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andrewl21008093
andrewl21008093
Participating Frequently
October 29, 2021

P: Select Sky causes export to be larger than expected

  • October 29, 2021
  • 15 replies
  • 6924 views

I've been asked to report this as a bug in Lightroom Classic v11

When a Select Sky mask is added, and 'All Metadata' is selected for export, an error message is generated, screenshot attached. This forces the user to choose a larger file size that may be desired in the circumstances. If a different Metadata setting is chosen, the problem does not occur.

It seems that Select Sky and All Metadata have a compatability issue.

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    15 replies

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    Rikk Flohr_Photography
    Community Manager
    Rikk Flohr_PhotographyCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    November 8, 2021

    Setting status to acknowledged

    Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
    Rikk Flohr_Photography
    Community Manager
    Rikk Flohr_PhotographyCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    October 29, 2021

    Investigating

    Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 29, 2021

    The explanation might be that 'All Metadata' includes Camera Raw settings (i.e. develop settings) and the new masks are part of that. So if you want to export with all metadata, then use the option without Camera Raw settings (or accept that such masks are too large to keep the image size down below 400 KB).

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 29, 2021

    Confirmed on MacOS. I think that the mask itself is added to the metadata, and thus making it impossible to keep the file size limited to 400K.

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    andrewl21008093
    andrewl21008093Author
    Participating Frequently
    October 29, 2021

    I've just updated to the new Lightroom Classic v11, but am having an issue with the 'Select Sky' mask. If I use it to select and adjust the sky, then try to export it I get an error message as shown in the attachment. This doesn't happen with any of the other masks, including 'Select Subject'. The error does not appear if there's an obvious clear line between sky and horizon with no obstructions, but that was never a problem anyway. The point of the sky masking update is surely to make complex masking easier.

    Depending on the complexity of the selection, I have to increase the file size typically to 1mb in order to export. I don't want to do that as the exports are usually for my website and this will increase page loading times.

    Any help/insight would be much appreciated.

    Thanks

    Andrew

     

     

    Per Berntsen
    Community Expert
    Per BerntsenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 29, 2021

    What kind of edits are you doing to the sky?

    In general, if you add sharpening or noise, or if noise becomes more prominent (by adding Clarity or Texture), file size will increase. Because of the way jpg compression works, sharp, detailed or noisy images will have a large file size, whereas images with predominantly smooth or out of focus areas will have a small file size.

    Would you mind posting an exported image that you have used Select Sky on?

    andrewl21008093
    andrewl21008093Author
    Participating Frequently
    October 29, 2021

    Thanks very much for the quick reply Per. I'm attaching the image, and the only change I made (apart from my standard import preset) was to reduce the sky exposure by -0.37. I couldn't export at 400k so had to choose 1mb which is too large for my site (if this problem occurs with all photos as it may do, since my photos are mostly landscapes).

    In this case it must be the bush on the left which causes the large file size.

    ISO was 100 if that's relevant, sharpening 25, clarity +18, no texture, vibrance +33 as per my standard preset for landscapes.

    I've exported over 40,000 photos at 400k to my website https://www.andrewswalks.co.uk/ using Lightroom, and many of these have had numerous complex edits in addition to my standard preset, including clarity, texture, gradient filters etc.

    I've never had this issue before, so it seems that Sky masking is somehow making files bigger than they should be and for some reason not allowing me to downsize them in quality, which I need to do for web purposes.

    Thanks for your help and I'd be interested to know your thoughts,

    Andrew

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