RomanT.net

After I updated Lightroom to 1.1, I had mixed reaction. At first I was very pleased with the added features such as spraying meta tags onto photos. Although I was very unhappy with the fact that the update rendered my Lightroom, simply unworkable - it was way too slow.

• The browsing of photos would stagger once you go from one end of the library to the other
• Previewing of photos was nearly impossible at full resolution, as it would just sit the with the infamous ‘Loading’ bar at the bottom

I’m using this on my laptop [Core Duo T60 2500, with 1.5GB RAM] - and with nearly 5000 photos, Lightroom 1.0 screamed through any task. You’d imagine that 1.1 would be an improvement.

I was convinced it wasn’t only my problem, even after numerous posts on DPreview, Adobe’s Lightroom Forums - everyone who had a MUCH better machine to play with - reported no problem.

The good news is that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and you can get your speed back.

Two methods [both covered]

1. Optimize the catalog - doesn’t work for everyone, namely myself.
2. Re-export your catalog, and let Lightroom rebuild

1. File -> Catalog Settings…
2. Under the General tab - click ‘Relaunch and Optimize’ | for a lot of people, this will do the trick, otherwise continue
3. After Lightroom opens back up:
   1. Under Library foldout on the left, select ‘All Photographs’, to make sure your whole library catalog is being exported.
   2. File -> Export as Catalog
4. Pick a new directory not far from where your current Lightroom library exists, this will save you time later on moving it.
5. NOTE: When the dialog opens up, make sure you don’t have ‘Export negative files’ selected, otherwise depending on how many photos you have, it will take a VERY long time, plus it is completely unnecessary
   
6. Click ‘Save’
7. Once it has finished exporting the library, the previews and is ‘done’, go and run the new library - you should notice a MUCH snappier response on all actions, and it is now as Lightroom 1.1 should have been.