Lightroom: Fast or Slow, it's Up to You
Did you know that you decide whether you make Lightroom zoom along or crawl as a slug?
By now, you must know that Lightroom is a non-destructive editing software. What most people forget is what it means and how it affects Lightroom's speed.
Let's review the process.
- You start Lightroom
- Lightroom loads the catalog, that's the .lrcat file. It's just 1 file
- Lightroom loads the ancillary files, overlays, plug-in, settings
- Lightroom looks in the catalog for the last “position”, module, size of previews…
The rest depends on you.
- If you are in collection, Lightroom will load all the photos and their previews for that collection.
- If you are in the develop module, Lightroom will open the photo, generate/load the 1:1 preview, and the presets.
- If you are in the print, slide or web, Lightroom will load the photos in the collection, the presets…
Remember the famous question “Why does my photo looks good for the first 2 or 3 seconds, then it looks dull?” Then some expert explains that Lightroom gets the preview from the RAW file and then applies …
That's what's happening and Lightroom needs to do it to 10 photos, 1000 photos or 100 thousand photos. Lightroom applies the changes to all the images in the collection, even in the Library grid and the small thumbnails.
If you work in the All Photographs collection, Lightroom needs to apply the processing to all the photographs in the collection. This will significantly slow paging…
- You can have both a very large catalog and a fast Lightroom if you work with small collections.
- It doesn't matter if it is a ‘standard’ collection or a smart collection.