Is lightroom slow for everyone

[wilto]

Hi all
am currently just getting used to lightroom 3 im really happy with it except it takes an eternity to view my images when plugging in my card reader thought it may have been to many images on the card at first so put a card in that only had 3 pics on it but still takes forever..
my computer has 2gb of ram like the requirements ask.
Is there anything i could do or just get used to it..
Cheers

[thelastname]

Have you tried plugging into a different USB port, not all USB ports on some computers are USB 2.0. Try a different port, one on the back.

[wilto]

Thanks for that fellow Townsvillian will give it a go

[agb]

Are you able to connect the camera to the computer via a usb cable? if so that might be the quickest way to get the images rather than through a card reader. It is also possible to use Picassa as a photo manager and that is very fast at downloading photos from a card. Picassa is free too.

[wilto]

Hi agb,
im unable to to connect the camera via a usb which i found out last week when i installed lightroom so quckly ducked down to grab a card reader from the local camera house.. So after getting the card reader i can now open the images in lightroom but takes hours to view the pics in lightroom so am leaing towards the cheap card reader being the problem so am doing some research now to see if this is true, and will get a better quality one(leaning towards the sandisk) if this proves to be the problem but if you can think of anything wouold love to hear it
Cheers

[maccaroneski]

So there is a two step process in LR - getting the images off the card, and then LR will render the preview. There are several different quality setting for this second step, the higher the quality, the longer the wait, however if you set it to a higher quality, then you don't wait as long for individual images to render when you are looking through them.

How many shots are you trying with? How big are the files?

Can't hurt to get a good card reader though, I have a couple if Sandisks, and for under 50 bucks it'll last you years.

[peterb666]

I used the Lightroom 3 beta for a little while when it was first released. I found Lightroom to be a bit of a dog on my PC and I didn't find the program to be very intuitive so I gave it the flick.

No doubt that if you do a lot of processing and streamline your process flow, Lightroom 3 can bring rewards but I find Adobe Camera Raw great and it came with my CS5 (furthermore, I think it may be a free download).

I use the card reader in my laptop. Transferring directly from a camera is far too slow.

[arthurking83]

I'm with Peterb.
I found LR more of an annoyance.

Try Nikon ViewNX2 for sorting through the images initially. You get a program called Nikon transfer with it that helps to manage your image transfers too.
Initially, I never used to use it(Nikon Transfer), until I found a few benefits to it, and can now recommend it for transferring your images to the PC.
There's no need to worry about any quality issues, or stuff like that, it simply tranfers your images to the PC, allows you to view the images at any zoom level (instantly on my fast-ish PC) at 100% zoom or whatever, via dual screens.
I found that with dual screens LR was woefully slow by comparison, so much so, that I had to set it to single screen mode again.
You can easily then use the Open With command tool to send any images directly into LightRoom, and any or every other program you like, once you configure the programs in the Open With menu.
it also allows easy geotagging of raw files(that's safe and reliable).
Some(many?) people do seem to have issues with ViewNX tho... so be warned.. it's not for everyone.
For Nikon raw files, I think it's the better program to use as a starting reference.
If you do use it tho, and you make any adjustments to a raw image in ViewNX, and then transfer that raw file to any other program, the other program will not see the edits you made using ViewNX(in the raw file). Although, ViewNX is set up to send a rendered tiff file into your other programs that you've chosen to edit with. In effect the rendered tiff file will look as the raw file looks in Nikon's programs, but the raw files will not have the same look as Adobe's programs are set to ignore Nikon's software edits. I never figured out a way to set LR to display the embedded jpg in the NEF file.
Other thirdparty software can see the raw file as per the edits made in Nikon software because they can be set up to display the embedded jpg image.
if you do decide to try ViewNX2, this is some info that may help to explain a few anomalies.

[DAdeGroot]

LR can be a dog on slower computers. What exactly are you running ?

Mine is quite responsive, but then it's a quad core with 8Gb of ram, so one would hope so ;-) On the old computer (AMD XP2200+ 2Gb RAM), it sucked goats.

[peterb666]

My old computer was a Pentium Dual Core 1.8GHz with 2Gb and integrated graphics. C55 and Camera Raw are tollerable for most things but not quick. Certainly quiker than the Lightroom beta.

I now use a Pentium Dual Core 2.3GHz with 4Gb RAM and 512mb dedicated graphics. CS5 and Camera Raw are fine on it.

I don't use the Nikon software - it remains on CD.

[wilto]

The processor is 2ghz and the ram is 2gb just meets the requirements its a compaq presario v6000..
After playing with lightroom all day ive found that photos that have been previously saved in my c drive of the computer get handled no worries at all and i can view and organize them very quick but as soon as i want to import any pics via the cheap card reader i have its seem to play up and not want to play the game..
Thats the reason why im thinking the card reader may need to be of better quality...Or maybe some may suggest the computer??????
Thanks all for the help im slowly try to decipher all the info but will have more detail read tomorrow
Cheers again

[Blueywa]

Just to be different; I use a card reader and transfer directly to a folder in 'My Documents' - from there I 'open with' whichever program I feel like, including LR3.
I'm using an old dual core 2.2 celeron with 2gig of RAM, and all works well so far :)

[agb]

Hi agb,
im unable to to connect the camera via a usb which i found out last week when i installed lightroom so quckly ducked down to grab a card reader from the local camera house.. So after getting the card reader i can now open the images in lightroom but takes hours to view the pics in lightroom so am leaing towards the cheap card reader being the problem so am doing some research now to see if this is true, and will get a better quality one(leaning towards the sandisk) if this proves to be the problem but if you can think of anything wouold love to hear it
Cheers

Can I ask a silly question. Why can't you connect the camera to the computer via a usb cable?

[wanderer51]

I am also with peterb....Lightroom ran like a crippled dog on my 2.66Ghz with 2GB RAM. Neither did I find it very intuitive. I to have given it it's marching orders and went back to the Canon software (DPP) for some use, and then into PS CS3, both of which run like a dream.

[kiwi]

I think Tony's comments were spot on - if you are having performance issues check the import settinsg re preview sizes

I dount whether the card reader is the bottleneck

[wilto]

Thanks Kiwi for the comments will check these settings out..
Wanderer yeah im starting to get pretty peed off as well but am determined to get it soughted..
And Bluey for some reason after installing lightroom i was unable to view pics straight from camera so now it works via the card reader umm not really sure why but helpful guys here suggested it. it works so will stick to it..

[grw46]

I use Lightroom 3 and have no probs . I conect the camera via usb and LR3 opens automatically and loads the images very quickly(Core2duo 8500 6gb ram). My experience with a cheap card reader were similar to the probs you are getting.
Try File> auto imports> Enable auto imports > or with your camera connected by usb
Libary> import> select your camera>

[wilto]

thanks gary for your tips will give them a go.
last night i de-fragged my computer to see if it would make a difference and seems to have to worked wonders so far so good.now to keep learning lightroom
Cheers
Brad

[maccaroneski]

Brad I joined lynda.com for a month - there is a 13 hour lightroom training there which was fantastic. It's broken down into 3 or 4 minute segments, and you get access to the whole site for a month for 25 bucks. Well worthwhile, and there are a few other things there to look at if you finish the Lightroom stuff (I did it in about 2 and a half weeks). Took me from zero to competent very quickly.

[wilto]

Hi maccaroneski,
Thanks for the info ive just found a similar video tute from David Marx so far seem to be very informative, but will now have a 2nd site to learn from..
Cheers for the recommendation..