I'm currently in the process of editing large sets of close to 300 photos each. My workflow needs me to go through each single shot, calibrate them, and eventually make a selection of around 100 good photos per set. I often navigate between the Library and Develop modules, and I use pretty much all tools (as necessary) when calibrating/editing the shots. My files are D800 raw files. Note also that my library contains 13 years of photography work, with around 250,000 photos (of various sources evidently).
I just wanted to take a few minutes off my editing process to comment on the huge improvement on speed I am experiencing in LR5 over LR4.
In LR4, my workflow with my D800 files was very painful, with all the slugginess I would get everytime I moved from the Develop module to the Library Module, and everytime I used tools in the develop module. There was lag virtually everywhere. I'm on a very up to date system, with SSD drives both for the phtoos I work on, and my system disc.
Since LR5, I can honestly say it feels pleasant once again to edit my photos. As where I feared opening LR4 to do my job, I now look forward again to visit my shots.
I read on the forum about the sharpness issue in lower res exports, and I'm sure there are a few more things to fix here and there. But the HUGE improvement in responsiveness and speed in the application makes LR5 a real winner to me. Speed is definitly a main issue that should always be addressed first with each update, always trying to improve on it and make the workflow as pleasant as possible so that we, as photographers, have to focus only on one thing: creativity.
I'm glad this issue was addressed with LR5, and my only wish would have been to see it addressed sooner in LR4.
Back to editing I go...
cheers!