# Pros/Cons of Saving All Smart Previews Locally?



## mstatdfield (Oct 19, 2019)

Hi there,

I'm new to the forum and new to Lightroom. Is there a performance advantage to selecting the option to save all smart previews locally? Offline editing advantages? If so, a brief why explanation would help me. Are there any cons outside of space availability?


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 19, 2019)

Hi mstatdfield, welcome to the forum! As you guessed, it's primarily for offline editing, but does also help with performance because the photos are cached locally instead of having to download from the cloud as you try to view them. The only con is space.


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## clee01l (Oct 19, 2019)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Hi mstatdfield, welcome to the forum! As you guessed, it's primarily for offline editing, but does also help with performance because the photos are cached locally instead of having to download from the cloud as you try to view them. The only con is space.


I think there is one other “con”  although a trivial one.  Smart Previews generated on import take additional CPU cycles and can be seen to slow down the import.   As for generating up to date Smart previews, there is a trade off.  Having a ready to edit Smart preview or needing to generate an editable RGB file  from the original each time you need to edit that file.  While both detract from performance, Smart previews are generated for every image  whether it gets redeveloped or not, while the preparation lag for bringing up an image into develop without a Smart Preview is short and only fo that one image at a time.


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## Paul McFarlane (Oct 19, 2019)

clee01l said:


> the preparation lag for bringing up an image into develop without a Smart Preview is short and only fo that one image at a time.


Depends on the size of the raw file and the machine you operate on. For me, fast processing of hundreds of raw images, having SP built and ticking for them to be used instead of Originals makes a massive difference (I process images sequentially and build a SP for all of them first)


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 19, 2019)

clee01l said:


> I think there is one other “con”  although a trivial one.  Smart Previews generated on import take additional CPU cycles and can be seen to slow down the import.   As for generating up to date Smart previews, there is a trade off.  Having a ready to edit Smart preview or needing to generate an editable RGB file  from the original each time you need to edit that file.  While both detract from performance, Smart previews are generated for every image  whether it gets redeveloped or not, while the preparation lag for bringing up an image into develop without a Smart Preview is short and only fo that one image at a time.


Cletus, I think you're getting the Lightroom versions mixed up....the OP was talking about downloading SPs from the cloud to be stored locally by Lightroom "Cloudy", you appear to be talking about use of SPs in Classic.


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## clee01l (Oct 19, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> Cletus, I think you're getting the Lightroom versions mixed up....the OP was talking about downloading SPs from the cloud to be stored locally by Lightroom "Cloudy", you appear to be talking about use of SPs in Classic.



Yes, you are correct. Oh, how I long for the days when there was only one “Lightroom”.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## PhilBurton (Oct 20, 2019)

clee01l said:


> Yes, you are correct. Oh, how I long for the days when there was only one “Lightroom”.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


What he said.


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## mstatdfield (Oct 20, 2019)

Thanks for the insights. Makes me wonder, what would the pros/cons of storing the originals locally?

Pros: Redundancy, Offline access
Cons: Disk space, Performance (no duplication of maintaining originals?)

I'm using LR Cloudy primarily to have a unified gallery between my phone, my wife's phone, and my DSLR. Most of my editing is just cropping, adjusting shadows, and brushing out imperfections. I don't think I'm scratching the surface on a lot of features. Thought I'd give that disclaimer in case it helps you provide direction on what storage local options I should select. I'm leaning towards having all smart previews saved locally, but not originals.

PS Adobe's naming makes finding answers to questions extremely difficult! When you think you find the answer on an existing article or tutorial you end up sorting through answers to Classic. A more unique name for Cloudy would have made for a much easier for people like me to find answers!


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## Paul McFarlane (Oct 20, 2019)

Jim Wilde said:


> Cletus, I think you're getting the Lightroom versions mixed up....the OP was talking about downloading SPs from the cloud to be stored locally by Lightroom "Cloudy", you appear to be talking about use of SPs in Classic.


Apologies all, I also got mixed up. And it's on the Cloud thread and all!!!


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 20, 2019)

mstatdfield said:


> I'm using LR Cloudy primarily to have a unified gallery between my phone, my wife's phone, and my DSLR. Most of my editing is just cropping, adjusting shadows, and brushing out imperfections. I don't think I'm scratching the surface on a lot of features. Thought I'd give that disclaimer in case it helps you provide direction on what storage local options I should select. I'm leaning towards having all smart previews saved locally, but not originals.


I'd keep a local copy of originals on at least one computer, just in case aliens invade Adobe's computers (well, probably not aliens...). If you have fast internet, I wouldn't worry on other devices. If you store the originals locally, I wouldn't worry about the smart previews.


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