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Jeena22389650a1ho
Known Participant
February 21, 2024
Question

Is there anything to be concerned about creating smart previews on a catalog with 150k images in it?

  • February 21, 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 898 views

Is LR known to crash when dealing with such a large volume in this manner, or should I be good?

 

I've got a catalog that contains roughly 4 TB's worh of ~150k images, and my laptop doesnt have that much internal storage, nor will i always be with the external that the files are on. I'm wondering if theres anything to be concerned about with regard to generating smart previews on a catalog this large, and then proceeding to use the smart preview version when the files are offline. Are there any best practices I should be aware of when considering working in this manner?

 

Thank you folks!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    3 replies

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Rob_CullenCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 24, 2024

    @Jeena22389650a1ho   We are in a Lightroom-Classic forum.

    Which "LR" App are you asking about?  Lightroom-Classic or Lightroom (-Desktop)?

     

    With Lightroom-Classic, Smart Previews ("Proxy" smaller files)  are stored locally, on a local hard drive, with your catalog.

    It makes no difference if your LrC computer is "online" or "offline". Smart Previews are only useful when your original camera image files are 'not connected' (eg. an external drive not connected), or you are trying to achieve faster processing in LrC. So Smart Previews in LrC are useful if the IMAGE files location is "offline".

     

    Smart Previews for Lightroom (Lr) are a different matter, and need different questions.

     

     

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
    J
    Jeena22389650a1hoAuthor
    Known Participant
    February 25, 2024

    I'm sorry @Rob_Cullen Rob, I think I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I was referring to Lightroom Classic, and my mention of "online/offline" was simply referencing whether the hard drive with the source image file would be connected or disconnected to the computer at any given point in time

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 21, 2024

    I have a catalog with 200,000 images and smart previews for all of them. No issues whatsoever, but smart previews do take about 1 MB each, so my smart previews are more than 200 GB.

     

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    J
    Jeena22389650a1hoAuthor
    Known Participant
    February 21, 2024

    Thanks @JohanElzenga and @dj_paige !!

     

    I am wondering what the correlation between "normal" previews and smart previews are. Do they simply always live independantly of one another, whereas the smart previews are displayed when files are offline,  and when online, the regular previews are utilized? Also, is there anyway to get any sort of dialog box or something where I can see things such as estimated file size before LR begans the task of building out 150k smart previews? From the lack of ellipses after Library>Previews>"Build Smart Previews", I am assuming that once I click that, LR will automatically start building them with no further prompts. Thank you!

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 24, 2024

    ah, thanks @JohanElzenga. So edits done online will always populate offline when viewing the smart previews, right? That's to ask, am I right in my understanding that the act of creating the smart previews is a one and done thing, since it effectively just makes a low rez proxy of the neg, and therefore any edits I do online or offline will always populate to the low rez smart preview automatically? I can start an edit online, keep going offline, and then keep going online...and the whole process will be seamless in terms of how my edits are effecting the image and/or displayed to me whether online/offline?


    quote

    ah, thanks @JohanElzenga. So edits done online will always populate offline when viewing the smart previews, right? That's to ask, am I right in my understanding that the act of creating the smart previews is a one and done thing, since it effectively just makes a low rez proxy of the neg, and therefore any edits I do online or offline will always populate to the low rez smart preview automatically? I can start an edit online, keep going offline, and then keep going online...and the whole process will be seamless in terms of how my edits are effecting the image and/or displayed to me whether online/offline?


    By @Jeena22389650a1ho

     

    Yes. Because smart previews are just proxies of your originals, edits done on smart previews display and sync as if they were done on originals.

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    February 21, 2024

    The only concern would be disk space on the disk where your catalog is stored. Smart Previews will take up space! In addition, some LrC actions (like the new AI Denoise) cannot be performed if all you have is smart previews.

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