-- with the existing index, if no images have a studio id, then the index is -- not used when filtering by studio id. The assumption with this change is that -- most images don't have a studio id, so filtering by non-null studio id should -- be faster with this index. This is a tradeoff, as filtering by null studio id -- will be slower. DROP INDEX index_images_on_studio_id; CREATE INDEX `index_images_on_studio_id` on `images` (`studio_id`) WHERE `studio_id` IS NOT NULL;