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Dirk5D13
Participating Frequently
November 19, 2023
Question

Data Usage over LAN/Internet/VPN Help

  • November 19, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 5179 views

My 35000 photos are stored on a NAS, the catalog and the previews on the local Laptop. The data consumption over Network when scrolling through the photos is enormous: each photo is literally downloaded. It doesn't matter whether I'm on the LAN at home or dialing in from outside via VPN. With RAW, 25MB is added with each view and with jpgs 5MB correspondingly.
This quickly adds up to several GB and you soon reach the mobilephone data limit when you access them via mobile hotspot.
The preview folder contains about 35000 files, the catalog also contains about 35000 photos, 5GB are reserved for the camera-raw cache, but contains only 120 files.
LR uses 1,8GB RAM at the moment with 16GB installed.
By the way, I'm only talking about scrolling through the library module in grid view, without developing or using the magnifying glass.
How can I limit this data consumption? Thank you in advance!

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    3 replies

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 19, 2023

    This is very similar to my setup. If you are scrolling through images in library, the original raw will get fetched every time only if the requested preview resolution is bigger than what you are displaying. So what matters enormously for this type of scrolling is the standard preview size you have set up. If it is too small (and you don't have 1:1 previews or are using embedded previews) yeah, it will hit your raw files every time. If the preview size is set correctly, it won't hit the raw files (I tested this extensively). So check this in the catalog settings menu item - File handling tab. Usually Auto is the right setting there but not necessary if you have dual displays as it might choose the lowest resolution screen for the auto setting. For my Mac Book Pro with retina XDR screen Auto defaults to 3456 pixels which should indeed be enough for the 3456x2234 screen. This does not help if you like to zoom in 1:1 when just going through images in library. If you do and don't have 1:1 previews, it will hit the raw file. 

     

    Because of the above, another really good trick to avoid hitting the raw files as much as possible is to import using the "embedded and sidecar" preview setting. This will create the initial preview database for newly imported files from their embedded jpeg previews and is lightning fast. This works especially well when you combine this with a raw default setting (preferences->Presets) of "Camera Settings". It will enormously speed up workflow and prevent your computer from needing to access the raw files when just culling through even if you are in the habit of zooming 1:1 when doing culling. 

     

    Another thing: Smart previews do not matter for this type of scrolling (they are never used for this except if your originals are offline) and are actually detrimental to speed on the modern high resolution screen as they are simply too small resolution (they are 2560 pixels on the long end and often too small nowadays) and they just fill up your SSD without any benefit and therefore can slow down performance by making your internal SSD too full. Smart previews are highly counteradviced nowadays except if you often want to edit without your originals available. 

      ouiouiphoto
      ouiouiphoto
      Known Participant
      November 19, 2023

      Hello Jao

       

      I will recheck but If you select  "embedded and sidecar" it is not supposed to create previews. It will use the one embedded in the RAW and then it will hit the RAW more frequently. That's why you have in the preference a setup to replace the Embended preview by the real ones if your computer is inactive 

      .Sheepdog trying to help Lightroom and Photoshop beginners
      J
      Community Expert
      Jao vdLCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      November 19, 2023

      If you do embedded it will only hit the raw when you go into develop and change settings. At that point it will then create a standard preview. It will not hit the raw (except for loading the original jpeg preview from it) until then. So this will prevent you from hitting the raw for as long as you refrain from changing any develop settings. If like me, you only develop 25% of images, this prevents a lot of raw file access because of this. It really is by far the most efficient way to go through lots of files. Also if you have the "camera setting" raw default set, the embedded preview is extremely close to the Lightroom rendering anyway so no point to have Lightroom replace it.

      ouiouiphoto
      ouiouiphoto
      Known Participant
      November 19, 2023

      Hello

       

      If you have preview of the size of your display, 1:1 preview and Smart preview, the network consumption is supposed to be low. In fact you can even stop you NAS and it will work. My best guess is probably because you don't have the good previews

       

      .Sheepdog trying to help Lightroom and Photoshop beginners
      D
      DS256
      Inspiring
      November 19, 2023

      FWIW, IMHO, you are asking LrC to do something it wasn't designed for.

      That being said, here are a couple of thoughts:

      • Check to see what you PREVIEW setting is. A lower quality preview may help with bandwith consumption.
      • How are you are running LrC from a mobilephone? You may want to investigate Adobe mobile solutions which are designed to run over the Internet.
      • If could be tricky, but investigate local cache software solutions that would at least prevent new downloads 
      JohanElzenga
      Community Expert
      JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      November 19, 2023

      Generating smart previews may help.

       

      -- Johan W. Elzenga
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