used leaving no memory to run anything else, including the net.


P.

Pagman wrote in post #16739760
Thanks Tony, i do most the same as you and keep LR as my parent editer, i too export direct into LR and only work on my files in there, my reason for converting to a finished jpeg in LR is to save memory as im currently thrashing my 1.25GB memory with having over 500 Raws in there along with the jpegs. After i have worked a file and am happy that its as good as it will get, i save my raws to disc and just keep the jpegs.
Also i try to avoid openeing LR if all i want to do is view my jpegs in the windows picture viewer, that i believe is a default program with windows, this again is to help kep my memory consumption as low as possible, and if i have LR open i see my memory usage go through the roof and hit 100% used leaving no memory to run anything else, including the net.


P.

You mentioned in another thread that you weren't happy with the jpegs you were viewing in the Windows viewer. I'm not clear: are you viewing the Raw files (seeing the extracted images) or are you viewing jpegs that you have exported from Lightroom?

If you are viewing ones you have exported, then go ahead and try to re size them to a good viewing size as you export them and see if that helps the "jaggies". Unfortunately, jaggies can come as a result of downsizing the image, but Lightroom may give you better results than the built-in Windows viewer.

As far as your setup, I feel for ya, if you are going to get "serious" about your photography, well, our "investment" includes not just camera gear but having at least the minimum needs with our computer gear. These days, people are running around with their camera phones, and I guess "apps" that are out these days do some stuff with the photos, I don't know, I haven't bothered to buy into a "smart" phone. But I do know that some years ago when I launched into photography as a serious endeavor, I also got serious about my computer gear. I built my own workstation, not just spending the $2k on high quality parts, but ensuring that I'd be able to upgrade: my OS, my RAM and my CPU have all been upgraded over the years, while keeping my original setup.

I also got a laptop at the time to use as a "portable workstation", again at a cost of $2k, but it served me well, taking it on road trips and to events where I could process photos (I had both Lightroom as well as Photoshop installed). Unfortunately it got messed up, Oh Well.

Today I don't have the finances to do it all over again. If I had to start over, well, I don't know...I'd probably take a long time to save a bunch of $$ and then make some careful choices, camera/photo gear would be tough, although I did get by for a number of years with a combination of P&S and "super-zoom" compact cameras. But my reasons for going with DSLRs (and with the Raw format) a number of years ago are still valid today!

As to the computer equipment, pretty much the same approach -- save and carefully plan! For photo processing, well, there are considerations that will certainly cost, although the payoff is in good stuff!