Known Participant

Answered

Low res sync to LR Mobile

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
March 28, 2021
3 replies
2031 views

Hi,

I have a designated collection with the photos I want to share on Instagram. That collection syncs with LR Mobile and, from my phone, I share them to Instagram. No complication there. However, yesterday March 27th, noticed that several photos are pixelated after synchronization. Perfectly focused and fine in LR Classic but really bad after sync. I cannot detect a pattern. I would say it is completely random. Is this a known issue? Is it something I'm doing incorrectly? Can't share any example since I remove the pictures from the collection and deleted the posts from Instagram. Some help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

BTW, wouldn't be great if Adobe develops a plugin to post directly to Instagram from LR Classic? That would be a welcome feature I believe and I'm pretty sure it has been asked/requested before.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Jao vdL

If they are heavily cropped than this is the issue. Note that the lossy dng that gets uploaded by Classic will be 2560 pixels on the long side regardless of the resolution of the original. So if you crop about 4 times, the very maximum you can get out of the lossy dng from the file on Lightroom mobile is 640 pixels on the long edge. This while using your oginal of 61 MP, you would still have an image of 2400 pixels on the long side. The lossy dng uploads from Classic really hurt you here.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

If these are raw images that are heavily cropped that is expected. Classic only syncs low resolution lossy dng copies of raw files to the cloud as @Jim Wilde notes. The kicker is that if your image is hevaily cropped, it crops down from the low resolution in the cloud so you get terrible resolution. A similar thing happens when you have heavy edits applied. Because of the lossy compression used in the dngs, you can get very amplified compression artefacts and posterization to happen. Again, this only happens with heavily edited files which is probably why you only see it in a few images.

javierc30819081Author

Known Participant

Hi Jao!

Yes, there are RAW files but 61MP each which allowed me to crop heavily. One of the reasons I got my camera.

Anyway, my edits are not extensive, to be honest.

I guess that in order to avoid this, it will be better to stick to my newly discovered posting routine from my laptop.

THANKS!

J

Jao vdL

Correct answer

Community Expert

If they are heavily cropped than this is the issue. Note that the lossy dng that gets uploaded by Classic will be 2560 pixels on the long side regardless of the resolution of the original. So if you crop about 4 times, the very maximum you can get out of the lossy dng from the file on Lightroom mobile is 640 pixels on the long edge. This while using your oginal of 61 MP, you would still have an image of 2400 pixels on the long side. The lossy dng uploads from Classic really hurt you here.

Jim Wilde

Community Expert

Without seeing an example it's difficult to say why it's happeneing. Bear in mind that when you sync from Lr Classic, only smart previews are uploaded to the cloud. These are in lossy DNG format, and only 2560 pixels on the long edge, and it would therefore be possible that, depending on the nature of the image, some artifacts may show up when subsequently sharing based on that smart preview. There was a similar thread a few days ago which ultimately turned out to be a problem with the smart preview generation: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic/photos-show-banding-when-viewed-in-the-cloud-but-not-in-lightroom-classic/td-p/11924117

But without an example, it's not possible to say if your issue is the same.

javierc30819081Author

Known Participant

Hi Jim!

Thanks for mentioning the Smart Previews. I have my import settings to build 1:1 Smart Previews. I'm not sure if that's the case. I used to have it set as minimal.
I was able to get the photos. The small jpg is the one in the cloud sync from LR Classic. The larger file is an export made for Instagram. Hope this helps.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Smart previews during import are unrelated to the uploads to lightroom mobile. They are not the same files. In general smart previews are useless and just take up a lot of disk space except if you often edit your images in Classic while they are not available. For example if you store your images on an external disk and it is not plugged in. Otherwise, smart previews do not serve any other purpose than to take up hard disk space.

"import settings to build 1:1 Smart Previews"

There is no such thing. You probably have your import set to 1:1 previews AND to build smart previews. Smart previews are something completely different than 1:1 previews. 1:1 previews are jpeg files that are ONLY used in Library, the book module, the print module, etc. They are NOT used in Develop. They are just previews. Smart previews are low resolution pseudo raw files that can be edited as if they are raw files. They are useful if your original raw is not available. They are useless in any other circumstance.

Best thing and by far the fastest for most people upon import is to use built in previews and to not build 1:1 or smart previews.

cmgap

Community Expert

Hi Javier - that's a good workflow. Did you try deleting and readding those images that are pixelated? Is it just those last images? Same camera? There is a plugin for classic (I haven't used it in years) you might want to try: https://www.lrinstagram.com/

javierc30819081Author

Known Participant

I tried deleting those images twice! They're still showing up pixelated. As
I said, it is not consistent on all photos. Same camera. Sometimes I said
to myself it is because of the huge files. I have a Sony A7RIV. Or because
some photos I highly cropped. I use Topaz Denoise AI on some photos but
once again, it is not consistent.

I tried a workflow posting from my laptop which worked and it was the only
way those photos were posted correctly. Even though typing captions,
hashtags, etc on my phone is not efficient, I liked the LR Mobile sharing
to Instagram. Fewer steps to me made I believe.

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