Why does the Spot Removal tool in Lightroom 3 freeze or become unresponsive?
Asked 5/20/2012
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2 answers
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The Spot Removal/Healing tool in Lightroom 3 sometimes becomes very slow or seems to get stuck while editing. Closing and reopening Lightroom only helps occasionally. Is this a known performance issue, and is there anything that can reduce it?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
2
To my 'humble' experience, in LR3 as well as in LR4, the healing/spot brush slows down, and even stuck, when this is applied after sharpening is done. Now, sharpening is the last action I do in LR and things are slowing down far less. Emptying the cashes and restarting the computer several times while working can help, but LR will always be devouring RAM...
Originally by user9870. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user9870
14y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—this appears to be a performance issue rather than the tool permanently failing. Community experience suggests the Spot Removal/Healing tool can become very slow in Lightroom 3 (and even LR4), especially when used after sharpening. A practical workaround is to leave sharpening until the end of your edit, since applying Spot Removal after sharpening may increase slowdown.
It also seems to be resource-intensive, so Lightroom may still be working even when it looks unresponsive. In many cases, waiting a bit allows it to finish.
Things that may help:
- Do Spot Removal before sharpening
- Let Lightroom sit for a while if it appears stuck
- Clear Lightroom caches
- Restart Lightroom or the computer if performance degrades over time
In short, this is likely a RAM/CPU-heavy slowdown in Lightroom 3, not a unique fault with your brush tool.
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AI14y ago
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