Photolab7 runs indecently slow. My computer isn’t the fastest but CaptureOne does everything instantly. Photolab7 on the other runs like I’m processing several 4k videos at one time. Button presses, zooming, simply loading or scrolling through an image takes ages and the program becomes unresponsive. Exporting a single RAW image with NR takes about as long as processing a 10min 4k video. While waiting for photolab becoming unresponsive simply zooming out, I can switch to CaptureOne on the side and I can still do everything instantly. Meanwhile Photolab is still rendering and displaying processes that I changed several steps ago. On top of that, Photolab does not have a decently functional object select tool, so we have to do it all manually while Photolab moves along at the pace of a half dead sloth. CaptureOne, Lightroom, and Topaz all have decent auto-selection tools.
I see that Photolab has been running slow for years and years without much improvement. Seriously pathetic and embarrassing programing. Time to hire some new talent that knows what they are doing in the speed/performance/processing/rendering department. Your customers will be happier and not ditch your software for something less frustrating to use.
And how are you going to capture customers at the time when people are leaving Adobe, if they try out your software and have an awful experience using it?
I’ve been using PhotoLab since PL 1 and now run PL 7. It has always been very snappy on my i7-6700 Windows 10 machine with 24 GB of RAM purchased in 2016. I don’t know what your hardware configuration is but your experience is very different from the quick response that most of us on this site gets.
What platform are you running on? What version of PhotoLab are you using. What are the specifications of your computer including the graphics card? How many image files do you have in a given folder? How big are your raw files? What is the megapixel count?
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by that. Can you give us a few examples of the non-decently functional object select tools in PhotoLab? You’re suggesting that there are many that fit in this category.
Lightroom, Photoshop, CaptureOne all run quickly on my computer. Topaz is a little bit of a wait but not too bad. Photolab is the only software that runs incredibly slow. It makes no difference in this case what the specs of my computer are if all the other programs run fine but Photolab is the only odd one out. Photo processing software should work well on a majority of computers not only those with high specs. I’m not running high end video editing here, just common 24mp RAW files. Photolab isn’t doing anything particularly special or out of the ordinary beside the NR to justify how slowly it runs. It’s just poorly programmed and clunky. I can Ai select an entire detailed subject with Capture one while waiting for Photolab to slowly process basic functions like zooming in or switching tools. I actually work on photos in CaptureOne and Topaz now while waiting for Photolab to crawl along, and the others don’t seem to slow down at all.
A Google search shows there are plenty of complaints about Photolab’s painfully slow operation
My guess is that PhotoLab is highly optimized to take advantage of the GPU for most calculations, using the CPU only as fallback. Other software is likely CPU-first, only using the GPU for optimizations here and there.
On higher end hardware, the PhotoLab approach can even be an advantage, but on older hardware where you don’t have a decent GPU to offload calculations to, it instead becomes very slow, as you have noticed. On a bigger scale, this is a passing problem as older hardware constantly get replaced by newer and soon there will be very little hardware not meeting the minimum specs left.
That is incorrect. The only PhotoLab features that use the GPU are DeepPRIME and DeepPRIME XD.
Since @Aye tells us the specs of his computer are irrelevant and so far won’t give them to us, we can’t do very much to assist him. All we can tell him is the experiences we have. On my 8-year-old Windows 10 desktop every version of PhotoLab since PhotoLab 1 has run as fast or faster than all of its competition.
Clearly he is having an issue but is unwilling to share information with us that might help us identify and resolve his problems. We can’t even begin to try to assist him without more detailed feedback. Perhaps he doesn’t really want a resolution at this point and only posted here only to vent his frustration.
I applied “No Correction” and its complement (a copy of the preset with all tools active) alternatively 25 times.
I backtracked the changes in “Advanced History” in a way to make DPL display the changes, which was the case in less than a second each. While doing this, system monitor was running.
Changed the settings in preferences from auto to CPU. This fixed the speed issue in Topaz, but it made no difference at all in Photolab7.
If I can run multiple layers, HDR stacking, Panorama stitching, and Ai object selecting in CaptureOne, Topaz, LR, & PS without any problems but Photolab7 can barely run a single mask layer, basic manual brush/erase tool, and scroll without grinding down to a crawl, then it’s an issue with poor programming.
A Google search shows that other users are having similar issues. Sure you can use a fast enough computer to mitigate or overcome the clunky programming, but it shouldn’t be that way for something as basic as photo editing. I’m sure a lot of potential customers with average computers will be driven off by the incredibly slow speeds and move on to other software that runs fast and efficiently “right out of the box”. Most people are not going put down even more money for a new computer just to run a photo editor when there are other options out there. That means less customers and less funding for future improvements to the software.
You are hitting your head against the wall here, Aye, for no good reason.
CaptureOne very specifically focuses on creating low quality previews quickly with the CPU. It was designed this way from the outset. Super impressive on an older computer with a weak GPU.
PhotoLab from about v3 requires a mid-tier GPU to run acceptably, particularly when using any of the advanced noise reduction (Prime, DeepPrime, DeepPrime XD). If you insist on not spending a €100 on a GPU (mid-tier already makes a huge different, with 10x or 20x acceleration, moving up to top tier only doubles or triples that mid-tier performance, not necessary), then turn off Prime.
Topaz performance has always been awful on all hardware, even top-tier hardware. Bringing Topaz performance into the discussion is strange to the least. Before we continue this thread, you should really post your specs and someone more patient than I and on Windows will recommend exactly which card to add. If memory serves me correctly the GTX1060 comes up fairly regularly in these conversations.
You did the right thing to reach out here for help. No need to rant though.
The previous poster doesn’t need to take things personally and get snarky.
Photolab doesn’t run DeepPrime or DPXD until the image is exported. DeepPrime has nothing to do with how slowly the program runs while making adjustments to the image. It doesn’t matter so much how long it takes to export because I can do other things during that time. Photolab runs incredibly slow while working on images, using the brush tool to make a simple mask, and just making basic adjustments. After every brush stroke or adjustment it slowly re-renders the entire image again. That’s poor programming and inefficient.
CaptureOne does not just show a low quality preview while working on images. You can zoom in to make detailed adjustments without it slowing down.
If Topaz is slow and Photolab is several times slower, then what does that say about Photo-lab. Topaz also automatically identifies and auto-selects the subject fairly well during the reasonably short wait time. Actually the auto-selection saves a lot of time and effort. Photolab is nowhere near that particular capability.
I guess I was correct. It appears that you really don’t like, and have no interest in getting PhotoLab to work well on your machine, and your posts are basically a way of venting your frustration with it. It sounds like you’ve already written it off.
Most of us who post here regularly have had a different experience and do not share your opinion. To be sure PhotoLab has issues and quirks, many of which have been long-standing. But at the same time a large number of us find that it is still the best post-processing software available. However it’s not for everyone.
There doesn’t seem to be any good reason to continue this dialogue with you since you clearly have your mind made up. Best of luck with whatever software you choose to use.
“slow” is subjective until you start publishing times or add a screen video that shows how slow things are. You might also try to replicate the test I shared above. That should not be too complicated and you can ask for assistance if you struggle with that test.
PhotoLab properly set up is many times faster than Topaz software. I own both, and have run both on a wide variety of hardware over the course of the last six years.
Sadly, there’s something wrong with your setup. Will you cough up your computer specs finally or just continue to bellow?
2 Likes
Stenis
(Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))
18
Mark and Christopher, I hardly uses PhotoLibrary at all but have from time to time seen pretty slow renderings in PhotoLibrary but not really in “Customize” view and that “filmstrip”. When I tested now opening a library of old digitized color slide pictures it almost frooze. I have seen that before too in several versions so it has been there for long.
Normally I never have these problems since I use PhotoMechanic to handle my “Picture Archive” instead of Photolab. This is how it looked and even after five minutes it looks the same (pretty useless if you ask me). There is a reason I use a third part tool to handle my pictures and as I said in other places before - some of these performance issues are “by design”. You can´t compare anything else concerning RAW-processing tools with Photolab. All the others from what I know are using importprocesses to make the pictures accessible before editing. The only software that doesn´t is to my knowledge Photolab which always works directly on the picture folders of the file system and that is why I like it since that is a key condition when it comes to integration between third party viewers and metadata editors.
The backside is these performance problems but using a thirdpart viewer that lets you open a selected number of pictures in Photolab at the time solves that problem. That way we can get the best of two worlds really.
My current version is 7.5 running on Windows 11. I havent´t seen any reason to upgrade to any later version yet and from what I have read both here and in other treads I guess it was the right decision. Exports of my 33 MP Sony A7 IV files use to take about 6-8 seconds which I think is just fine.
I have no problems with the the “Customize” view and tools and I have no bottle necks exporting large number of pictures either.
I don´t really care about whether this update of Picture Library updates properly in my case because I don´t rely on that module at all for my work. So I will not write any reports to DXO to make them look into this problem. It would be just a waste of time like most other error reports posted to them here. I have a much better and more efficient work around in place since at least four years now that I am fully satisfied with.
So I guess it will boil down to whether you will keep pushing you bloody on the DXO support or look for a work around too that suits you better than what DXO can offer. Why not start to look into XnView as a viewer insted and make the selections you need there instead. XnView is by the way for free and will give you some other excellent metadata tools too. The well known Carl Siebert once called XnView a free PhotoMechanic Light.
Just select a number of picture and then right click and choose the converter you want to open them with. I have never seen any issues like the ones we have in Photolab in XnView despite XnView also is working right on the folders and files.
I can only go by my experiences with every version of PhotoLab since PL1 in late 2017, all running on the same Windows 10 i7-6700 @3.40 ghz desktop with 24GB of ram, purchased in 2016. PhotoLab has always run as fast or faster than any other software I have tried on this machine, and I have tried almost everything available. Many others here also have a similar experience. For those of us on Windows, when performance problems occasionally occur it is best to reboot the computer and then reinstall the same version of PhotoLab over the installed version selecting the Repair option. That often fixes various corruption issues.
Mark
2 Likes
Stenis
(Sten-Åke Sändh (Sony, Win 11, PL 6, CO 16, PM Plus 6, XnView))
20
Oh, you can´t compare Topaz with Photolab. They are two totally different softwares. Comparing different RAW-converters are fine but there it has to stop because Topaz is a totally different set of tools and if you compare with Topaz I think you are aware of the fact that even Topaz is rendering previews on the fly making it facing exactly the same problems as Photolab in “Customize” mode really.
The current version of Topaz Photo AI has three types of tools and using sharpening or denoise is one thing but using scaling of pictures can take a very long time depanding on what you are letting it do. So is no such thing comparing “Topaz” to Photolab. Topaz Photo AI is today a general interface to at least three different tools previously sold separately.
(pretty useless if you ask me). There is a reason I use a third part tool to handle my pictures and as I said in other places before - some of these performance issues are “by design”. You can´t compare anything else concerning RAW-processing tools with Photolab. All the others from what I know are using importprocesses to make the pictures accessible before editing. The only software that doesn´t is to my knowledge Photolab which always works directly on the picture folders of the file system and that is why I like it since that is a key condition when it comes to integration between third party viewers and metadata editors.
