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OpenGL Support for Lightroom Classic CC on Mac

OpenGL

Okay, so I’ve been ‘banging on’ about the problem that quite a few people have been suffering from with the new Lightroom Classic CC and GPU acceleration since Adobe launched the new application.

I must stress that this problem does NOT seem to effect anyone using MBP or iMac, or indeed any Mac Pro that runs a factory-fitted GPU. But if you can remember, I fitted my Mac Pro with an nVidia GTX 970 4Gb GPU a while back – mainly to help Photoshop CC with the heavy lifting in ‘Refine Edge’ and other masking/channel masking procedures.

But I’m now pleased to report that the problem is FIXED – and, as I suspected, the fix is simple, and the ‘fix’ is a tiny 28 byte file. Yes, that’s right, 28 BYTES!

It’s an API Thing

Now I’m totally rubbish with computer jargon, but API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface, and with regard to GPU/Graphics Cards there a 4 main APIs:

OpenGL
Direct Ex – in other words Microsoft
Metal – in other words Apple
Vulcan – don’t ask/no idea

For some reason, on certain Mac systems, Lightroom Classic CC is not finding OpenGL, and is instead being forced into trying to use the OSX API ‘metal’.

The forums have been rife with Lightroom Classic CC problems for the last few days – this one included. On one of these forums, Adobes Simon Chen, had been attempting to field questions over this problem.

I asked Simon if there was any way to ‘force’ Lightroom Classic CC to ignore the OSX API and default to OpenGL – which was obviously there on the system, because the previous iteration of Lightroom had been using it quite happily.

Simon suggested the installation of this tiny 28 byte ‘config.lua’ file into Lightrooms’ Application Support root folder – and would you believe it, it works!

You can download the config.lua file from here.

Below is a short video I’ve made this morning on how to download and install this tiny file which will re-instate Lightroom Classic CCs ability to use the OpenGL API.

So now I’m a happy bunny; and if you have the problem then just follow the video instructions and you’ll be a happy bunny too!

Big thanks to Simon Chen, Principle Scientist at Adobe for helping sort this irritating niggle out.

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Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop CC 2018 tips – part 1

So, you’ve either upgraded to Lightroom Classic CC and Photoshop CC 2018, or you are thinking doing so.

Well, here are a couple of things I’ve found – I’ve called this part1, because I’m sure there will be other problems/irritations!

Lightroom Classic CC GPU Acceleration problem

If you are having problems with shadow areas appearing too dark and somewhat ‘chocked’ in the develop module – but things look fine in the Library module – then just follow the simple steps in the video above and TURN OFF GPU Acceleration in the Lightroom preferences panel under the performance tab.

Adobe Lightroom Classic and Photoshop CC 2018 tips

Turn OFF GPU Acceleration

UPDATE: I have subsequently done another video on this topic that illustrates the fact that the problem did not exist in Lr CC 2015 v.12/Camera Raw v.9.12

In the new Photoshop CC 2018 there is an irritation/annoyance with the brush tool, and something called the ‘brush leash’.

Now why on earth you need your brush on a leash God ONLY KNOWS!

But the brush leash manifests itself as a purple/magenta line that follows your brush tool everywhere.

You have a smoothness slider for your brush – it’s default setting is 10%. If we increase that value then the leash line gets even longer, and even more bloody irritating.

And why we would need an indicator (which is what the leash is) of smoothness amount and direction for our brush strokes is a bit beyond me – because we can see it anyway.

So, if you want to change the leash length, use the smoothing slider.

If you want to change the leash colour just go to Photoshop>Preferences>Cursors

Here, you can change the colour, or better still, get rid of it completely by unticking the “show brush leash while smoothing” option.

So there are a couple of tips from my first 24 hours with the latest 2018 ransom ware versions from Adobe!

But I’m sure there will be more, so stay tuned, and consider heading over to my YouTube channel and hitting the subscribe button, and hit the ‘notifications bell’ while you’re at it!

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