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Lightroom export file size: why so small? How can I maximize image quality?

Forum|Forum|11 years ago
December 19, 2014
21 replies
157016 views

My image file sizes are much smaller after editing and exporting through Lightroom. Is it impossible to maintain original file size to preserve image quality? Will this smaller file size have negative impact on prints? Any help is appreciated!

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Correct answer dj_paige

File size is not an indicator of image quality! You are looking at the wrong measure.

File size is determined by the number of pixels you have, the quality slider in the Export dialog box, and about a dozen other things, most of which you can't control.

You want to look at the number of pixels (height and width) and not the file size.

Is it impossible to maintain original file size to preserve image quality?

Not only is it impossible, it is also meaningless (see above)

Will this smaller file size have negative impact on prints?

Instead of looking at the file size, you need to look at the number of pixels in the exported photo (width and height), and this will determine if you will get a decent print. The usual standard is that you need 300 pixels per inch.

L

lehib95363884

Participant

Mine nust started doing the same thing in the same session I have been working in! I am combining images in lightroom and now everything i am improting into photoshop from lightroom is coming in at a thumbnail size. I baked in some text that had to be changed so I went back and imported again from lightroom to start over and these are very large raw files straight out of camera that are coming into photoshop as compressed thumbnails now. Its the same exact picture I have imported in the past and i am putting it on a canvas that overlaps the one with baled in text so its not the image size in lightroom that is the problem. Photoshop is doing something to compress images coming into photoshop. This happened the other day with an inage from the web so i just figured it had been a thumbnail i downloaded by accident and moved on but now this is happening in the middle if a time sensitive project where I know for certain that the file soze of the original is not the issue. Reading through this thread is super frustrating because this is not user error. A setting changed on its own or else the software is no longer working correctly.

S

Steven350212957h7r

Participant

I had the same problem,
didn't realise when exporting a jpg, there's a "dimensions" pull-down menu under quality
had it set to "small"

J

John26521448jtf2

Participant

This is..all of a subben...happening to me. I did nothing to any settings.

The customer doesnt know about technical stuff..they do feel shortchanged getting a 3MB file when I took a 25MB file to my camera...and I also feel short changed... I just want the full size file please. I cant seem to get it back.

D

dj_paige

Legend

If you are exporting JPG (you didn't really say that, are you?) then 3MB is reasonable from a 25MB, and this is nothing to be concerned about. JPG is a compression methodology, exported JPG files are supposed to be a lot smaller.

J

John26521448jtf2

Participant

yes Im shooting jpeg.

I want the original file size like it has been producing for years until this month. Nobody seems to have an answer. I can find concern about that at least. My guess is I need to pay money to Adobe to get this function back via upgrade to thier own nothing rent for life plan.

joshl23324095

Participating Frequently

Adobe folks, we are not dumb, if the convo is this long please either fix your user interface or do NOT change defaults after an update.
And regardless, ya need to lead this "support community" not let a simple problem turn into this mess of replies! Yeesh

joshl23324095

Participating Frequently

OK, a solve. In my case i was trying to upload finished images to my photoshelter.com account. One of LR's flaws is that one must switch to "Hard Drive" on drop down menu in export dialogue box in order to export to any destination (not just hard drive). I must have set this years ago but a recent adobe update to their software just defaulted back to very small size. Confused call from client just prompted me to have to relearn one aspect of this unintuitive software. Hope this helps someone else from avoiding such a call.

N

nataliej39733446

Participating Frequently

@nataliej39733446 I'm pretty sure that's the max resolution for the Z6 in DX mode. Are you using a DX lens? If so, the Z6 is probably auto cropping down to that resolution.

yes thanks I am using a DX lens, so that makes sense thanks. I didnt realize this meant a DX crop setting.

So from what I understand I am actually doing everything correctly 🙂

Thank you everyone for explaining and clarifying each different stage to me.

I can now confidently tell clients the images are large enough.

D

danielaleigh

Participating Frequently

thank you for the answers, the articles are going to help! thank you, will give feedback

D

danielaleigh

Participating Frequently

Thank you guys, we will try again. with checking and unchecking etc...... not sure what settings we missed, the dpi is set at 300 but shouldn't make too much difference. it is just the clarity and that it is fuzzier...... please thank you appreciate all the help . it is just not making sense to us at the moment,

Geoff the kiwi

Community Expert

1880 is very small.... even my 2011MBP has a 1920 screen and if you are using any sort of reasonable current screen it will be above 1800 pixels and for printing at 300ppi that is just a 6 inch print any bigger is enlarging....

Try something like 4000 for the long edge...

D

danielaleigh

Participating Frequently

The pictures are exported to windows desktop and then put on a flash drive, to then be printed ( property photos)/;loaded on websites, Bob and trshaner will try your suggestions as well. it is the latest lightroom cc package which i presume is lightroom 6.. we use to have lightroom purchased on its own, but then had to update and change to the creative cloud package with photoshop, and that is when the problem started. and hubby just doesn't know what he is doing differently!

D

danielaleigh

Participating Frequently

The lightroom photo after working and cropping is 5761x3841

these are the shots when we export : Please note that we only found this problem when we changed to the cloud CC Package

here are the photos of the export setting.... the photos that come out after export, are slightly fuzzier, the clarity and colour do not match the original photo on lightroom

Bob Somrak

Legend

Your screenshots (or photos) don't show everything important in the export dialog but you appear to have RESIZE TO FIT checked and set the Long Edge to 1800 when you started out at 5761 so you have shorted the photo by 3.2 times and essentially thrown away 9 out of every 10 pixels so I expect it to look worse. Uncheck RESIZE TO FIT and see what happens.

M4 Pro Mac Mini. 48GB

JP Hess

Inspiring

I don't find that to be the case at all. I can take a 6000 x 4000 pixel image and export it with the same settings as illustrated above, and have a very acceptable JPEG image. Something else is affecting the quality. What version of Lightroom is being used? What software is being used to look at the exported JPEG images?

deathbypeanuts

Participant

When you go to export, on the left-hand side there should be 'Lightroom Presets'. Use 'Burn Full-sized JPEGs' and then change 'Export To: CD/DVD' to 'Export To: Hard Drive' and you can edit the folder it will export into and the filename. You can also up the resolution to 300 pixels per inch but make sure the 'Resize to Fit' box isn't checked. I hope this helps somebody.

S

ShannonWilsey

Participant

Thank you Lauren you are so clever.

chrisparham

Participant

im having the same issue where im trying to export original RAW files that are 26,980,386 bytes with pixel dimensions of 5760 × 3840 at 300ppi, and im trying to figure out what size JPG (hint: longest side pixels and PPi/DPI needed) to send via email, posted to Facebook or save on an online/cloud back-up site like Dropbox or Photoshelter. any ideas and would they be three different sizes or one size for all three? thx

D

dj_paige

Legend

chrisparham wrote:
im having the same issue where im trying to export original RAW files that are 26,980,386 bytes with pixel dimensions of 5760 × 3840 at 300ppi, and im trying to figure out what size JPG (hint: longest side pixels and PPi/DPI needed) to send via email, posted to Facebook or save on an online/cloud back-up site like Dropbox or Photoshelter. any ideas and would they be three different sizes or one size for all three? thx

Backup would require the original — the RAW, not the JPG. In my opinion, there's no reason to back up RAW originals with JPGs.

For e-mail, you want small image, such as setting the long side to 1200 pixels. For Facebook, I believe there's really no benefit to uploading huge images, I would say the long side would be 2048 pixels or less. Experiment, see what works well. The PPI is irrelevant, it makes no difference in this situation.

Note: next time, you might want to start a different thread, since the topic of your question is not that the exports appear to be too small, which is the topic of this thread.

chrisparham

Participant

Thank you very much and my apologies.

Sent from my iPhone

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