# smart previews and 2015.7 -blog release



## magician john (Sep 21, 2016)

How would I know if I have to "reconnect the photos" as per the blog as I don't believe I have taken the photos off line but unsure what this really means.

So really asking whether the "use smart previews instead of originals for image editing" would be appropriate for me. 

I load my photos and don;t do anything special with them apart from using the develop module and then export to Facebook/ipad etc.

Can you clarify this issue for me please.

many thanks


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## johnbeardy (Sep 21, 2016)

You're probably confused by having the background explained, but you don't really need to know this ingenious workaround that some people used.

Instead, just do a simple test. Enable the preference. Select a couple of images and generate smart previews for them (Library > Previews > Smart Previews). Identify a couple more too. Now go to Develop and do some general adjustments like Basic panel or gradient filters. See if adjusting the images with smart previews is faster than adjusting those without. It should be much quicker, and that's the point - and all you need to know.

John


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## magician john (Sep 22, 2016)

johnbeardy said:


> You're probably confused by having the background explained, but you don't really need to know this ingenious workaround that some people used.
> 
> Instead, just do a simple test. Enable the preference. Select a couple of images and generate smart previews for them (Library > Previews > Smart Previews). Identify a couple more too. Now go to Develop and do some general adjustments like Basic panel or gradient filters. See if adjusting the images with smart previews is faster than adjusting those without. It should be much quicker, and that's the point - and all you need to know.
> 
> John


thank a lot, will give it a go.


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## magician john (Sep 28, 2016)

magician john said:


> thank a lot, will give it a go.


to johnbeardy,

i have compared a couple of images without smart previews and two with and didn't notice much difference.
what should I have been looking at? what have I missed here?


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## johnbeardy (Sep 28, 2016)

It's all about quickness of updating. What sort of photos are you adjusting - big raw files?


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## magician john (Sep 28, 2016)

johnbeardy said:


> It's all about quickness of updating. What sort of photos are you adjusting - big raw files?


yes, they are raw files


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## johnbeardy (Sep 28, 2016)

OK, then ramp up the adjustments for the comparison. Dehaze and Transform will force Lr to do a lot of calculations and so you should see benefits when smart previews are being preferred. Spot healing too. It's doing the same calculations but to a much smaller image, and without impairing your ability to adjust the image to look its best. But try to avoid going in 1:1 as that then causes Lr to load the full raw data and invalidates the comparison.


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## magician john (Sep 29, 2016)

johnbeardy said:


> OK, then ramp up the adjustments for the comparison. Dehaze and Transform will force Lr to do a lot of calculations and so you should see benefits when smart previews are being preferred. Spot healing too. It's doing the same calculations but to a much smaller image, and without impairing your ability to adjust the image to look its best. But try to avoid going in 1:1 as that then causes Lr to load the full raw data and invalidates the comparison.


Still didn't notice much difference.
What I do find that slows things down is going form one photo to the next and waiting for the "loading" to appear and for the photo to come into focus. If going through a load of photo this process,taking approx 2 seconds per photo, can seem to take for ever.


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 29, 2016)

The point is that using the smart preview instead of the original file should eliminate most, if not all, of that 'loading" delay.


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## magician john (Sep 29, 2016)

Jim Wilde said:


> The point is that using the smart preview instead of the original file should eliminate most, if not all, of that 'loading" delay.


Ok, thanks.
Should I then leave all my photos as smart previews so they are in this format next time I open up and view or use them?
Does it create extra memory/space on my pc?


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 29, 2016)

It's really up to you to decide what to do. If you have been to the trouble of generating Smart Previews prior to this latest update, then I assume that means you were prepared to use them for editing while on the road or otherwise away from the originals. In which case, to me it would seem logical to use that new option even when the originals are connected, but only if you see an actual performance gain. 

But if you haven't previously generated SPs, and are considering whether this new feature offers any advantage, you have to run some tests to see if you see a noticeable performance gain (such as maybe a couple of seconds gain when loading images), then you have to decide if that performance gain is worth sacrificing full image resolution for. Only you can decide that.

Personally, although I do routinely generate smart previews on import, I don't have that new option checked as a rule.


Yes, when you create Smart Previews then obviously that uses up additional disk space....figure roughly 1mb per smart preview.


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