Lightroom 2.0 has become the software of choice for photographers for not only photo management but also most of post processing. Seeing the increasing size of RAW files with each new DSLR(or even some compacts), Lightroom is built keeping in mind the huge amounts of data it processes. So here are a few simple tricks to speed it up significantly.
1. Computer Configuration: The most obvious thign you can do to improve Lightroom performance is to get a better configuration computer with high amounts of RAM, 4 Gb DDR3 would be ideal. But you can’t always do that, so another thing you can do is to install 64 bit version of Windows and Lightroom will automatically install 64 bit version. This will do two things- first, it will improve the speed and responsiveness of the computer in general, and secondly, it will allow Lightroom to access more that 3.2 Gb of RAM, upto practically infinite amounts. Give it a try and see the difference for yourself. 2. Preview Rendering: The most common reason of slow performance of Lightroom is preview rendering when you are working with files. You can avoid this annoying delay by rendering all previews after you import images into a Lightroom catalog. Simply click Library>Previews>Render 1:1 and render previews for all files after you import them. Keep in mind though that this will take up extra disk space. 3. Optimizing Cache: The third thing you can do to radically improve Lightroom speed is to do right settings for Lightroom cache. If you don’t know what cache is, it is the hard disk space Lightroom uses for storing temporary working data, you can consider it to be an extension of RAM for Lightroom. You should ideally have Lightroom cache in a 75% free internal hard drive which is not the drive on which OS is installed. If this is not possible, you can have the cache on the same drive as OS but make sure it is internal. You can do it by going to Edit>Preferences>File Handling
Speeding up Lightroom 2.0
Lightroom 2.0 has become the software of choice for photographers for not only photo management but also most of post processing. Seeing the increasing size of RAW files with each new DSLR(or even some compacts), Lightroom is built keeping in mind the huge amounts of data it processes. So here are a few simple tricks to speed it up significantly.
1. Computer Configuration: The most obvious thign you can do to improve Lightroom performance is to get a better configuration computer with high amounts of RAM, 4 Gb DDR3 would be ideal. But you can’t always do that, so another thing you can do is to install 64 bit version of Windows and Lightroom will automatically install 64 bit version. This will do two things- first, it will improve the speed and responsiveness of the computer in general, and secondly, it will allow Lightroom to access more that 3.2 Gb of RAM, upto practically infinite amounts. Give it a try and see the difference for yourself.
2. Preview Rendering: The most common reason of slow performance of Lightroom is preview rendering when you are working with files. You can avoid this annoying delay by rendering all previews after you import images into a Lightroom catalog. Simply click Library>Previews>Render 1:1 and render previews for all files after you import them. Keep in mind though that this will take up extra disk space.
3. Optimizing Cache: The third thing you can do to radically improve Lightroom speed is to do right settings for Lightroom cache. If you don’t know what cache is, it is the hard disk space Lightroom uses for storing temporary working data, you can consider it to be an extension of RAM for Lightroom. You should ideally have Lightroom cache in a 75% free internal hard drive which is not the drive on which OS is installed. If this is not possible, you can have the cache on the same drive as OS but make sure it is internal. You can do it by going to Edit>Preferences>File Handling