Tag: macOS

Impact of Display Resolution on Lightroom Performance on macOS

TL;DR The display resolution on macOS can also impact Lightroom performance. For best results, leave it to the “Default” resolution (especially on 4K monitors), or change it to Scaled / More Space to use the maximum resolution of the screen. Any scaled resolution between the default and max can impact performance.

[Update 2020-08-25] In my testing, Lightroom Classic 9.4 appears to fix the issues described in this post.

[Update 2020-11-10] The newest release of Lightroom Classic 10.0 seems to be even worse than 9.3, despite its many “performance improvements”. Sigh.

[Update 2021-01-17] Lightroom Classic 10.1 is back to the performance levels like 9.4, but overall I still consider it meh.

I’m an avid user of Adobe Lightroom since version 1.0, and have used it on tens of thousands of photos. I’ve tried other software in the meantime, but always came back to Lightroom.

Starting a few years ago, the newest versions of Lightroom felt slower than previous versions, a complaint that many people on the internets have had. I too have had slowness, especially on my 2013 Mac Pro, and this became especially true once I upgraded to a 4K monitor. After a recent Fstoppers article entitled Dramatically Speed up Lightroom Performance, I decided to dig into the problem.

Unfortunately in my case, I’d already tried all of the tricks in the Fstoppers article, as well as those from the linked Adobe article on how to Optimize performance of Lightroom. No matter what I tried, nothing worked. I’ve found one trick though that I’ve never seen mentioned, so I’m sharing it in hopes that it helps somebody else.

Make sure your display resolution is set at “Default for display” or “Scaled / More Space”. Anything else can cause performance problems.

On retina and 4K screens, macOS doubles the screen resolution chosen behind the scenes, and then scales it down by 50% so that text appears extremely clear. The only exception is Scaled / More Space which uses the native screen resolution.

In my case, I normally run my screen at the non-default resolution of 3008 x 1692, which means Lightroom is rendering to an actual display resolution of 6016 x 3384. If I change back to the Default or Scaled / More Space resolution, the actual resolution drops to 3840 x 2160, which is 64% smaller. That difference enables Lightroom to render the UI elements much faster, probably because my graphics cards can handle that better.

  • software: Lightroom Classic 9.3
  • os: macOS Catalina 10.15.6
  • hardware: Mac Pro (Late 2013)
  • processor: 2.7 GHz 12-Core Intel Xeon E5
  • memory: 128 GB DDR3
  • graphics: AMD FirePro D500 3 GB

Changing the macOS Swoosh Automation

macOS Spaces are a productivity tool that allows users to have multiple virtual desktops that allow for focused work per screen. Anyone who has used Spaces has probably noticed the swoosh animation when changing between spaces. I use Spaces a lot in my daily work, and I find the default swoosh animation quite distracting whenever I change Spaces.

I put together a short video that reduces the distraction of the swoosh automation by enabling “Reduced motion” in the Accessibility settings.

Stop Avid Link from starting at boot

TL;DR Avid Link starts at boot, and there is no setting in the app to prevent launching at boot. I hate software that doesn’t allow me to control whether it starts automatically!

To stop Avid Link from launching on macOS at boot, run the following command from a Terminal. It is a long line, so make sure to copy the whole thing. You will be asked for your password.

sudo defaults write /Library/LaunchAgents/com.avid.avidlink.plist RunAtLoad -boolean false

To again allow Avid Link to start at boot, run the same command again, changing the “false” to “true”.

Background

I’m not a fan of software makers taking action on my computers without my awareness. One of the most annoying things companies do is that they install something that starts at every boot – without asking – because they mistakenly believe that their software always needs to be running, and that I as a user am not smart enough to make that decision on my own. Even worse than not asking is not even giving the permission to stop the software from starting at boot.

As you can see, Avid Link gives me no option to disable the launch at boot, only that it is hidden after launch.

Looking in the standard location for controlling such things (System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items), Avid Link isn’t listed.

As you can see, I’m not against things starting at boot, only things that I cannot control!

adif.plugin = Korg USB MIDI driver

[Update 2019-12-14] According to the macOS Catalina support for KORG/VOX Products article on the Korg website, the default Apple driver with macOS Catalina will support the device. The article gives instructions for removing the old driver.

Background

macOS Mojave is giving warnings about 32-bit software as the next version, which is macOS Catalina, will no longer support 32-bit software.

I’ve been able to determine what software relates to each warning except for one – “adif.plugin”. No amount of Googling helped (I don’t have any amateur radio software installed), but I finally figured it out today. To help others who might be Googling for this, here is the answer.

It belongs to the Korg USB MIDI driver that was installed to provide MIDI support to some piece of Korg hardware. In my case, it was the nanoKONTROL2, but the driver is generic and used for a lot of their hardware.

The last update for macOS (as of this writing) is version 1.2.5 r2 released on 2019-02-21. I don’t know if there are plans for a new version, but hopefully anyone searching for “adif.plugin” will now know that it is used for Korg USB MIDI.

If you want to verify this yourself, you can with these steps.

  1. Open Finder
  2. Go to the /System/Library/Extensions/adif.plugin folder using the Go > Go to Folder menu, or ⇧⌘G keyboard shortcut.
  3. Open the context menu for adif.plugin (right click or Ctrl-click) and select Show Package Contents.
  4. Inside the Contents folder will be an Info.plist file. Hit the space-bar to preview the file. You will see references to Korg USB MIDI listed.

My Audioquest DragonFly Red works on macOS High Sierra again!

I don’t know what Apple is doing with audio timing in macOS High Sierra, but they have serious quality control issues in this area. See my post on Avid S3L-X, AVB, and macOS High Sierra for other troubles I’m having.

When Apple released 10.13.2, my Audioquest DragonFly Red started having strange issues. Similar to the clicking issue with AVB, I was having strange timing issues that sounded like phasing, almost like the individual waveform samples were being triggered at a different clock rate than the audio device. It wasn’t constant, but frequent and annoying enough that I gave up using the device. I wasn’t the only one having the issue.

In any case, 10.13.4 fixed my Dragonfly issues, so I’m again happy.

Avid VENUE S3L-X, AVB, and macOS High Sierra

Long story short, if you need use an Avid S3L-X with macOS and playback via AVB, do not install macOS High Sierra. macOS Mojave works fine, as does the older macOS Sierra, but High Sierra has clocking issues that manifest as constant clicking during playback, rendering the audio unusable.

If all you need to do is record via AVB, macOS High Sierra works without issue.

References

Note, all versions of macOS High Sierra through 10.13.6 are affected.

[Update 2019-03-03] I continue to have no problems with macOS Mojave (currently 10.14.3).
[Update 2018-09-29] Preliminary testing with macOS Mojave (10.14.0) and 64-channel recording and playback indicates that the AVB problems have been fixed.
[Update 2018-07-28] Increased affected versions to 10.13.6.
[Update 2018-06-05] Increased affected versions to 10.13.5.
[Update 2018-03-31] Increased affected versions to 10.13.4.