Luminar 4 for Mac is Slow
Answered
Please improve the speeds for Luminar 4 Mac.
I have severe slowdowns using L4. A number of crashes. Very laggy switching to different photos in my library and / or applying edits. L4 often freezes when I select a photo for a while before I can apply edits. This did not happen on lightroom. I love the AI features and looking forward to a speed fix some better library management functions (e.g. tagging, editing metadata) and richer export photo functions (as in lightroom).
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Dual graphics:
AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2 GB
Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
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Official comment
Hi Everyone,
Please note that the initial release of Luminar 4 mainly focused on the new AI-powered features.
We will be releasing an update meant to target the performance issues later this year. Luminar 4.1 will have better performance.
For now, please try to create a new catalog via File > catalog > New and check how it works for you.
If the issue remains please contact us at http://www.skylum.com/support and we'll be happy to help.
Comment actions -
I couldn't agree more. I've found Luminar to get slower and slower. Granted I edit from a NAS (Synology on 1Gbps wired Ethernet to both the NAS and iMac running Mojave) but L4 is completely unusable. Images open in a tolerable amount of time, but I can slide sliders all day and nothing happens. Maybe if I come back in 15 minutes it will have adjusted. But I feel like we were sold a bill of goods with Luminar promises. This is v4 for Pete's sake.
I want to love it, but I'm back to Lightroom. Same infrastructure and its plenty responsive.
2.8GHz Quad Core i7
25GB 1867 MHz DDR3
Radeon R9 2GB
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Very similar specs for my Macs as well and the performance is awful. Clearly no-one at Skylum has learned anything from Luminar 3. L4 is built off the same shaky foundations as L3 with a new UI to paper over the cracks. There's so much potential with Luminar and it's being hampered by very poor execution.
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Super slow for me. I have an 2017 iMac 5K with 32 MB memory. All the spes up to date. No slowness in any other app. Making an edit (anything!) takes about 5-10 seconds to load it!! I only have couple of raw files (Canon 5DMKIII files) in the library.
Want to love it, but can't because editing takes way too long time. We are in 2019 for crying out loud! Test your app before releasing it!
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Hi Everyone,
The initial Luminar 4 release is devoted to new tools and features. Nevertheless, please note that the next quarter we will be working on the Luminar 4 performance and we will do our best to deliver the best editing experience to our customers and release a performance update by the end of the year.
For now, we recommend using smaller Catalogs. Moreover, you can divide your Library into several smaller Catalogs and work with your photos this way while we're preparing an update.
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Hi Alina,
It doesn't matter what the size of the catalogue is! I have 8 raw images there and it's the same thing as I would have only 1 image. I mean how small catalogues I have to use if you really suggest using smaller catalogues? It won't have any affect, sorry to say.
I have reported my issue already to the support, but I want people to know that this is a major issue. I'm curious to know though, are mostly people having blazing fast performance on the mac version? I mean I have serious lag issues when doing the following adjustments in Luminar 4:
- zooming in or out it takes about 5 seconds to load the image in full resolution
- using the hand tool in 100% and moving the image takes about 5 seconds to load the load the image in full resolution
- editing the mask of ANY effect is so jerky that it's impossible to use it AT ALL! the lag when painting the mask takes at least 0,5-1 seconds to take affect! sometimes over a second
- also the app started crashing occasionally (which is really nice)
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I’m going to cut and paste a post I put in another thread:
This is the same advice someone at Skylum gave me over 9 months ago when I was having issues with Luminar 3. Several smaller catalogs is not a viable solution, even if it's a temporary one.
It is clear Skylum have known about the performance issues for months and have chosen not to do anything. There has been too much focus on new AI filters and not enough on core performance, stability and functionality. It's as if you've dusted off the Luminar 3 playbook, scratched out the 3 and added 4 i.e. release a sub-par, sub-beta grade product then promise performance enhancements in the future that when they arrive, don't have the impact they should. Judging by the responses here in this Community, customers are wising up to this - so I suggest Skylum change their approach quickly. Until I see this, and above all a vast improvement with Luminar, I will not be handing over any more money to Skylum.
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Hi Alina,
Thanks for your response and appreciate you guys are upgrading the tool kit however I'm not sure your team is aware of how significant the speed issues are:
As with Andy H and Member's examples I fully agree. I used L4 with a tiny library (sub 10 photos in total!) when I downloaded and it was still very slow. Is your support / tech team aware of just how slow Luminar 4 is?
It's cripplingly slow for an amateur photographer, like me, with a small number of photos to process. Each photo (18 mega-pixel 22mb .CR2 , in my case) takes 15-30 seconds just to finishing loading and that's before I can actually make, render or see any edits). Making minor adjustments to 30-holiday snaps could take easily in excess of an hour in these circumstances which is not really acceptable under either casual use or pro use. I can imagine it would be impossible to use for a professional with much higher workflow volumes. I think if these issues aren't solved sooner than next quarter you might lose a lot of users with similar issues who, like me, love your ai features but just can't spend the time on the extra loading/time overheads. Is there any way these timescales could be revised by your team? I'd love to continue using the product. Happy to speak to a product manager, if you have one, if that would help.
Thank you.
Dileepa
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@Member, we've processed your support request. If you'd rather get a refund right now, please, confirm it by replying to the email we've sent you.
@Dileepa, we'll do our best to provide a smoother experience.
Could you please provide us with 2 RAW files that are opened with different speed via https://skylum.com/support?
- Visit https://wetransfer.com/
- If it's your first time visiting this website, it may ask you to purchase a subscription. Simply select to proceed with the free version.
- Click Add your files.
- Select the file(s) on your computer.
- After you see all the files you need to send appear in the list, click the icon to the left of the Transfer button (the icon looks like a circle with three dots in it).
- In Send As select Link.
- Click Transfer.
- After the files have finished uploading, click Copy Link and paste it into your support request.
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..."Nevertheless, please note that the next quarter we will be working on the Luminar 4 performance and we will do our best to deliver the best editing experience to our customers and release a performance update by the end of the year."
Well, I'll certainly be on the lookout for that "END OF THE YEAR" update to performance. Nothing like starting off a product launch with abominable performance.
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I think the refund comment was for me. ;)
I will be waiting for the update. What if the performance issue isn't resolved by the end of the year when your update is out? Will I be able to get a refund after that? I would like to use your software but if your next update won't work and improve the performance, then I have paid about 70€ for nothing. I'm not a hobbiest. I'm a pro and time is money. I don't wanna waste my time on garbage and I don't want to pay for it either.
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We'll just have to see. I hope I will get an answer. However staff in any company is usually reluctant to reply on issues regarding refunds. "They" just want your money. ;) However I have high hopes on Skylum. I'm a new customer so... we'll see.
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