I've been shooting with my Canon R6 and editing the RAW files in Lightroom Classic on my M3 Mac. Ever since I upgraded to the latest version, it freezes for like 10-15 seconds whenever I try to adjust the shadows or apply any profiles. Is this a known issue or am I doing something wrong with my catalog settings?
Have you checked whether your Lightroom catalog itself might be bloated or if you're working off an external drive? The freezing you're describing - especially when adjusting shadows or applying profiles - often points to Lightroom having trouble keeping up with processing, which can happen if your catalog is stored on a slower drive or if it's gotten fragmented over time. Try moving your catalog to your internal SSD if it isn't already there, and consider optimizing it by going to File > Optimize Catalog. Also, make sure you're not running tons of other apps in the background; even with an M3, heavy simultaneous tasks can cause these kinds of delays. If the problem started right after updating, you might try clearing Lightroom's cache (Preferences > File Handling > Optimize Catalog and then restart), which sometimes resolves performance hiccups after version bumps.
The catalog bloat angle is worth checking, but what usually nails this specific freezing pattern with RAW adjustments on M-series Macs is actually a memory or GPU cache issue rather than file location. Try resetting Lightroom's cache by holding Option while launching it, or clear the cache manually in Preferences - go to File > Optimize Catalog while you're at it. If that doesn't help, the latest versions sometimes have compatibility quirks with certain M3 configurations, so rolling back one or two updates might be worth testing before you assume it's your setup.
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