Lightroom :: How To Make Smart Previews For All Of Existing Files
Dec 28, 2013
I want to make smart previews for all of my existing files and move the originals to an external drive. It goes without saying that I want the catalogs intact. I tried to do it but was unsucessful.
Now that Lightroom 5 is out. Is there a quick way to build smart previews for all the photos that are in the existing libraries? And is it recommeded to build them for all photos. Does it essentially save two files?
I created a catalog with smart previews from my PC (Win 7, 64 bit) and copied it onto my macbook pro (OSX 10.9.1) via a thumb drive. I can view the photos fine, zoom in and use the develop controls. However I get no histogram, cannot export and below the histogram it just says 'photo is missing'.
The whole point of this exercise was to choose and export lo-res selects to customers when out of the office. I can't do that.
I set create smart previews when I imported my images...none show up.
I selected some files (with originals available) and went Library>previews>create smart previews...the tast bar zipped across the top left but no previews were created.
i am a photographer who shoots on the road and has a digital tech/retoucher that is away from the location. with lightroom 5, i was excited to export my catalogs with smart previews at a fraction of the size to send out to the digi tech for editing. the plan was for him/her to then send back only the catalog files which i could apply to the original master files and export finals for the client. i assume this is possible, but am having trouble dialing in the workflow.
I haven't paid much attention to my smart preview status. I always import and create smart previews and watch the completion bar go across the page and see the message after import that x number of smart previews were created.
But when I look at my catalog files (which I keep on Dropbox if that matters), I see that the file shows last updated on OCT 30 and it's 7.68gb. If I do a spotlight search for the smart preview irdata file, I find it has the same date but is 9.3gb. In either case, the size seems smaller than I would expect.
On my laptop, the smart previews of recent imports are all there, so I'm using them. On my desktop (even when disconnected from the drive with the original files) I do not see them (since that machine is always hooked up to the drive that the originals are on, it doesn't really matter but I'm confused).
Is there some setting that I can't find where I've set a max size of the smart preview file? Is there any way it could be saving somewhere other than in the LR cat folder I'm saving to?
I observed that when photos are deleted while in a smart preview collection the photos are not removed from the smart preview collection. Resulting over time in a large smart preview file with unused photos, consuming your hard drive space.
It is therefor important only to delete photos when they are first discarded from the smart preview catalog.
When eventually photos are removed while they were available in the smart preview catalog the work around to delete them is to locate the catalog named: "Lightroom 5 Catalog Smart Previews.lrdata" and to open it with Lightroom. When opened you can select the photos and remove them. After that you can remove the folder from your Lightroom folders and the file itself will consist of only 0 bytes.
It would maybe a good idea that removing photos automatically would discard them from the smart preview.
Principles of smart previews and how they can be used with an external Hd but I wish to know HOW to transfer the smart previews from my pc to the laptop, work on them and then update my PC files whilst still retaining the smart previews on the laptop for future reference.
Naturally the smart previews would have to be regularly updated to match any work undertaken on the PC.
I’m trying to get my mind around exactly what Smart Previews can be used for. I’m wondering if I can edit them on another computer with a different Lightroom 5 installation. In the past, I’d export a Catalog from my Master machine, edit that with another installation of Lightroom on another computer and then reimport it to my Master macine. So, what I’m wondering is if it is possible to use Smart Previews in this workflow.
Much has been written about how to create smart previews, and how to work with them, but I am unclear about how to get them from my desktop to my laptop. The smart previews were created in a collection on my desktop. I'd like to take that collection over to the laptop. I have a usb thumb drive with plenty of space. Specifically, what is the proceedure to get the previews onto the thumb drive, and then view them on the laptop, using Lightroom? Further info: The laptop does not have a copy of the desktop's catalogue.
Is there a way to automatically create smart previews inside a collection?Now, I know how to create a smart collection of only my holiday pictures with a five star rating. That's not the problem, but is there a way that these pictures are automatically transferred into a smart preview?
I understood that Lightroom does not use smart previews as previews in most cases and still uses previews as before for working on. I normally import as standard previews because this improves speed whilst working on them. I have just ticked the smart preview box for a couple of files that I thought I might want to work on after transferring them to my externsl drive and it crashed when set with standard, OK with minimal, I am now wondering if in fact the smart previews are the previews it works on and that by setting it to standard as well it has confused the program and that is why it crashed, but then why have the option of both or is it simply a computer resources issue trying to create both standard and smart previews.
I get it. I know I need to tell Lightroom that it's "this" specific catalog that I want to be working on while being away from my external hard drive. But, just so I understand the logic: I have to opne Lightroom with the external hard drive connected and then, ejected it so I could smart previews that I've previsoulsy build. There's no way for me just to turn on my computer, away from my external hard drive, and work on smart previews? So, I guess that this my real questions: If I make a copy of the catalog from my external hard drive onto my desktop, and I tell my computer to work with this catalog while away from external hard drive, will this clash everything up?
I'm wondering if it's possible to create smart previews for images that were imported into the catalog in a prior version of LR. As my catalog continues to increase in size, I'm considering relocating my images to an external drive (currently on the hard drive). I'm obviously concerned about doing any unintended damage to the catalog and workflow.
I would like to take my existing photo's on an internal drive and move them to an external drive. I would like to leave my catalogue where it is on my internal drive. I would then like to use smart previews to allow me to edit my photo's with or without the external drive connected and have the photo's automatically sync'd when the external drive is re-connected.
I have all my data and LR installed on a desktop machine. As I never find time at home to cleanse and work on images, I would love to do so on my journeys and trips... Therefore I installed LR5 also on my laptop and would like to play around with smart previews to shape my workflow.
Is there a description on how one can generate the smart previews on the main machine and transfer them onto the mobile device?
When I have this set up and running. Would the import and work on new photos on the run also join back into the main library once back home togehter with the smart preview sync or would this have to be covered by another workflow importing a new catalogue?
I know that Lightroom is unable to generate previews for PSD files if they haven't been saved with the Maximize Compatibility option. But, it seems that once you begin a preview for a folder Lightroom gets stuck in that mode even if you then go ahead and resave the file with the Maximize Compatibility option set to Always.
In a test just now I opened one of the problem files in Photoshop CS6 and saved it. Then I went back to Lightroom and tried to reimport the file but it still said Preview Unavailable. I tried toggling on/off a couple of layers and resaving but it. So, next I actually tried making a change to the file and resaving. That still didn't work. I've tried exiting from the Import dialog in LR and restarting the import and even restarting Lightroom but nothing makes a difference.
If I save a new copy of the file in Photoshop (without changing any settings in my Photoshop preferences) Lightroom i
When I import raw canon cr2 or Nikon NEF files, I cannot see the previews.
The progress bar gets stuck on building smart previews and I see a greyed out box. When I choose one greyed out preview box and go into develop then the preview appears and I can edit the image.
I see a picture in LR4. Open with PS CS3 and crop it, save and close. Back in LR the picture remains in its unedited crop in both gallery and loupe views. If I reopen in PS the crop I made is still there. How can I preview the edited file in the new crop in LR?
I watched a tutorial about how to make smart collections using keywords.I spent a couple hours selecting the photos (using the paint can, good tip) and giving about 700 photos the keyword "use". Then I went to make a smart collection and discovered that it only allows you "any text field" with no reference to keywords. Many photos in my huge collection have the letters "use" in their titles.So is there no way to select keywords as a basis for smart collections????
I would like ot make a smart fodler in LightRoom that will capture all my Instagram photos in one place. The parameter that seems obvious to me is the size 2048x2048.
I cannot see any way to make this an attribute in a smart folder, I am new to LightRoom.
I have several hundred videos I have taken, either with a Canon SD800, Canon S95, Canon T2i or a GoPro.
New videos I take on this equipment works just fine when adding to Lightroom. But when I try to import older files, I get error: video file not imported with the quantity in parenthesis.
I have tried purging the video cache, I have tried task manager - disabling dynamiclinkmanager and dynamiclinkmediaserver. Occasionally I will be able to import one or two videos after doing this but then it hangs up again.
Running Win7, LR4.1.
I don't have anything else up and running when I do this.
I always rename pictures after import with YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_SEQ-NR, now I would like to find out, which pictures were not getting renamed or where the filename is equal to the original-filename.
How do I add .DNG files to an existing catalog? When I try to do so, they appear unable to highlight and import. Only JPEGs and similar file types are able to be highlighted and imported.
I am trying to set up a smart collection to list files that are blank in the Location field. Some fields such as Caption allow you to check if the field "is empty". Location does not allow the "is empty" option. What can I do to check if Location is empty or blank?