Please improve the performance (speed)

I think Frederic proposed this window resizing just for testing purposes. Clearly this cannot be a serious proposal to work around the lagging of PL.

Yes, it was to show the impact of windows size, not a workaround.

So yesterday I crashed my Mac mini ā€” twice ā€” trying to use a very poorly performing PhotoLab 3 to remove dust flecks from a large TIFF file. I accept that a 400+ MB 48 bit TIFF is kind of extreme, but after recovering my system twice, I did the basic adjustments in PhotoLab 3, then exported ā€” still as a 48 bit TIFF ā€” and used Affinity Photoā€™s Inpainting Brush. In Affinity Photo I could zoom and pan and inpaint and it was never more than a couple of seconds behind. Even then, it was the rendering of the inpainting that was lagging. The entire time I could scroll and zoom the image with fluidity.

PL3 got so far behind with rendering (before it crashed the computer) that I could not see what I had actually done.

Iā€™ve now set up a PL3 Export definition and a Hazel rule to allow me to flick a 48 bit TIFF out to Affinity Photo for further editing automatically. Thatā€™s what I will use going forward for such work.

Looked at how PhotoLab behaved on my 2019 iMac (27in, 8core, 40GB Ram) with a Sony A7RIV file I downloaded from DPREVIEW. What I found is the following:

  • Repairing the raw file: Initially, source areas were selected and displayed within less than a second, after several tens of corrections, it took up to 3-4 seconds. Cursor movement was good all the time.
  • Repairing a 16bit Tiff: Source areas were selected and displayed in less than a second during the whole test. Operation even felt snappier than with initial repairs in the first test. Cursor movement turned choppy and laggy after a while though.

I never edit in PL3 anything else than RAW Files. What could be done with the RAW file should be done.
Iā€™m not an expert but a Whitewall employee, who had learned her job in the traditional way, told me once, if possible all image editing with the RAW file. I remembered that and it works.
Thatā€™s why I still have Nik Collection 1. If at all, I only use HDR Efex Pro 2, although Iā€™m annoyed every time that I have to create huge Tiff files.
Ok Off topic, but thatā€™s why I only use EasyHDR3 for HDR. This can also be done with RAW files.

A bit late to this party, but I can only confirm that especially the repair tool CAN take way too much time. Not always, but especially when thereā€™ s a lot of repair to be done on a certain image. DXO really should speed up things here. Itā€™ s by far the best raw editor I ever used, and I would like to stay with DXO. Resolution of my iMac screen could be an issueā€¦but it shouldnā€™t !
Iā€™ m on a 2019 27" 5k iMac (i9/64GB memory and Pro Vega 8 GB videocardā€¦not really the poorest of the poor). So, in the meantimeā€¦any tips/advice/update here?
I notice erratic behaviour and very long waiting times when working longer on a one file (repair tool). Notice it on both 42Mp and 60Mp files.

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One tip: when adding multiple repair, itā€™s quicker when you donā€™t display repair spots.

Thank you Patrick. Thatā€™ s what I normally do (I donā€™ t display repair spots).

I can add to this, I switched to Mac from windows with both using PL3ā€™s latest versionsā€¦ This is a Mac version problem (slow responding repair tool), my windows laptop of a much lower spec does not have this problem at all. Iā€™ve raised a ticket with DXO and tried a bunch of things, no change. I got to the point of frustration and jumped back on LR. If I had have trialed PL3 on the Mac as opposed to windows computer I would not have purchased.

Also, this is with D500 files so not massive high res.

I hope it is fixed in an update, itā€™s a great tool for me otherwise.

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Guys, today I tested another, commercial and very popular RAW converter that has been released in a special Nikon edition today. I run it on the exact same hardware, with an image of my Z7 I edited some days ago in PL3. I applied lots of repairs and I must say this other RAW converter is way faster while editing, WAY faster! It is possible to zoom, to pan, to apply other changes smoothly.

So, the very bad lagginess of PL3, especially of its repair tool, is not a matter of inappropriate hardware nor can it be explained by some obscure statements. It is currently simply its biggest weakness and a matter of software, hence it should be fixed asap and with highest priority. Otherwise some users of PL3 will be tempted to switch I suppose.

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Iā€™ve changed from LR 5.7 which is known as not very fast & performant to PL3. I really like PL3 with all itā€™s simplicity and achieving quickly excellent results. Where I struggle is the speed/performance - I just bought a new PC with Ryzen 7 CPU, RTX 2060, SSD and 32 GB Ram - itā€™s better than on my old i5 but far from fast/performant. This low performance is a killer for all the good stuff and I consider to change to another commercial offer like the one recently launched for Nikon. Performance improvemnt should be the top priority for the PL3 backlog.

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The trouble with that is when PL makes a poor choice on the source area, you have to turn on points to correct the faulty one. This is not an uncommon task.

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Itā€™s interesting the Mac version seems to be poorer on performance than the Windows version. I have my theories on why that might be but it will serve no purpose to air them here. It does tempt me to install Windows in Bootcamp and see how that performs.

@platypusā€™s example makes it clear itā€™s not a matter of lack of horsepower on the computer. And as I previously stated, Affinity Photo can handle the very same file at ā€œthe speed of thoughtā€ which means I can touch out flecks as fast as my brain can register them and get my hand to move the pointer.

So I got my latest response back overnight from the help ticket I raised on this issue, DXO are still suggesting they donā€™t see the issueā€¦

Can I please ask that people raise a help ticket with DXO to highlight this issue directly.

Performance should be their TOPPEST of the toppiest priorities or let me say, the only one, for the moment and until this issue is solved.

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The behaviour of PL3 (on Mac OS X?) in terms of responsiveness, especially while repairing, is simply not usable and thus not acceptable for a commercial product that is intended to be used by people who earn money with it. Iā€™m really frustrated, I spend more time to wait for this sluggish software than I could edit my photos. Itā€™s really a pity, but when Phase One will deliver all the optical corrections for the Z Line by Nikon, I will switch over to Capture One. Sorry folks, but last night it was horrible to sit and wait for PL3 to re-render an image.

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Have you put in a help ticket with them Georg?

They got me to send an image I edited with the DOP file and a screen shot video of what it is doing at the end of last weekā€¦ weā€™ll see what comes

Hi Dean, i assume you ask me? No, I did not put in a help ticket. I want to work on my pictures not on the software. Iā€™m not the developer of PL. Itā€™s their job, not mine. The fact that they seem to have no idea what causes the problems is not a good sign in my eyes.

I quickly moved to a very fresh alternative by Phase One for Nikon users like me, because Capture One uses the data baked by Nikon into the RAW files to correct lens failures (distortion and brightness falloff). So no need for external profiles anymore. As you get a new lens, it is automatically supported. For extra correction of the sharpness falloff towards the edges, you will need external profiles, but Iā€™m happy with it like it is now. Maybe this procedure is not as sophisticated as the high quality, hand-tailored DxO profiles, but my workflow is BY FAR faster now. Today I retouched an image with about hundred of repairs. These were small insects flying above blooming rape against the bright sky. No problem at all. Problem solved. :slight_smile:

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I was send a link for a updated version to see if it fixed the issues I was seeing with the repair tool.

happy to say for the most part it is fixed, there is one other thing I would like to see the same as the windows version but you can load up the repair tool and it no longer hangs, you can also grab the clone area and move pretty much straight away.

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So I finally got around to installing Windows 10 on my Mac (via Bootcamp) and trying out the repair tool. I was able to go crazy with repairs with the masks shown and did not notice any significant lag. It wasnā€™t 100% responsive, but it was plenty good enough, in stark contrast to the Mac version.

Thatā€™s not a direction Iā€™m going to stick with (and Iā€™m not a fan of the PL UI in Windows) but further corroboration that the repair tool performance problems are specific to the Mac.

Iā€™m not sure how the PL processing pipeline works, but I know Affinity get a lot of speed from using the Metal APIs (and a lot of hard work).

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