Setting that embed photos so that the photo show really fast in development

[tlemaitre]

Hi!

I'm searching for a setting that I found on a youtube video and I can't remember neither in the video and in the settings. It was an old tutorial (4 or + years old) and it was about a setting that allow to navigate between the pictures really fast because the pictures didn't need to load because it was already loaded during the import. I think it was a setting during the import that makes the images embeded/integrated/loaded into the catalog so that when you are in development mode and you navigate, the images don't need to load because it was already all loaded. It was making the import really long tho because of that. 

Anyone was remember something like that? In my memory it wasn't with the feature of smart preview. Maybe I'm wrong, but if anyone know a setting that looks like what I was describing, then let met know 🙂

[Jill_C]

I believe that you're referring to Previews. This page describes the differences between the various previews available so that you can choose the best one for your workflow.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

[Conrad C · Accepted solution]

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@tlemaitre wrote:

a setting that allow to navigate between the pictures really fast because the pictures didn't need to load because it was already loaded during the import.

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Is it the Embedded and Sidecar setting in the File Handling panel of the Import dialog box?

That is the setting I use. It is fast, because Lightroom Classic doesn’t have to render anything: It simply shows the preview that was embedded in each raw file by the camera. It can skip the entire process of rendering previews on import; it only has to fetch the previews that are already there.

Two things to remember about the Embedded and Sidecar setting:

• The quality and pixel dimensions of the previews are controlled by preview settings in the camera, because Lightroom Classic is not doing anything except taking the preview created by the camera. 
• The embedded preview stops being used when you make any visual edit to the image. This is because the preview is how the camera rendered it, but Lightroom Classic has its own different rendering engine, so any Lightroom Classic visual edit replaces the embedded preview with one that it renders, to show how it looks with current Lightroom Classic edits. 

After you edit a raw file with Lightroom Classic, the size and quality of the previews is controlled by the File Handling tab in Catalog Settings. In there, you can have Lightroom Classics create previews that are faster to render, by setting them to smaller pixel dimensions or lower quality.

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@tlemaitre wrote:

In my memory it wasn't with the feature of smart preview. Maybe I'm wrong

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Smart previews don’t make an import take less time because they still have to be rendered.

Smart previews can make it faster to load each image in the Develop module. But that is still different than standard previews, which are used to load images when going from image to image in the other modules, especially Library. Yes, it is a little confusing.

[tlemaitre]

I'm not 100% sure but I think it was the Embedded and Sidecar setting. It just bother me that the picture I see is not the standard one so if I want to edit it I need to build a preview from lightroom.

Thank you!

[SeanMcCormack]

I did a video on this when the feature was introduced. I generally don't post videos I've done, but this seems really specific to your needs. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D6SR4Z23xk

[Jao vdL]

>so that when you are in development mode and you navigate

Do note that the embedded/sidecar preview option does NOT speed up loading of the images in Develop. Develop always has to load from the raw data. Embedded and sidecar massively speeds up initial import and browsing of images in the library module but not in Develop. The color shift when going from Library browsing to Develop if you embedded and sidecar enabled can be minimized by setting the default develop settings for your camera to Camera Settings. Lightroom will try to emulate the develop settings you set in camera and the display in Develop will be fairly close to the jpeg preview. This is true for at least most major camera brands (Canon, Nikon, and Sony basically) for which Lightroom has camera matching profiles built in.

If you want to speed up loading in Develop, the only option is to develop using smart previews (preference in Preferences->Performance). This does not help much in practice as you first have to generate the smart previews which takes a while and you can only edit a low resolution version of the image. After they are generated loading in Develop is faster though.