# Embedded Preview.



## brian09223 (Sep 23, 2020)

I upgraded my Lightroom recently and on the lower right of my photo's it says Embedded Preview. What is it and does it increase the size of the file?


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## Linwood Ferguson (Sep 23, 2020)

Your camera places an embedded preview inside the raw data, always.  I'm pretty sure (if your signature is right and it's a D3) it is a full size JPG.

When you import images, you can select what kind of preview to use - embedded, standard, 1:1 are the three I recall.

If you use embedded, it just pulls the jpg from the raw data instead of converting and generating one.  That means it shows the preview the way the camera stored it; it does not apply whatever profile and presets you normally use in Lightroom.

This was implemented a few versions ago as a technique to get previews displayed more quickly, with the price of it not being a real lightroom preview.  As soon as you do any develop change to the file, it will generate a standard or 1:1 preview as appropriate.

It has no effect on the size of your file (well, to be precise, lightroom's use of it has no effect -- Nikon is making the file slightly larger by embedding it, but you have no control over that, and it's very slight).   Lightroom is not embedding anything.


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## brian09223 (Sep 25, 2020)

Thank you very much for that answer. I was a little confused by what it meant.


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