Why photo files exported from LR become much smaller than before

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
February 14, 2019
3 replies
830 views

I have been using LR for about two years, but just noted that photo files exported from LR become much smaller than before. For example, I have an image RAW file of 34 MB. After very basic editing (no cropping) and exporting the file, the size is only 3MB. I exported the same file last Oct and it was 17.7 MB. I do not seem to have changed any of the settings for exporting the file. Could anyone here tell me if there is anything wrong? The only change is that I updated LR. Just googled for a while but could not find a good answer. Many thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

D

defaultsacjuakiaovk

Participant

This just started happening to me as well. When I open a raw image and do not edit or do anything to the file except export it as a 300-resolution photo, the file will stay fairly large: 25 MB; however, if I edit the raw file at all and then export the RAW edited file, it will save very small, like 7 MB. This just started happening. Someone mentioned something about editing the thumbnail view and not the very original RAW, so I can test that. Also, I am wondering if it is possible that it has something to do with the updated Lightroom but working from an older catalog file? This is extremely annoying right now when it is a very busy time for me.

dj_paige

Legend

@defaultsacjuakiaovk I am skeptical. There is no change to the export feature.

What may have changed is the content of the photo. Some photos, because of their content, are very compressible so you get small files, while other photos do not compress much so you get big files. Also, the quality slider you use in the Export dialog box may have changed.

Other possible causes:

Exporting from smart previews rather than from the original file (the original file is offline, and so the smart preview is used)
Cropping the photo before export.

Jim Wilde

Community Expert

In all probability you did change the value of the quality slider. That slider controls the amount of compression that is applied to the exports, which of course then affects the resulting file size. There are other settings which will also affect the resulting file size, including resizing.

But as an experiment, export one of your raw files again, starting off with the quality slider at 100 and with "resize to fit" unchecked, then repeat the export changing only the quality slider value to e.g. 90, then 80, then 70, then 60. Compare the sizes of the resulting exported files.

J

jimmyj50404104Author

Participating Frequently

this is exactly what I have:

Sean McCormack

Community Expert

If you've exported a JPEG, it's a compressed 8 bit file. How big that JPEG is depends on the Quality setting you choose on Export.

Sean McCormack. Author of 'Essential Development 3'. Magazine Writer. Former Official Fuji X-Photographer.

Sean McCormack

Community Expert

I should also add that the Raw contains the full information from the camera and that exporting to a JPEG bakes in the settings, so it doesn't require as much storage space.

Sean McCormack. Author of 'Essential Development 3'. Magazine Writer. Former Official Fuji X-Photographer.

J

jimmyj50404104Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks but my question is that the exported file size was 17.7 MB but now for the same photo it becomes 3MB and I did not change ANY setting

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded