This post was last modified: 2023-06-29, 13:49 by thomasp.

Hi there,

I am using a Mac Studio M2 Max 12/30 64GB RAM, OS 13.4.1, LR 12.4, LRT 6.5.1.

Exporting a sequence of around 700 images 45 Megapixels RAW without the LRT plugin to TIFF 16 Bit (sRGB, no resize, no sharpen, no compression, from the internal SSD to the internal SSD with > 1 TB space left) takes about 7 minutes.

Performing the same export through the LRTimelapse plugin takes much, much longer by some factor 4 or 5.

In both cases I can see in the activity monitor that LR uses 1150% CPU (as expected). The only difference is GPU usage, which is 20% or so from the LRTimelapse plugin vs. 100% from a direct Lightroom export.

I would be glad if you could please comment if there is something screwed up on my system, or maybe the behaviour is consistent with your setup, or possibly it's an expected behaviour due to the nature of the plugin.

Thank you!

Thomas Pöschmann

Im surprised to hear this. I'm currently traveling, but when I'm back I will do some tests and come back to you!

Thank you, it's not urgent.

Dear Gunther, did you find the time to look at this?

I'm on it, investigating...

This post was last modified: 2023-07-18, 12:18 by Gunther.

Hi Thomas, thank you for your patience.
I've done some tests on my Mac M1 Max, this should be a very similar setup. however the differences that I measured are way smaller than what you are reporting.

It tested 350 Raw files from the Nikon Z 9.

Please note that LRTExport always exports ZIP compressed TIFFs to save space, that takes a bit longer than the uncompressed ones your were comparing. All exports were done in Original Size. Also LRTExport exports in Rec.2020 by default, not sRGB.

Please note that the degree of processing of the images and the tools that were used might have a huge impact on exporting time.

So those are my measured numbers (you can find the time that an export needed in the LRTExport.log in your Documents/LRTimelapse folder).

Code:

LR Native Export TIFF/ZIP, 16 bit, Rec.2020: 22 min
LRTExport TIFF, 16 bit, Rec.2020: 28 min
LRTExport TIFF, 8 bit, Rec.2020: 28 min
LRTExport JPG, 8 bit, Rec.2020: 25 min

So yes, the LRTExport takes 27% longer than the native export for such huge 16 bit TIFF files.

The reason for that is, that LRTExport exports to a temporary file first and then copies the exported file to the final destination. Also it has a lot more logic implemented to support the advanced features that LRTExport offers, like batch export of multiple folders etc. Unfortunately all this comes at a cost of slightly longer export times.

I hope I could help to clarify the reasons.

This post was last modified: 2023-08-12, 16:52 by thomasp.

Thank you very much, Gunther, for taking the time to investigate this. I made another test with 100 images only, and I believe the problem is related to TIFF ZIPing. I can actually live with the situation that exporting takes somewhat more time than it actually could, since compared to the time that the entire workflow takes, it's just a small fraction.

(I am just complaining a little bit here, since the SSDs in the M2 are so super-fast, and even the external drives that I use could easily take the load. But, just ignore me, I will crawl back under my stone )

Thank you a again!

I can add an option for uncompressed Tiffs to LRTExport, you think that would help even if the files are much larger?

Well, a 25+% improve would be just like upgrading your computer. Do you need to adapt the export dialog only, or is there some work to be done in LRTimelapse as well?

Personally, I would welcome the fix, since the above described Mac is really fast when writing to the internal SSD.

I'll see what I can do...