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Real world Lightroom performance on base 8GB M1 MacBook Air

M

MrLee

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 18, 2005
29
5
Ideally I'd get the 16GB M1 Air for peace of mind, but I have points at a store which would more or less cover the cost of the base 8GB Air. Also they only sell base models, so no chance of putting money to and getting the 16GB.

I've seen numerous videos showing Lightroom working ok, but no proper feedback as to how the performance is in the real world. Basically I'll be editing lots of RAW photos, although only 24 MP files.

Other than that it'll just be the usual browsing, email, music, Pages etc. Nothing too taxing running in combination with Lightroom.

Any real world experience would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
It may be worth waiting to see what the lie of the land is in 2021.

I don't use Lightroom and have moved from Adobe to Affinity, but my wife is in a similar boat to you, as she uses Lightroom extensively. I've suggested she waits - plus she wants a new iMac and it could be some months before that happens.

Adobe is touted to have all the major creative cloud apps on Apple silicon in early 2021.
For now, they will use Rosetta2 emulation - so you are not going to get native speed, obviously.

I think you need to evaluate what apps you really need on a day to day basis before taking the plunge and whether you are:

a. Willing to put up with Rosetta2 emulation for another few months if you get an Apple silicon mac
b. happy with the base model offerings
c. Want to make the plunge now and resell in 12 months - a lot of people have opted for that route, given Macs generally have good resale value.

I had a specific budget and specific needs - all the apps I use for creative content are on Apple Silicon - so I was never going to go beyond the Mac mini base model - I've gone from a Mac Pro 5.1 2010 cheese grating beast that consumes a TON of power, to this tiny little box that wipes the floor with it, so for me, it was a no-brainer.
(Plus I've got my work issued 2018 high spec MacBook Pro for my development needs).
 
bb_mac said:
It may be worth waiting to see what the lie of the land is in 2021.

I don't use Lightroom and have moved from Adobe to Affinity, but my wife is in a similar boat to you, as she uses Lightroom extensively. I've suggested she waits - plus she wants a new iMac and it could be some months before that happens.

Adobe is touted to have all the major creative cloud apps on Apple silicon in early 2021.
For now, they will use Rosetta2 emulation - so you are not going to get native speed, obviously.

I think you need to evaluate what apps you really need on a day to day basis before taking the plunge and whether you are:

a. Willing to put up with Rosetta2 emulation for another few months if you get an Apple silicon mac
b. happy with the base model offerings
c. Want to make the plunge now and resell in 12 months - a lot of people have opted for that route, given Macs generally have good resale value.

I had a specific budget and specific needs - all the apps I use for creative content are on Apple Silicon - so I was never going to go beyond the Mac mini base model - I've gone from a Mac Pro 5.1 2010 cheese grating beast that consumes a TON of power, to this tiny little box that wipes the floor with it, so for me, it was a no-brainer.
(Plus I've got my work issued 2018 high spec MacBook Pro for my development needs).
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot. Very good points and more for me to think about and consider.

I have a plenty powerful enough iMac that's got a few good years left in it, so the Air would be just an extra. But still, I want it to be an extra I'm completely happy with.
 
Lightroom Classic runs fine, but it spikes the CPU whenever you switch between photos. Also, even with small raw files, when you zoom in and pan around the image, the image freezes every time you move it.

“Normal” Lightroom (non-classic) runs a lot smoother. As does iPad Lightroom, if you install it with the ipa file.
 
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For batch processing many many images after making selects and applying looks it makes sense to talk about the power of machines.

For editing performance one image at a time any modern computer can handle Lightroom or Capture One. It’s not hard work and those kind of image processing apps often use a low res file to interact with and then apply your settings to the exported high res images.
 
ArPe said:
For batch processing many many images after making selects and applying looks it makes sense to talk about the power of machines.

For editing performance one image at a time any modern computer can handle Lightroom or Capture One. It’s not hard work and those kind of image processing apps often use a low res file to interact with and then apply your settings to the exported high res images.
Click to expand...
I am surprised how much memory it grabs immediately though. I use Lightroom quite a bit (not professionally), and I’m thinking of switching my 8GB M1 mini for a 16.
 
MrLee said:
Ideally I'd get the 16GB M1 Air for peace of mind, but I have points at a store which would more or less cover the cost of the base 8GB Air. Also they only sell base models, so no chance of putting money to and getting the 16GB.

I've seen numerous videos showing Lightroom working ok, but no proper feedback as to how the performance is in the real world. Basically I'll be editing lots of RAW photos, although only 24 MP files.

Other than that it'll just be the usual browsing, email, music, Pages etc. Nothing too taxing running in combination with Lightroom.

Any real world experience would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Have you considered an iPad Pro? Processing photos in Lightroom using an iPad and Pencil is an amazing experience. I much prefer it to a computer. It also does all of the other things you listed quite well.
 
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I have a library of over 120K RAW 50 or 20megapixel images from eos1 or 5dsr and it runs great even though its emulated.
 
seadragon said:
Have you considered an iPad Pro? Processing photos in Lightroom using an iPad and Pencil is an amazing experience. I much prefer it to a computer. It also does all of the other things you listed quite well.
Click to expand...
To be honest, no, I haven't. Not even used an Apple Pencil, so will have to give it a try.
 
Lightroom Classic is a memory hog. It runs fine though on 8GB/MBA, but is definitely one of those apps that would greatly benefit from having 16GB. If this is not going to be your main machine I think 8GB should work fine.
 

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Mistercharlie said:
It’s hard to tell, because the app (LR Classic) is very sluggish in general. I hope a native update will fix that.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's a good call. It's not exactly like lightning on my iMac. Never has been. But yeah, a native update could really make a difference, but whether Adobe will manage that remains to be seen...
 
MrLee said:
Yeah, that's a good call. It's not exactly like lightning on my iMac. Never has been. But yeah, a native update could really make a difference, but whether Adobe will manage that remains to be seen...
Click to expand...
The reference video I posted above shows it is faster on a MacBook Pro under Rosetta 2 than a 2020 iMac for exporting photos, but RAM hog it definitely was.
 
MrLee said:
Yeah, that's a good call. It's not exactly like lightning on my iMac. Never has been. But yeah, a native update could really make a difference, but whether Adobe will manage that remains to be seen...
Click to expand...
I have been playing around with my 8gb/512 MacBook Pro M1.....Lightroom classic is fine as is Photoshop. I don't do heavy work so I thought the 8gb would be fine. Coincidentally, I am having issues with Safari overdoing the memory and refreshing pages when watching web videos
 
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