Will an SSD provide a noticeable benefit for Lightroom over a traditional harddrive?

Question

I am a huge Lightroom (3.6) user, and have a 2006 2.15 Ghz Core 2 Duo 24" iMac, running Lion. This Mac it limited to 3GB RAM max, but does have dedicated graphics. I have about 50GB left on my harddrive. I have over 21,000 images in my LR catalog. The catalog itself is local on my iMac hard drive, but images are on attached storage.

My issue is that I have been having some noticeable performance issues with Lightroom. Dragging sliders can be jumpy at times, and sometimes switching modules has significant delays. I suspect that overhead in Lion is somewhat to blame, but it may also be all the files and apps on my Mac.

So, question is: does anyone have tested evidence of an SSD vs harddrive on Lightroom performance? How dependent is Mac OSX on free hard drive space when it pages to virtual memory? How much free space is preferred?

Or is my issue more related to LR itself, in that I have over 21,000 images in my LR catalog? Would I see noticeable improvement in the interface with a smaller catalog?

Trying to decide if the pain of opening my iMac and installing an SSD is worth it, or if I should instead save the $$ and put it toward an updated iMac in the future.

Answer

I recently got an SSD drive for my primary boot drive. It was a moderately fast one, with consistent 270mb/s read and write speeds. I've used lightroom with the catalog both on the SSD and on a normal HDD, and I did not see a whole lot of performance improvement for my catalog, which is about 12,000 photos or so.

As I started investigating how to improve the performance of Lightroom, I realized that the most significant factor that affected performance was the Camera RAW Cache size (Preferences -> File Handling -> Camera Raw Cache Settings -> Maximum Size). It defaults to 1Gb, however when working with a large number of RAW photos, a 1Gb cache is FAR, FAR too small. Increasing it to at least 20Gb offered good improvement, and increasing it to 50Gb offered considerable improvement. The improvement was a bit better on the SSD, however given the value of SSD space, I again moved the cache off onto a normal HDD. The performance gains are still evident, and I'm quite happy using LR with all of its data on a normal hard drive.

It should be noted that SSD's come in a very BROAD range of speeds and capabilities. Some are fairly slow relative to an HDD (which can usually offer around 60mb/s burst rates), where as some are insanely fast. SSD burst rates can range from as low as around 100mb/s or even lower for really cheap drives, to as high as 700mb/s or even more for highly specialized designs...such as those that fit into a PCI-E slot. Some SSD's include built-in high-speed secondary caches, some have better data distribution algorithms that optimize read or write speeds, etc. All these factors can affect whether an SSD might show a significant improvement for Lightroom performance or not. Lightroom generally stores the working image in memory, so if you are worried about single-image development speed, an SSD is not going to help much. The performance gains that can be realized from faster storage drive speeds happen when moving between files, performing multi-file operations, etc. The bottom line is...the more money you are willing to spend for better SSD technology and faster burst rate, the more likely you are to see an improvement.

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Will an SSD provide a measurable benefit for Lightroom over a traditional harddrive?

Question

I am a huge Lightroom (3.6) user, and have a 2006 2.15 Ghz Core 2 Duo 24" iMac, running Lion. This Mac it limited to 3GB RAM max, but does have dedicated graphics. I have about 50GB left on my harddrive. I have over 21,000 images in my LR catalog. The catalog itself is local on my iMac hard drive, but images are on attached storage.

My issue is that I have been having some noticeable performance issues with Lightroom. Dragging sliders can be jumpy at times, and sometimes switching modules has significant delays. I suspect that overhead in Lion is somewhat to blame, but it may also be all the files and apps on my Mac.

So, question is: does anyone have tested evidence of an SSD vs harddrive on Lightroom performance? How dependent is Mac OSX on free hard drive space when it pages to virtual memory? How much free space is preferred?

Or is my issue more related to LR itself, in that I have over 21,000 images in my LR catalog? Would I see noticeable improvement in the interface with a smaller catalog?

Trying to decide if the pain of opening my iMac and installing an SSD is worth it, or if I should instead save the $$ and put it toward an updated iMac in the future.

Answer

I recently got an SSD drive for my primary boot drive. It was a moderately fast one, with consistent 270mb/s read and write speeds. I've used lightroom with the catalog both on the SSD and on a normal HDD, and I did not see a whole lot of performance improvement for my catalog, which is about 12,000 photos or so.

As I started investigating how to improve the performance of Lightroom, I realized that the most significant factor that affected performance was the Camera RAW Cache size (Preferences -> File Handling -> Camera Raw Cache Settings -> Maximum Size). It defaults to 1Gb, however when working with a large number of RAW photos, a 1Gb cache is FAR, FAR too small. Increasing it to at least 20Gb offered good improvement, and increasing it to 50Gb offered considerable improvement. The improvement was a bit better on the SSD, however given the value of SSD space, I again moved the cache off onto a normal HDD. The performance gains are still evident, and I'm quite happy using LR with all of its data on a normal hard drive.

It should be noted that SSD's come in a very BROAD range of speeds and capabilities. Some are fairly slow relative to an HDD (which can usually offer around 60mb/s burst rates), where as some are insanely fast. SSD burst rates can range from as low as around 100mb/s or even lower for really cheap drives, to as high as 700mb/s or even more for highly specialized designs...such as those that fit into a PCI-E slot. Some SSD's include built-in high-speed secondary caches, some have better data distribution algorithms that optimize read or write speeds, etc. All these factors can affect whether an SSD might show a significant improvement for Lightroom performance or not. Lightroom generally stores the working image in memory, so if you are worried about single-image development speed, an SSD is not going to help much. The performance gains that can be realized from faster storage drive speeds happen when moving between files, performing multi-file operations, etc. The bottom line is...the more money you are willing to spend for better SSD technology and faster burst rate, the more likely you are to see an improvement.

Check more discussion of this question.

Why do my photos look better on an iMac?

Question

I've been given a long term loan of a 27" iMac. Looking at my photos on flickr and iphoto, they look, eh, just better, they seem to pop more than they did on the other PCs. Why is that? The other computers I am used to using are a dell desktop with LCD and low end dell laptop.

Answer

The 27" LED mac displays are "full gamut" displays, ones that cover around 98% of the Adobe RGB gamut. These are full 8 bit/channel (24bit) screens and offer a full 178° viewing angle. They are much higher quality displays than your average LCD screen, and specifically designed to output high quality, rich, saturated graphics. Additionally, Safari, which I assume you are using on the Mac, supports ICM. Browsers that support ICM will generally render photos with more accurate color than browsers that do not when an ICM profile is present in an image.

Your Dell computers are probably using much cheaper, 6 bit/channel (18bit) or 5/6/5bit (16bit) screens, and are likely not LED LCD screens but standard CCFL LCD screens. While these screens generally have higher refresh rates, and are great for gaming and movies, they do not reproduce color as accurately as diplays with higher bit depth and wider viewing angle. Contrast and color rendition on the cheaper Dell screens will generally cover the full sRGB gamut, but will fall quite short of the much richer and more saturated Adobe RGB gamut.

The Apple screens are middle ground, though. They use standard yellow phosphor/blue LED backlighting, which over the long term will often result in non-uniform color shift as the LED's age. CCFL backlit screens are less likely to encounter such color drift over the long term. For LED screens, full RGB LED will produce much cleaner, more consistent results over the long term. High end RGB LED screens designed for photo and graphics editing work will render the richest color (sometimes covering as much as 123% of the Adobe RGB gamut for maximum saturation) and purest white (blending RGB to form white more accurate than converting blue LED light into white light via a yellow phosphor, and is less subject to color drift over the long term.)

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SD card can no longer be read by PC but works fine in the camera, can I fix this?

Question

A few weeks ago I was going to download the pictures from an SD card and I noticed the lock mechanism had become stuck in the middle, so I went to push it back to unlocked and the card peeled apart partially. Ever since then, my computer wouldn't read it. I tried formatting it, etc. to no avail.

What's odd is that if I put the card in my Nikon D3000, it functions fine through the PC connection.

I'm not certain that the unlocking issue was what caused this, but it strikes me as odd that the card works fine (formats/saves pictures/etc) as long as it's in the camera.

How can I fix this? Is this any danger to the camera? (The price of a new SD card obviously being WAY cheaper than a camera)

Answer

I would strongly recommend getting a new card. The danger to the camera, ultimately, is that it gets stuck in the slot because of the card seperating. While I would imagine that Nikon repair could sort that out, it may cost you a lot more than a new card to have it done because such a situation would not be warrantee.

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Other than the iMac, what's a brilliant display for my images?

Question

When I started researching gear to start my photography passion I fell in love with the large iMac display. The large bright screen at the best buy was showing a sideshow if images that looked better than life and I was in awe.

Since I am a Microsoft developer, buying Apple would be very limiting. Are their other options for me to rival the Apple display but with a Windows machine?

What do photographers use as displays?

Mainly I want to see the images really pop off the screen and be really vivid. Spending is relative, so I could splurge and make a nice desktop workstation for myself that can double as a "photo lab" of sorts for my hobby. As for size, the larger the screen the better... I love the huge iMacs!

Answer

I guess there isn't much more I could say other than I own the Apple CinemaDisplay 30" LCD screen, and I am a heavy duty Microsoft/.NET developer. I work entirely in Windows 7 on my custom-build PC (not a Mac), and this screen has been great. I purchased it quite a number of years ago, and it is still running strong.

If I was in the market more recently, I would definitely go for an LED LCD screen, rather than a CCFL LED screen. LED screens, particularly those with a clear/glossy screen, offer a much wider gamut, more accurate color rendition, and broader coverage of the AdobeRGB and NTSC gamuts than other screens. There are several manufacturers who make LED computer screens these days, including Eizo with their ColorEdge screens, LaCie with their new 730 model (one of the best photo editing screens on the market with the broadest gamut I've ever seen...my next screen if the Apple ever dies), as well as more well-known brands such as NEC (I'm having a hard time finding professional grade LED monitors from NEC right now), Apple, etc.

If you want a high quality, wide gamut screen that is designed for a photo editing workflow, I highly recommend looking into LED screens, particularly professional grade ones. NEC and Apple will have them at more reasonable prices, but with narrower gamuts than true professional grade LED screens. If you want the top of the line, with the widest gamut currently available, look no further than the LaCie 730. It covers 123% of the AdobeRGB color gamut, which is ideal for photographic editing. It is not quite as physically appealing as the Apple CinemaDisplay, but color-rendition-wise, it is fantastic.

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