Working with Smart Previews

Topics Covered in This Lightroom Tutorial:

Simulating Ejecting an External Drive, the Advantage of Smart Previews

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

Smart Previews allow you to make edits to photographs without access to the actual RAW files. Smart Previews are much smaller RAW files and can be very helpful: imagine you always store your images on an external drive that you connect to your laptop. You go on a trip, bringing only the laptop, none of the original files—but you made Smart Previews of your photos, so you can still edit them! When you return home and sync your external drive, the edits will automatically be applied non-destructively to the original files.

Adding Smart Previews While Importing Photos

1. Make sure you’re in the Library module.

2. At the bottom of the left panel, click Import.

3. Under Source, navigate to Desktop > Class Files > Lightroom Class and select the European Trip folder.

4. At the top, above the photos, make sure Add is selected (highlighted).

5. Let’s see how Smart Previews work! In the File Handling panel (on the right of the screen) make sure the Build Smart Previews option is checked on.

6. Click in the box below Keywords and type Europe to add a keyword.

7. On the bottom right, click the Import button.

   In the progress indicator on the top-left, it will say Lightroom is doing two operations at once. It is importing the photos and building Smart Previews.

8. Once the processes are done running (which may take a few minutes), a dialog will appear saying the Smart Previews have been built. Click OK to dismiss it.

9. Make sure you’re viewing the new photos in the Library module.

10. Select any photograph and expand the Histogram panel. Beneath the graph, notice that it says Original + Smart Preview.

11. Expand the Catalog panel on the left if it is not already open.

12. Select All Photographs.

13. Click on any photograph that was NOT imported in the European Trip folder.

14. Look at the Histogram panel again. Beneath the graph, notice that it only says Original Photo. Taking a look at this spot is a convenient way to check whether or not you have generated a Smart Preview for a particular image.

Simulating Ejecting an External Drive

We will have to fake the aforementioned real-world scenario of traveling without the external hard drive; let’s simulate ejecting an external drive by moving the folders of photos to the Trash (Mac) or Recycle Bin (Windows).

1. Go to the Desktop and navigate to Class Files > Lightroom Class.

2. Cmd–click (Mac) or CTRL–click (Windows) to select both the European Trip folder and the Library folder.

3. Drag both folders to the Trash (Mac) or Recycle Bin (Windows).

The Advantage of Smart Previews

1. Switch to Lightroom.

2. Expand the Folders panel on the left if it is not already open. Notice that the European Trip and Library folders have a grayed-out folder icon.

3. Click on the Library folder.

4. Mouse over the icon in the upper-right corner of each photo frame in the library, as shown below, and you will see an exclamation point with a Photo is missing alert:

   

5. From the Folders panel on the left, select the European Trip folder.

6. Mouse over the same area of any of the European Trip photos and you will see a Smart Preview alert as shown below:

   

7. Now that we know how to tell whether or not a photo has a Smart Preview, let’s try to edit a photo with a Smart Preview and without one. From the Folders panel on the left, select the Library folder.

8. Click on a photo to which you’ve applied some edits (which may vary if you have skipped any of the exercises). Assuming you did all the exercises, select the photo of the sheep.

9. Press the D key to switch to the Develop module.

10. Expand the Basic panel on the right. Notice that all the sliders are grayed-out. We can’t apply any edits to this photo!

11. Press the G key to switch back to the Library module.

12. From the Folders panel on the left, select the European Trip folder.

13. Select the photo of the ship and ocean (europe_0098).

14. Press the D key to switch to the Develop module.

15. Expand the Basic panel on the right. Great, we are able to use the sliders to edit the picture!

16. Expand the HSL / Color / B & W panel.

17. Click B & W to convert the picture to grayscale.

18. Expand the Effects panel.

19. Under Post-Crop Vignetting, drag the Amount slider to – 30 (or whatever you think looks nice).

20. Press the G key to enter the Grid view.

Restoring the Files & Seeing Automatic Changes

1. Go to your computer’s Desktop.

2. Arrange the screen so you are viewing the Trash (Mac) or Recycle Bin (Windows) on one side of the screen, and the Class Files > Lightroom Class folder on the other side of the screen.

3. Cmd–click (Mac) or CTRL–click (Windows) to select both the European Trip folder and the Library folder from the Trash (Mac) or Recycle Bin (Windows).

4. Drag both folders from the Trash (Mac) or Recycle Bin (Windows) to the Class Files > Lightroom Class folder.

5. Switch to Lightroom.

6. From the Catalog panel on the left, select All Photographs. None of the photos have exclamation point icons in the upper-right corner anymore because we have restored all the files to their expected location (thus simulating plugging an external drive into a computer).

7. Select the ship and ocean (europe_0098) photo.

8. Press the D key to switch to the Develop module.

9. Expand the History panel on the left (if it’s not already expanded) and notice that all of the changes (Convert to Black & White and the Vignette) have been applied non-destructively to the photograph.

   We didn’t have to do any extra work to make sure these changes were applied to the photograph; the changes were applied automatically. You can imagine how useful this would be if you were editing hundreds of photographs while traveling then came home, plugged in your external drive, and the changes were all synced! Lightroom’s Smart Previews are a very powerful and useful feature.