P: Capability to display embedded preview or sidecar Jpeg

[areohbee]

As it stands, there is no way to view the preview embedded in a raw file except by loading the raw file into an external app.

Many a folk has wanted to view, in Lightroom, the camera-generated preview, or preview as edited by camera manufacturer software, or even DNG preview as previously saved in Lightroom or Photoshop/ACR.

So, the 'Idea' is for some way to temporarily view the jpeg preview embedded in a proprietary raw or DNG file.

Embedded preview should be usable in before/after comparison, as well as side-by-side, as well as temporary loupe display.

Note: development resources to satisfy this request would be relatively small.

If you like this Idea, please remember to click the '+1' button below.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

In Lightroom it would be handy if there were a setting for Library view and image import that would take the "Embedded & Sidecar" option a step further and disable LR's rendering of the 1:1 previews (in Library view). That way, you have quick and dirty 1:1 previews (from the camera) which are good enough for a lot of purposes (i.e., sorting, making comparisons). It's easier to make direct comparisons when the images are all rendered the same way (all from the camera or all from Lightroom).

See http://forums.adobe.com/message/4479429 for a little more background.

Obviously this should be an option only, and LR should still render its own version in the Develop module (otherwise what's the point of using LR?). How the Library previews should be handled after you make some edits is an open question. Once you start making edits, you're probably done making comparisons, and you would want to see your changes, so maybe the edited ones should be updated in Library view and the rest keep their embedded 1:1 previews.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

I'd agree, it's a request I hear regularly, particularly from volume shooters who are currently using Breezebrowser or Photomechnic for initial culling, before switching to LR, because it's faster to use the embedded JPEGs. They shouldn't have to use other software for such an integral part of the workflow.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would also like to be able to see the embedded JPG whenever I feel like it. The embedded JPG often looks pretty good in terms of exposure, color balance and contrast and I want to be able to see it side by side with the RAW file in order to match the RAW file to it.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I shoot RAW+Jpeg because my camerea does very well with colors in the Jpeg which I use as reference.

I would like to be able to view the Jpeg within Lightroom and ideally compare it side-by-side with the RAW I am developing. I know I can keep the files separate when importing but I do like having them linked in general.

I would love to see more work done to allow better management of sidecar Jpegs including viewing, comparing with RAW and deleting/detaching.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Add ability to switch to sidecar jpeg file. Sometimes camera-corrected jpeg is good enough (when shooting in RAW+JPEG mode) and ability to just switch to jpeg will save time.

PS: treating jpegs as separate files clutters photo library.

[slarti3]

+1 for an additional module that serves one single purpose: Cut your shoot down from 1000 to 200 photographs, as quickly as possible.
Implementation: add a switch to the library preview that will use the embedded preview instead. Done.

[Gavin Farrington]

I'm one of those using PM, Victoria. Thanks for voicing your support on this. PM is a great program, but it's really just a "patch" for something LR could easily do as well.

[Gavin Farrington]

Hi zigzag. Using the embeded preview effectively gives you the exact same result without the need to record a separate JPEG in-camera. That's why it's such a popular request. Cheers! 😉

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Aren't embedded previews usually lower quality than separate JPEGs?

[areohbee]

It depends on the camera. In case of Nikon D300 for example, the jpeg embedded by the camera is always full-rez, but basic quality, whereas for the jpeg sidecar you can choose both quality and rez. Granted if you were planning to reserve the option to use jpeg as master, you'd probably choose both full-rez and fine quality. But regardless of quality, the embedded preview is useful for culling, or comparing color/tone, etc. - it's not going to be edited, nor exported... Note: The jpeg preview may also represent the raw image after editing with manufacturer software, at which point it receives a quality bump.

[sunlit777]

As a Nikon shooter I would also like to see an option to turn on "embedded or sidecar jpg" previews ONLY for .nef files. And an option to launch external editor on .nef files, not the rendered tiffs as Lightroom currently offers.

[sunlit777]

There is a point in using LR as a library DAM only, and relying on external other raw processor (e.g. Capture NX in case of Nikon) for developing raws. The point is that LR is unequalled at organizing your photo archives, however, Nikon proprietary soft can provide more convincing results in terms of raw processing.

[areohbee]

Consider NxToo:

http://www.robcole.com/Rob/ProductsAn...

[sunlit777]

Thanks a lot Rob, I am checking that plugin out now!

[Gavin Farrington]

They're full-res on my Canon 5d2&3, also. The compression rate doesn't concern me so much because I only use it for culling. Not appropriate for all workflows, sure, but for event photographers it's a huge time saver.

[areohbee]

For me, Lightroom's library module is *very* fast, as long as previews are pre-built, so if culling is the goal, be sure to build previews before embarking.

I am more interested in the embedded jpegs is for comparison purposes.

[wanderbuddy]

Is there a quick way in the Lightroom library to see the RAW and jpeg version next to each other? Normally they get stacked together unless you use the option that a JPEG should be seen as a separate file (which I prefer not to as this option gives the RAW and JPEG a different filename).

[gcastro888]

This is a feature request to get this modified:

1. If this box is checked then I have twice the photos in my catalog
2. If the box is unchecked then I do not have access to the JPEG

What makes sense is if you check the box to been able to use the X-Y tool to compare the raw vs the JPG and the ability to keep the JPG as the primary, maybe even the option to erase either the raw or the JPG.

If I shoot raw+JPG in my camera I want the ability to keep the JPG if the camera did a decent or good job and only develop the raw image for the more promising or worse images.

[MagnusOfSweden]

Suggestion to re-design the functionality around the feature "Treat JPEG files next to raw as separate photos".

Since many cameras allow RAW+JPEG and a common goal for us photographer is to try and get the picture right already in the camera, so more often the JPEGs (with the personalized manual camera settings) are so good that I want to use them as "the originals" without having to go through all RAW files and adjust them afterwards. If I later want to improve/adjust a photo I then use the RAW file as a base for a much better result.

So I suggest that LR implements a (consistent) setting where all files for a photo are treated as ONE photo (unless you specifically tell LR not to). I can see that for at least the following features it would really improve the workflow ;

- manage metadata,
- some basic photo mgmt like cropping, re-sizing etc,
- physical file management

The great thing with LR compared to PS is that it's targeting photographers and focused on working with photos instead of individual graphic files. So please treated all files as ONE PHOTO as far as possible, i.e. metadata is save to both files and when moving, deleting, flagging, cropping etc. a photo, all files should be affected (unless you manually, specifically 'un-set' the link). That would really improve the workflow when you shot RAW+JPEG.

Best regards Magnus Wilson

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Back in the day, I shot lots of images using raw+jpeg and imported them into Lightroom. Now I realize those jpegs add no value and I'd like to recover the disk space that they're occupying.

My immediate need is to have a way to:
1. Identify all images in a catalog which are raw+jpeg (nef+jpeg, etc)
2. Remove just the jpeg for these images

I've looked at various plugins designed for handling raw+jpeg, but don't feel confident that simply removing the jpegs and not updating the LR catalog (as these tools seem to do) will not leave LR confused.

More generally, it would be great if LR provided improved handling of these "coupled" images. I can imaging that some folks might want to keep only the jpeg and delete that heavyweight raw file for images that they don't intend to process.

[areohbee]

There are a couple of plugins that may help some in this regard:

1. NxToo - Includes the ability to create separate jpeg "sidecar" by extracting jpeg previews from raw (Nikon only).
2. RawPlusJpeg - Various utilities for dealing with raw/jpeg pairs, including the ability to display "hidden" jpeg sidecar.

Rob

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi Rob,

I took you advice and added my vote, now watch something happen :-)
And I wholeheartedly agree with Victoria Bampton, who said about 4 months ago,
"I'd agree, it's a request I hear regularly, particularly from volume shooters who are currently using Breezebrowser or Photomechnic for initial culling, before switching to LR, because it's faster to use the embedded JPEGs. They shouldn't have to use other software for such an integral part of the workflow. "

Except that I use Downloader Pro, which is also made by BreezeSys.com, because in DP you can use the E switch to make a subfolder that evaluates JPEG, JPG and JPE to a folder named JPG and a subfolder RAW for all other files. Then I can do see the difference in LR between the LR created preview and cameras JPG.

But I use BreezeBrowser to for just viewing files because frankly it's just quicker.

Thanks,
George

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I really appreciate that it is possible to import jpegs and raw or dng files as one picture. But sometimes I would like to delete one of the two versions (e. g. if I know that a picture is not good enough for publication and therefore does not need further development, it would be helpful to delete only the raw/dng version in order to save some disk space). Currently I'm doing this by deleting the raw picture with the windows explorer, but then I have to tell Lightroom where it can find the jpeg image. My life would be a little bit easier, if Lightroom could directly delete the raw or the jpg version of a picture.

Marcus A. Hubert, Bonn, Germany (hubert@uni-bonn.de)

[areohbee]

It seems this post should not have been merged here, but consider:

RawPlusJpeg

R

[dorin_nicolaescu]

Well, yes the thread has grown to be too generic. I'm thinking of separating the FRs into two distinct categories (and separate topics):
1) Ability to display embedded or sidecar preview. Either for performance reasons or to be able to see and use the in-camera rendering as a reference.
2) Managing previews and raw+sidecar pairs (searching, deleting, separating etc).

Another option is to rename the topic into something more generic (like Management of embedded previews and/or sidecars) and continue to go on like this. After all, the two issues are related.

Opinions?