Exporting low quality

Report · Oct 24, 2022

Hello everyone.

I have a folder in my lightroom CC (Cloud) from 2 years ago. 2 years ago I exported the photos as JPG to my dropbox, and they were all about 11, 12MB. Today I am exporting the exact same photos, and they are all around 3 to 4MB.

2 years ago vs today in my dropbox:

I have tried reproducing the same thing on my mac, web lightroom, iphone and ipad, and all the same results.

I'm using Lighroom CC 8.0.0, on my iPad with iPadOS 15.7.

I also changed the export settings on Lightroom to always export 100%.

Here are some details of the original file:

Does anyone has any idea why is this happening and how to fix it?

Report · Oct 24, 2022

Can you confirm the display resolution of the file output when you choose "Largest Available Dimension?" If it's 2560px or maybe even just 2048px, this would indicate the file was uploaded originally by Lightroom Classic. If so, Lightroom Classic only uploads images as these 2560px "smart previews" and never the original images or full res copies, so you wouldn't be able to export such images at full res.

If you import and sync images using the other cloud-centric Lightroom desktop app, or via Lightroom Mobile, originals are always uploaded to cloud storage, and available to export at full res when using "Largest Available Dimension."

To see if this is the case for one of your affected images, open the image in edit or info view, and tap on the cloud icon. Does it say something like "Local - Smart Preview?"

And is "Get this original" also offered? If so, tap that.

...Are you now able to export the full resolution of your image? If so, and you want this as your default behavior, go into Lightroom's app settings, and in Cloud Storage & Sync, turn off "Only download smart previews"

Report · Oct 24, 2022

Thanks for the quick and detailed reply, Charlis.

I only used Lightroom CC, so the casd with the Classic import is not my case.

I do have the settings to only download smarr previews turned ON, and indeed the photo was a local preview. I did what you said, to download the full image localy, but it didn't work.

Before:

After:

Comparison from both exports, before and after downloading localy.

And I checked the dimensions of the photo exported on my iPhone just in case and it seems the size it should be:

still wondering what could it be causing it.. any other clue?

Report · Nov 12, 2022

I have looked for history on this but haven't found anything conclusive. You are seeing the same result across all current apps, because Lightroom relies on the same Adobe Camera Raw technology on each platform. My own checks show me expected quality at various settings I have tried. To me, this appears to be an optimization (or fix) of JPG encoding relative to the larger file sizes you previously saw.

Camera Raw has its own forum if you have additional questions about your image export size or quality: https://community.adobe.com/t5/camera-raw/ct-p/ct-camera-raw