Lightroom Resource Utilization: On Setting Up a Machine for Lightroom Usage

Panasonic LX100 at an effective 43mm — 1/1250 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 —
map & image data — nearby photos
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Adobe Lightroom deals with a lot of data — sometimes thousands of images at a time, each
one potentially huge by itself — so it uses a lot of computer resources. When setting up a machine for Lightroom use, one wants to know what kinds of upgrades will be most effective, and along these
lines I got an email from James Palik, a professional photographer who also
teaches processing and workflow with Lightroom, asking specific questions about Lightroom resource management.

Sadly I'm not the right person to ask about this kind of stuff, but luckily I have a contact within Adobe who is. I've
received permission to reproduce the questions and answers here so that all my benefit.

The current version of Lightroom is 6.3 (LrCC 2015.3).

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Q:How much installed memory will Lightroom address. For example, is there any
value to installing a full 64 GB on a Windows machine.

A:

Lightroom 6 runs as a native 64-bit application. In theory, the
image processing engine can use up to 50% of the total RAM on your system
to backup its internal virtual memory system. Typically, processing a
single photo would not require 32GB of RAM. Current Lightroom
heuristics set a maximum limit on the number of negatives cached in RAM
at any given time (last 3 or 4 negatives loaded). So having more RAM
adding to the machine would not be helpful.

However, if you could use the
additional RAM to setup as RAM disk. That would be immensely helpful to
speedup the previously loaded negatives. This is the same reasoning why
having the catalog and negatives (Smart Previews) on a fast SSD drive is
very helpful.

In the normal case, I would currently recommend 16GB of RAM.

Q:Lightroom determines a set amount of Cache when it is installed. How does Lightroom determine this setting?

A:

I assume by “Cache” you meant the camera raw cache? It depends on
your workflow. If you are following a DNG-only workflow with “Fast Load
Data” embedded, the camera raw cache rarely comes into play. If you process the raw files (CR2, NEF, RAF) only, then having a bigger camera
raw cache is very helpful. It depends on the number of photos that you
would need to process through each time and how often that you need to go
back and reprocess them. Having the camera raw cache directory on a faster
drive is very beneficial.

Q:When does Lightroom start to use Cache. (in what part of the
development process)

A:

Every time that Lightroom would need to render the negatives with
the adjustment settings, in the develop module or the quick develop in the
library module.

Q:

When it comes to CPUs and cores, what is your best advice for purchasing the most powerful
standalone machine when it is going to be used almost exclusively
for photography processing in Lightroom?

A:

Lightroom likes multiple processors/mult-cores and make uses of
them.

Q:Will Lightroom take advantage of dual processors?

A:

Yes.

Q:How many cores will Lightroom take advantage of?

A:

Since Lr 6.2, Lightroom will make use of all cores available.

In
all Lightroom versions, you can check the Lightroom's System Info dialog
invoked from the Help menu. It has a field named “Maximum thread count
used by Camera Raw” that tells how many cores that Lightroom will be using.

There we have it. Some of the answers bring up further questions, but hopefully this information
will be of value. The RAM disk for the Camera Raw cache seems like an easy place to win greatly,
if you have the spare memory. The size and location of the Camera Raw cache is configured in Lightroom's preferences dialog
under the “File Handling” tab.

Panasonic LX100 at an effective 65mm — 1/10000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 —
map & image data — nearby photos

Îlot Maître (メトル島), New Caledonia
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