[sawtooth235]

I have been using LR 3 for a little over a month now using a very slow system (Pentium 4 with only 2 gigs of ram) and haven't hac any issues with its speed. I can tell you that the improved noise reduction capability alone make it worthy of an upgrade. I have been able to rescue some significantly out of dynamic range images using it.

[Bart]

Well, that's good news.
I suppose you got the final LR3.2? It was just released.

[NKK]

Well, that's good news.
I suppose you got the final LR3.2? It was just released.

Si Just downloaded it.

[sawtooth235]

Yep, running version 3.3 currently.

[Class A]

Whether or not LR3 will perform very much depends on the individual hardware. There are many people for which it runs fine even on modest hardware and a number of people for which LR often comes to a crawl despite running on high-end hardware.

Adobe doesn't seem to know what the issue is. Particular graphic cards have been blamed.

LR3 is much improved over LR2 in terms of RAW development (retaining detail, sharpening, noise reduction). The lens correction feature is also great but I rarely need/use it. Some people still keep running LR2.7 because any 3.x version is just disappointingly slow for them.

Given Adobe's QC issues, I don't think that LR is a professional tool (too many bugs, not performant enough) but for an enthusiast where lost minutes are not counted in dollars, it is a great tool.

LR3 was announced as increasing performance and as such it has got to be considered a failure for a large number of users. The better RAW processing takes more time, which is appreciated, but somehow they managed to reduce performance a lot more elsewhere. Some of the "point releases" since LR3.0 addressed issues to some extent, but I think they still have some way to go to get to a stage where the product can be said to meet professional demands. I suggest you just download the software and run it for the trial period. Then you'll have an idea whether it will run sufficiently fast on your particular software.

[Pentaxor]

Whether or not LR3 will perform very much depends on the individual hardware. There are many people for which it runs fine even on modest hardware and a number of people for which LR often comes to a crawl despite running on high-end hardware.

Adobe doesn't seem to know what the issue is. Particular graphic cards have been blamed.

LR3 is much improved over LR2 in terms of RAW development (retaining detail, sharpening, noise reduction). The lens correction feature is also great but I rarely need/use it. Some people still keep running LR2.7 because any 3.x version is just disappointingly slow for them.

Given Adobe's QC issues, I don't think that LR is a professional tool (too many bugs, not performant enough) but for an enthusiast where lost minutes are not counted in dollars, it is a great tool.

LR3 was announced as increasing performance and as such it has got to be considered a failure for a large number of users. The better RAW processing takes more time, which is appreciated, but somehow they managed to reduce performance a lot more elsewhere. Some of the "point releases" since LR3.0 addressed issues to some extent, but I think they still have some way to go to get to a stage where the product can be said to meet professional demands. I suggest you just download the software and run it for the trial period. Then you'll have an idea whether it will run sufficiently fast on your particular software.

the issue that I'm having occasionally with the LR3 is the loading time for each image and the loading time during import. although negligible by standards, it can be annoying. 3 seconds load time for a single big file and countless seconds for browsing down the still loading imported images. it is kinda surprising that the more cpu power demanding and bigger programs such as the PS CS5 and ACR6 loads images in an instant. I don't think this has got to do with the type of graphics card used but rather how LR3 uses system and graphics card memory. I would believe that LR3 has an issue on memory efficiency use. LR3 is not that high demanding but it does somehow fail to use resources to boost performance.

[takumite]

I chose Lightroom 3 over Aperture (mac user) because it runs better on slower hardware and I use a laptop most of the time, but to be perfectly honest I find Lightroom's UI to poorly implemented and downright ugly. Functionally it get the job done but when I move up to a faster machine I'll be glad to leave Lightroom and never look back.

[reeftool]

I have just downloaded the trial (ver. 3.3) on a new computer I have just put together. It runs quite fast but I have made the jump from a Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz with 1.5 gigs of memory to an Athlon X3- 3.1Ghz with 4 gigs ram and Windows 7, 64bit so the performance increase in everything is impressive. LR 3 would not run on my old system. I haven't had much time to use it yet but my first impressions of LR 3 are positive. It may not be a good experience on an older, slower computer. I was using Elements 6 on my old one and it was annoyingly slow. I doubt that it would run on a netbook as someone suggested it should. A netbook is the wrong machine for this program anyhow.

[mrwatermelon]

I chose Lightroom 3 over Aperture (mac user) because it runs better on slower hardware and I use a laptop most of the time, but to be perfectly honest I find Lightroom's UI to poorly implemented and downright ugly. Functionally it get the job done but when I move up to a faster machine I'll be glad to leave Lightroom and never look back.

Funny, I changed to lightroom for the same reason as you and I ended up loving it.

[PhilippeG]

In LR you can set the kind of preview it creates during import, and this setting alone can make things very slow.

If you create full-size previews the import takes longer, but then browsing is fast. Recommended if you almost always do some PP soon after youy import the pictures.

If you choose small previews LR will need to create full-size ones when you zoom for the first time. It can be quite slow when you have 15 or 16 Mpx files. Useful if you need to import fast.

If you don't create previews at all LR will have to create them when you browse your images for the first time. I think it's only useful if you want to import a zillion pics and deal with them later.

[George Lama]

Compared to LR2, noise reduction tool is much better in LR3 - in fact, it's amazingly better. Built-in lens correction is a plus if you shoot with wide-angle lenses. Grain function works very well too.

I just hope they resolve some remaining slowness issues. It was horrible with 3.2, got better with 3.3, but not great. Regardless, it's my #1 tool and I love it with a passion.

[philippe]

On my Mac Pro 2x dual core intel 2.66 Hz 6 Gb RAM (pre 2008), LR3.3 is, in general, doing rather well, not fast nor slow, but yet slower than LR2.x. But the new RAW engine and the lens-profile tool are worth it! I do like the new import modus, to me, it's clear where the photo's are going now, how to retrace when I 'lost' one and what to do to move them. There is a clear sight on the different files.
The only thing that is particularly slow is the dust cloning tool, it's really sloooooow. I think it's rather a graphics card thing than a memory or a common hardware thing.
So, I ordered a new graphics card, the ATI Radeon 5770, and I will see if it helps...

[philippe]

What I forgot to mention is that, before testing LR, one should empty the caches first. After a day's work, most of the time I end up with the ARC's cache filled up for about 8 to 11 Gb. This is slowing down LR, and the whole system, considerably.
Also, I restart the computer twice a day, in the morning and at lunch, and shut it down at night. This clears out the RAM for a while. And I always keep the startup HD clear for at least half of its capacity, this leaves plenty op room for the virtual memory.

LR is like a pig, it's eating your computer till it falls, belly full, asleep...

[zorobabel]

To me LR3 is a bit faster than LR2 (I timed exports) and also a bit easier on memory - 2-300 MB for LR3 vs 3-400 MB with LR2 on average; highest ever was about 600 MB with LR2.
I don't know why people complain about LR for eating a lot of memory. I could do quite well with 1GB on XP for LR. It's not HDD dependent either - again my experience. The only thing it seems to be hungry for is processing power - and a reason for me to want to upgrade my CPU. By the way, I think LR is slow.
My opinions are based on working K10D PEFs with an (old by now) AMD X2 4600 and 2 GB of RAM.

[CLYNN0928]

I have no problem, run it on my Laptop & desktop. Desktop is 500 gb Hard Drive & I think atleast 3 GB of ram. My laptop however is only 250 gb hard drive and 2 gb of Ram. I also run Photoshop CS5 and other things off of each computer.