Today i'll cover everything you need to know about
previews in lightroom and knowing this can really help speed up your workflow
whenever you import raw files into lightroom the computer needs a way to see the image saved
in that raw data easily and the quickest way to do this is through previews in lightroom's
import window there is a drop down menu on the right hand side called file handling in this
there are a few different options including previews now there are a few to choose from
and if you choose the wrong preview your computer can really slow down so it's important to know
which one to select so you don't end up throwing your computer pretty much out of the window
due to frustration from it being so slow first off the reason lightroom has to make these previews is
because it's a non-destructive editor this means it leaves the original file alone and keeps a
record of what changes you've made to the image if any now this is great as you'll always have
that original file with no changes made to go back to if you mess things up in the edit however there
are five different previews to choose from so picking one is really important also you might not
know this but different previews work better in different modules some work better in the library
module whereas others work better in the develop module but i'll talk about that including what i
do a little bit later on in this video for each of the different preview types i've tested them
out loading 10 images from my mechanical usbc hard drive with the catalog saved on that drive
as well and then also from my internal ssd drive on my 2017 2.9 gigahertz quad-core i7 macbook pro
with the catalog saved on that ssd drive all of the images have already been transferred to the
hard drive that i'm using in each scenario and i'm only adding them to the catalog not using
the input page to copy them to that hard drive now if i've gone over your head with this already
check out my lightroom workflow linked in the corner or in the description i did make it a while
back so i might seem a little bit sleepy in it but in that i go through my backup process my import
process and editing my images in it as well so let's have a closer look at the different previews
minimal previews are exactly as they described lightroom will build a minimal preview from the
raw file and then give you that to see the image in the library module on my external mechanical
hard drive it took 10 seconds to build 10 of these minimal previews so this was an average
of 1 second per image with the internal ssd it took three seconds for the set of 10 to load
so straight away you can see the difference in speeds of the different hard drives when using
the catalog from either of the drives it was a bit glitchy when zooming in in the library module
and also when flicking through that film strip along the bottom this was a little slow on both
the hard drive and the ssd i like to flick through the images really quickly and star rate the ones
that i like so when i go through thousands of images from a day's shoot this can get a
little bit frustrating with these previews when i open them up in the develop module it did take
a short while to load them up but then the zoom feature was a lot smoother in this editing module
embedded and sidecar previews are the ones that have been built into the raw file by
the camera with the external mechanical hard drive it took five seconds to load ten images
and with the ssd it took four seconds so compared to those minimal previews i've just talked about
this is a lot quicker with a mechanical hard drive but not quite as quick as with the internal ssd
they are by far the quickest way to load your images into lightroom and then you'll be able
to flick through them with ease as lightroom won't have to do too much work to show them as
they are very small previews now the downside to this type of preview is that you can't zoom
in on them in the library module so if you're a pixel peeper or you need to check what exactly
your camera focused on you will have to switch across to the develop module to zoom in to 100
now going back to the library module you'll see that it puts a little logo in the corner of the
main preview image and also in the corner of each of these images in the film strip along the bottom
if you click on the logo in the image on the film strip it will ask you if you want to build
a standard size preview for all of the embedded photos or one by one so this is another way to
change the previews if you need to now i really like this type of preview when i'm on a deadline
or if i've taken a load of photos say from a sporting event and i want to cut through the
rough ones really quickly i'll star rate the ones i like and discard the ones i don't like so for my
photos that weren't that good lightroom will never even have to build a preview for them in the first
place and this saves so much time when you open them up into the develop module it will take a
short while for each image and this is because lightroom will have to build a better preview
but then you can zoom in on the image to 100 if you make any edits to your image lightroom will
then discard the embedded and sidecar preview and use its own that it built when you did import them
into the develop module but if you don't make any edits when you switch back to the library module
it will revert back to the embedded and sidecar preview so in that first stage of cataloging
and star rating your images as long as you don't make any edits in the develop module
it'll keep those embedded in sidecar previews and this will make the process so much quicker
the standard preview is what lightroom is set to when you first open the program it builds the
previews at a similar rate with a mechanical hard drive as with minimal previews but with the ssd
it's a lot slower than minimal previews so this shows that building the previews takes a lot
longer in standard than in minimal if you go into the catalog settings under the tab file handling
you'll have everything you need to build the standard previews to the level that you want to
if you set the standard preview size to auto this will adjust it to the resolution of your monitor
now if i'm using my mac this is set to 3440 pixels whereas with my old pc this was at 1080 pixels as
i had that 1080p monitor so auto is great if you either switch between monitors or you just want to
leave it to your computer to decide now whilst we're on this page you can see there's also a
preview quality and then automatically discard the one by one image after x amount of days this
is set to 30 as standard but you can change it to whatever you want one by one previews do take up a
lot of space so once you've edited your photos you probably won't go back to them that often
especially after a month or so so lightroom deletes the previews to save space if you
do open them up again after the time limit that you've set on this page lightroom will once again
build a preview so it will be a little bit slower but don't worry it won't delete any of the edits
that you've made it will delete just the previews after the time you have specified here so this is
just a way of managing the size of your catalog and kind of making sure it doesn't get too huge as
you load up more and more images into that catalog now one-to-ones are the best quality previews
but do take the longest for lightroom to build with a mechanical hard drive it took 31 seconds
for lightroom to build these 10 images and with the internal ssd drive it took 26 seconds so if
you've been on a long shoot and have thousands of images this type of preview will take the longest
and this will be the time to go and get a cup of tea like i've already mentioned in the catalog
setting page these will be deleted after a certain amount of time to save on your hard drive space
also when the computer is building these previews it does get the fans going so it is a processor
intensive build now with my machine i didn't notice much difference in the quality between one
to one and standard previews once they're loaded but this is because the standard preview size
in the catalog settings is set to auto like i've already said it will basically make the standard
preview to the quality that the monitor is that you're using and my monitor is 2.5 k now this
should still mean that the zoom works better with the one to one previews but it really didn't with
my computer and there wasn't any difference with speed either when i was zooming to 100 and back
in that library module now if you have seen a difference with these two previews
with the system that you're using let me know in the comments below it'll be interesting to see if
you've found anything different as for general performance flicking through the images to star
rate them was slow with these one-to-one previews and this is to be expected as those previews are
really big once i switched to the develop module which took a short while to load up again zooming
was a lot smoother and this has been the case for all previews so far with no noticeable changes in
this speed smart previews are heavily compressed and they have a surprising amount of quality in
them for the level of compression lightroom cc uses these to synchronize with lightroom mobile
and lightroom web and you can turn this on or off in the import window with standard selected and
smart previews checked with the mechanical hard drive it took 18 seconds to load these 10 images
with the internal ssd it took 15 seconds so it was faster but not that much faster now nothing
really looks that different in the library module you can zoom in to 100 flicking through them is
similar to the one to one and standard previews and the only difference i noticed on first glance
was the time it took to switch to the develop module this was almost instant with my system with
the smart previews and then when in the develop module zooming was a lot smoother the one great
thing with smart previews is that you can edit your photos even if your original files are on
a disconnected hard drive so if you're traveling and your hard drive is in the overhead compartment
or if you've left it at home you can still edit your images whereas with the other previews you
can't even if you've created one-to-one previews unless you have the smart preview checked there is
no way to edit your disconnected images with all of the other previews it actually grays out all of
the editing tools as long as you have built smart previews you can edit your images and you can also
export your images as well however they will be smaller than the originals with the original of
six thousand by four thousand disconnected i was able to export a four megabyte 2560
by 1707 sized image so that gives an indication as to what the resolution is with smart previews and
a 2017 macbook pro i'm guessing the resolution would change depending on the size of your
monitor but if you know differently again let me know in the comments below now to edit your
photos like this you do need to check a box in the preferences under preferences performance
then you check the use smart previews instead of originals for image editing box then lightroom
will use these smart previews when you do start editing however if you are a pixel peeper and
zoom in to 100 a lot lightroom will build cached previews at a higher resolution now when editing
i couldn't tell the difference between the smart preview and a one by one preview either
so there is definitely some adobe wizardry going on here now thinking about it if you do own the
a7r series set of cameras with that much higher megapixel or if you've got a camera that does have
a ridiculously high megapixel count i think that's when you will notice a difference between the
smart previews the one by ones the standard and the minimal but for something like the a7 3 that
has around about 24 megapixels i think you really won't see that much of a difference apparently if
you have a 4k display or higher you will start to see a difference but mine is a 2.5 k monitor
and i really couldn't tell the difference between these and the one by one previews so if you're
using a high resolution monitor it might be worth giving your computer time to build the one-to-one
previews but it'll be worth testing to see if you can get away with the smart previews instead
as it will save you a lot of space on your hard drive and that's the great thing with all of these
different options once you understand them you can really tune it to get it to work the best for you
and your system now to select the previews there are two different ways to do this when you first
import your images you can select which ones you want on the right hand side in the file management
menu this is the only place you can select minimum or embedded and sidecar previews but just be aware
if you do select one of these lightroom will start to build bigger previews as soon as it can
this is basically when you switch to the develop module and make any edits the second place to
access previews is in the library module in the library drop down menu go to previews and here
you can change the ones you have you can delete or build one-to-one or smart previews and build
standard previews but there's no embedded and sidecar or minimum previews here so if you do want
either of these smaller ones like i said earlier you do need to select them in the import window
when you do switch from the library to the develop module you'll sometimes notice a slight delay and
this will happen with all four of the main preview types this is because lightroom is building a
cached high quality preview that you can edit zoom in on and basically make all the changes
you need to so if you are low on hard drive space this is why you might find that after editing a
number of your images your computer grinds to a halt or puts up that really annoying message
saying that you're almost out of hard drive space now it won't do this if you've used smart previews
and you have selected the you smart previews instead of originals for image editing box checked
and your files are disconnected sometimes i find that when i'm star rating my images
i'll switch to the develop module to check them out or to zoom in on them and then i'll kind of
forget to switch back to the library module and this is when i really do notice a slow down on
my system when flicking through the images so if you're just browsing to find certain images
or if you're rating images to pick out the best ones make sure you do switch back to the library
module to do this so it doesn't start building cached images for every single image you've taken
to get the fastest possible performance from my system i always have previews in my input page
set to embedded and sidecar if i need to get a handful of images out really quickly i'll keep
smart previews unchecked so they'll load really quickly into lightroom i'll then stay in the
library module and star rate the top 30 images that i like the best i'll then just select these
30 with a filter and then open the develop module and edit them there this way lightroom will only
have to build 30 cached previews to edit and i can have them ready and exported for the customer
or maybe friends and family if it's a home party or gathering in a really short amount of time
and it's quite surprising how many images you can get through in such a short amount of time
when it's not glitchy when you're going through that film strip along the bottom now if i'm not
on a deadline and there's no rush to get them out i'll still set it to embedded and sidecar
on import but i'll also check the smart preview in the preferences menu under the performance tab
i'll make sure that use smart previews instead of originals for image editing boxes checked
then i'll go and get a cup of tea and let the computer do its thing and build those smart
previews once done i can very quickly rate my images in the library module with no glitchiness
or pausing because i've used those embedded and sidecar previews and then if i want to zoom in to
check focus on any one of those images i'll switch it to the develop module on the few that i want
making sure not to make any edits so then when i switch back to the library module it keeps the
small embedded and sidecar previews available once rated i'll use the filter to just select those
rated images then i can edit the photos whether or not the hard drive is connected with no worries
and if i need to export some smaller images for web use or create some previews for
the client again i don't need to worry if those original files are connected or not
i can export them i can edit them i don't need to worry at all these two different ways really work
for me and it means i have a way of getting images out fast and also have the ability to edit my
photos even if they're not connected to my laptop and this is an absolute godsend there's been
quite a few times where i've been on a plane i've needed to edit photos before getting back to home
and i've been able to edit them without having a hard drive plugged into the side
and it hasn't taken up too much space at all it really does help and it just makes things
a lot easier now in knowing about these previews it has saved me a lot of time
and it saved my laptop from pretty much being thrown out the window on several occasions
before i knew about these previews i did find that if i had this setting wrong it'll be really
slow when i'm scrubbing through those images on that film strip on the bottom or i might be in
the wrong module and again it slows down loads and there's nothing worse than being on a deadline and
having a computer that's just going so slow this is when you want to throw that computer
out of that window now let me know what you use and also let me know if you're going to change
the way that you build previews after watching this or if you have an even better way to do it
let me know in the comments below i always try and find out what you do and i'll always try and reply
to all of your comments well at least all of the sensible ones that is and if you like this video
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