Tips to speed-up Lightroom

I have a backlog of hints, tips, stories and random urls to post that I haven’t yet got around to sharing with you so look out for more of these in the coming week.

One of the most useful of these is for Lightroom users who may occasionally be biting the edge of their laptops in frustration as Lightroom begins to slow down. On the whole, Lightroom is pretty good at keeping pace with the way I work – which tends to be as quickly as possible. Hours spent processing image files is not, if I’m honest, at the top of my list of the most delightful ways to spend my time. However, it’s an occupational hazard and my list of Lightroom catalogues grows steadily, as does the number of hours I clock up bashing my way through that familiar grey interface, so anything that can reduce the time I have to spend in front of the computer is very welcome.

Young Jack Kurtz is: a) one of the most experienced photojournalists I know, b) a thoroughly pleasant gentleman, c) a fellow slave to the dastardly Lightroom. So it was with some eagerness that I read his recent post discussing ways to speed-up Lightroom. Sadly, Jack doesn’t offer to do your post-production work for you, which would surely be the best way to reduce the amount of time we spend using Lightroom. However, he does offer some really useful suggestions for how we can reduce the amount of time we spend staring at that little, revolving beach-ball that signifies what techy types call, alarmingly, a kernel panic. A kernel panic occurs when your processor can’t cope with the flow of information that’s being thrown at it and is the IT equivalent of your washing machine grinding to a halt when you try to unload a whole suitcase of laundry into it after a month on location. OK, perhaps that’s just me. Anyway, you get the idea.

So, head over to Jack’s place to read the full list of suggestions for speeding up Lightroom. Whilst you’re there, take a few minutes to look through Jack’s impressive portfolio, especially his work from South-East Asia.

Posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 3:52 am. Filed under: Blog, Technology RSS 2.0 feed.