soundoftheatom

Q: Lightroom CC stuttering on iMac 27 inch Retina 5k Late 2015

I bought my first iMac about 3 weeks ago, because my old pc which I built about 9 years ago appears to be on its last legs. As a keen amateur photographer I only really use my computer for Photoshop and Lightroom and as such decided to go for a reasonably well specced model. After much deliberation I ended up buying an iMac 27 inch retina 5K with the 2TB fusion drive. As I know Photoshop and Lightroom can be memory hungry I also went for 32GB of RAM.

 

I've finally managed to copy all my music and photo's onto my new machine and install the latest versions of Photoshop and Lightroom. Other than that there is virtually nothing else on it.

 

The problem is that I've only really been using Lightroom and Photoshop for the past couple of days and I have to admit I am very disappointed with the performance of my brand spanking new iMac, particularly when using Lightroom. It is slow and sluggish. Even just starting the program seems to take an age, with the coloured spinning circle thingy appearing very frequently and for quite a while each time it does appear. My old pc which only had 6gb of RAM and is 9 years old is quicker. Photoshop doesn't seem TOO bad, not quite the blistering pace I was expecting, but acceptable I suppose.

 

It's a lovely machine, the screen is amazing, but I'm really annoyed that having spent over £2000 it doesn't seem to perform for the main task I bought it for!

 

Does anybody have any ideas/suggestions as to what the problem might be?

 

Thanks

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Jan 6, 2016 1:08 PM

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Q: Lightroom CC stuttering on iMac 27 inch Retina 5k Late 2015

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  • by rkaufmann87,

    rkaufmann87 rkaufmann87 Jan 6, 2016 1:20 PM in response to soundoftheatom
    Level 9 (58,466 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 6, 2016 1:20 PM in response to soundoftheatom

    Have you installed any of the following apps:

     

    • Antivirus app
    • Cleaning app
    • Non Apple maintenance apps

    If so, locate the uninstall instructions and immediately uninstall them as they are 100% unnecessary and many cases cause more problems than they solve!!!

     

    If you have not installed any of these types of apps you have 90 days of free AppleCare telephone support and should be in touch with Apple. You can find out more about this by clicking http://www.apple.com/support/complimentary/

     

    If the hardware proves to be okay and OS X is okay (which I suspect they are) then I would be in touch with Adobe, your complaints are with their apps and they can coach  you best. Your machine should be extremely fast, your issues are likely due to something you installed or installed incorrectly.

  • by soundoftheatom,

    soundoftheatom soundoftheatom Jan 6, 2016 1:32 PM in response to rkaufmann87
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Jan 6, 2016 1:32 PM in response to rkaufmann87

    Apart from Adobe Creative Cloud, Lightroom and Photoshop, the only other things I've installed are VLC, The Nik collection (plugins for PS and LR), chrome and my Wacom graphics tablet. That's it. Nothing else at all.

     

    Is there a way I can test the performance of my iMac? Hard drive, memory, cpu etc? If it is a software problem, wouldn't it be affecting everyone running the same machine?

     

    I am going to get in touch with Adobe and see what they suggest as well.

  • by rkaufmann87,

    rkaufmann87 rkaufmann87 Jan 6, 2016 1:51 PM in response to soundoftheatom
    Level 9 (58,466 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 6, 2016 1:51 PM in response to soundoftheatom

    soundoftheatom wrote:

     

    Apart from Adobe Creative Cloud, Lightroom and Photoshop, the only other things I've installed are VLC, The Nik collection (plugins for PS and LR), chrome and my Wacom graphics tablet. That's it. Nothing else at all.

     

    Is there a way I can test the performance of my iMac? Hard drive, memory, cpu etc? If it is a software problem, wouldn't it be affecting everyone running the same machine?

     

    I am going to get in touch with Adobe and see what they suggest as well.

    To test your hardware Using Apple Diagnostics - Apple Support. To answer your question, yes if the hardware (or OS X) was in some way faulty then yes this would affect other users of the machine. If you are saying you are just one user on this machine and you are the only one experiencing problems with the Adobe products you have installed then I'd say, yes get in touch with Adobe.

  • by woodmeister50,

    woodmeister50 woodmeister50 Jan 7, 2016 3:00 AM in response to soundoftheatom
    Level 5 (5,510 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 7, 2016 3:00 AM in response to soundoftheatom

    How big are your Lightroom catalogs? FWIW, I have heard several grumblings

    over the latest Lightroom performance from users with large catalogs.

     

    Have also heard grumblings that the latest Lightroom is general overall slower

    than previous versions.

  • by dialabrain,

    dialabrain dialabrain Jan 7, 2016 3:26 AM in response to soundoftheatom
    Level 5 (6,197 points)
    Mac App Store
    Jan 7, 2016 3:26 AM in response to soundoftheatom

    FWIW, this will give you some idea of customers experiences with the 2015 versions vs the 2014 versions.

    https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1874889?tstart=0

     

    FWIW, it's not your iMac.

  • by mcrean,

    mcrean mcrean Jan 7, 2016 9:41 AM in response to soundoftheatom
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2016 9:41 AM in response to soundoftheatom

    This is quite troubling to me because I am considering a 27" iMac. (Already own iPods, iPad and a Mac Book Air).  The only apps I am interested in running are Light Room CC and Photoshop CC. Currently I'm running these on a 2009 Model Lenovo, Windows 10 Pro, 8GB Ram, Vision Tek Graphics w/ 1GB Ram driving 4 monitors. My performance is flawless and quick using this ancient machine.

     

    If I spend $3K + on this iMac and it behaves as described here, I will not be happy.

     

    Is this an isolated incident or common?

     

    Thx,

     

    Marty

  • by rkaufmann87,

    rkaufmann87 rkaufmann87 Jan 7, 2016 9:52 AM in response to mcrean
    Level 9 (58,466 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jan 7, 2016 9:52 AM in response to mcrean

    This experience is very unusual. Please remember, these forums are help forums. the best analogy I can think of is coming here is like going to a hospital to judge the overall health of a population. Obviously all it will do is scare you.  Millions of PC switchers have successfully transitioned to Macs, including me about 10 years ago.

     

    PS & LR are very popular apps that run very well for both pcs and Mac users.

  • by mcrean,

    mcrean mcrean Jan 7, 2016 11:24 AM in response to rkaufmann87
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2016 11:24 AM in response to rkaufmann87

    Thank you. Already use several Apple products (Love) and wand to do so for the desktop. I like your analogy

     

    Thx again....

  • by woodmeister50,

    woodmeister50 woodmeister50 Jan 7, 2016 12:42 PM in response to mcrean
    Level 5 (5,510 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 7, 2016 12:42 PM in response to mcrean

    mcrean wrote:

     

    This is quite troubling to me because I am considering a 27" iMac. (Already own iPods, iPad and a Mac Book Air).  The only apps I am interested in running are Light Room CC and Photoshop CC. Currently I'm running these on a 2009 Model Lenovo, Windows 10 Pro, 8GB Ram, Vision Tek Graphics w/ 1GB Ram driving 4 monitors. My performance is flawless and quick using this ancient machine.

     

    If I spend $3K + on this iMac and it behaves as described here, I will not be happy.

     

    Is this an isolated incident or common?

     

    Thx,

     

    Marty

    FWIW, I am running the Lightroom and Photoshop CC on a late 2013 27" iMac with

    OSX El Capitan and am not having any issues.  There is an issue with the Adobe Bridge CC

    app as far as being able to connect cameras and downloading.  However, if your intent

    is to use Lightroom, there is no real need for Bridge.  Folks at Adobe don't seem to talk to each

    other apparently since Lightroom connects to cameras but Bridge doesn't.

     

    As I stated above though, generally speaking, the latest Lightroom is slower than previous

    version(not just on Macs either), but not to the extent that the OP is having issues with.

  • by mcrean,

    mcrean mcrean Jan 7, 2016 12:49 PM in response to woodmeister50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2016 12:49 PM in response to woodmeister50

    Very helpful - thank you. Don't use Bridge, so no concern there. Thx again

  • by soundoftheatom,

    soundoftheatom soundoftheatom Jan 7, 2016 1:53 PM in response to woodmeister50
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Jan 7, 2016 1:53 PM in response to woodmeister50

    Thanks everyone for all the input, but its not the size of my catalog. I posted the same question on a forum over at Adobe and people there were saying it could be the preview size, or face detection running in the background, but I've checked all those and it's nothing to do with that either. I even tried running it low resolution mode but it was just the same - sluggish. Its most noticeable when using the adjustment brush. It takes a good 2 seconds for any brush strokes to take effect, which is incredibly annoying and makes retouching nearly impossible.

     

    As a test earlier tonight, I started LR on my 9 year old pc and my new imac at the same time. It loaded about 5 seconds quicker on my pc!

     

    I'm starting to pull my hair out now!!!!!

  • by seroposi,

    seroposi seroposi Jan 7, 2016 3:11 PM in response to soundoftheatom
    Level 1 (100 points)
    Jan 7, 2016 3:11 PM in response to soundoftheatom

    Regret I can't help but you might get some help by posting your quandary here:

     

    http://www.lightroomforums.net/

     

     

    Regards John

  • by mcrean,

    mcrean mcrean Jan 7, 2016 3:22 PM in response to seroposi
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 7, 2016 3:22 PM in response to seroposi

    Thank you John

  • by woodmeister50,

    woodmeister50 woodmeister50 Jan 8, 2016 2:29 AM in response to soundoftheatom
    Level 5 (5,510 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 8, 2016 2:29 AM in response to soundoftheatom

    Have you tried a total and complete removal of everything Adobe

    and do a re-install?  Use the Adobe uninstaller.

     

    Also, something else to try.  Create a new user on your iMac (don't remove your current), reboot,

    and log in to the new user and see if the issue continues?  Perhaps there is something

    in your current user account that is creating some sort of conflict.

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