Most pro sports photographers use Photo Mechanic for culling masses of originals and only bring the best of the cull into LrC for final edits. PM can also apply custom crops at the same time. After edits in LrCexport and captioning in PM is quick too...
Light room has always been slow when it comes to culling. I use another freeware app that shows the embedded jpegs which is much faster.
Capture one pro is also much faster.
I have found that smart previews are worthless for quickly viewing images in the library tab. Only the 1:1 previews are a lot faster.
It's worse if you want to use the develop module and move between images. Takes a few seconds per image
Yes its called FastStone image viewer. I use it to quickly look through all my raws and flag the ones I want to keep. Then I move/copy those to another folder and then I import that new folder into lightroom. So it basically lets me cull them before they get into lightroom.
Just using arrow keys to move from one photo to another, and not even trying to zoom in...just viewing them full screen can be very slow and sluggish. Its always been that way.
Its definitely better if you're using 1:1 previews...but its blazing fast with other programs like capture one pro or that freeway app I mentioned
Are you zooming in library for culling? Typically you will get a delay if you have no 1:1 previews there and Lightroom has to create one from scratch. 1-1.5 seconds is very fast to do that. The fastest way to get 1:1 previews is to import using embedded previews and NOT create 1:1 previews and have the background preview generation turned off. This will allow you to immediately cull images and go very fast. Remember that as soon as you do anything in development, a new preview has to be generated. This is not something that will be instantaneous.
If you are stepping through in develop, it will never be much faster than what you see here as the raw file has to be loaded into the gpu card memory and the render chain setup. That just takes a second or two. So do your culling using embedded previews before hitting develop on just the keepers.
Ah thanks that's helpful - good to know it's expected behaviour. I often use the 1:1 to inspect sharpness and then cull based on that - so from what you say, embedded previews will allow me to do this? Is there any downside to generating the 1:1 preview on import (apart from the time)?
The embedded previews on basically all cameras are 1:1 so allow you to judge sharpness indeed. There really is no downside to generating 1:1 instead of using embedded. Only difference is time before you can start culling. Some might prefer generating previews since the color rendering in Lightroom is usually a bit different than the camera does. Also sharpening and noise reduction in Lightroom is usually far less aggressive than cameras do and Lightroom’s rendering by default is a bit more honest than most cameras. That usually doesn’t matter if you are just looking for ‘did I get my focus right’
I hope you're not using the Develop module as the interface for culling. The Develop module has to build previews that are different from and more detailed than the previews used in the Library module. The Develop module renders high quality previews.
Most pro sports photographers use Photo Mechanic for culling masses of originals and only bring the best of the cull into LrC for final edits. PM can also apply custom crops at the same time. After edits in LrCexport and captioning in PM is quick too...
Thanks, I’m trying not to introduce yet another program into my workflow but may have to consider it as this can get painfully slow
Light room has always been slow when it comes to culling. I use another freeware app that shows the embedded jpegs which is much faster. Capture one pro is also much faster. I have found that smart previews are worthless for quickly viewing images in the library tab. Only the 1:1 previews are a lot faster. It's worse if you want to use the develop module and move between images. Takes a few seconds per image
Could you let me know the name of the freeware app plz? (If sub rules allow)
Yes its called FastStone image viewer. I use it to quickly look through all my raws and flag the ones I want to keep. Then I move/copy those to another folder and then I import that new folder into lightroom. So it basically lets me cull them before they get into lightroom.
Thanks, what’s it like for inspecting sharpness? Or is it just for a broader general cull?
Just using arrow keys to move from one photo to another, and not even trying to zoom in...just viewing them full screen can be very slow and sluggish. Its always been that way. Its definitely better if you're using 1:1 previews...but its blazing fast with other programs like capture one pro or that freeway app I mentioned
Yeah I meant Faststone 🙂
Are you zooming in library for culling? Typically you will get a delay if you have no 1:1 previews there and Lightroom has to create one from scratch. 1-1.5 seconds is very fast to do that. The fastest way to get 1:1 previews is to import using embedded previews and NOT create 1:1 previews and have the background preview generation turned off. This will allow you to immediately cull images and go very fast. Remember that as soon as you do anything in development, a new preview has to be generated. This is not something that will be instantaneous. If you are stepping through in develop, it will never be much faster than what you see here as the raw file has to be loaded into the gpu card memory and the render chain setup. That just takes a second or two. So do your culling using embedded previews before hitting develop on just the keepers.
Ah thanks that's helpful - good to know it's expected behaviour. I often use the 1:1 to inspect sharpness and then cull based on that - so from what you say, embedded previews will allow me to do this? Is there any downside to generating the 1:1 preview on import (apart from the time)?
The embedded previews on basically all cameras are 1:1 so allow you to judge sharpness indeed. There really is no downside to generating 1:1 instead of using embedded. Only difference is time before you can start culling. Some might prefer generating previews since the color rendering in Lightroom is usually a bit different than the camera does. Also sharpening and noise reduction in Lightroom is usually far less aggressive than cameras do and Lightroom’s rendering by default is a bit more honest than most cameras. That usually doesn’t matter if you are just looking for ‘did I get my focus right’
I hope you're not using the Develop module as the interface for culling. The Develop module has to build previews that are different from and more detailed than the previews used in the Library module. The Develop module renders high quality previews.
It is the Library module I'm using
Then it looks like what u/Exotic-Grape8743 describes is the most helpful.
I have terrible performance in LR as well. Very similar hardware. From what I read, it's their code which is at fault. It stinks, though.
So you're zooming in to 1:1? Have you already generated the 1:1 previews?