HDR merge lowered MP of photo

[Ken Swenson]

Hi everyone,  first post here. I cont see to figure out what I did wrong but after doing a HDR merge of 3 photos the MP went from about 20mp (5568x3712) to 4mp(2542x1695). I did this on my windows computer but took screen shots of the file data on my phone. Please see attached pictures with the photo data on them. If anything I would think stacking photos into a HDR merge would create a higher quality photo not a lower quality one....  thanks for the help!

[JP Hess]

Never mind. Reconsidered my answer, and withdrew it. I wish this Forum had an option to delete messages, but it doesn't.

[Ken Swenson]

Thankfully I was able to see your response before you removed it. I did not know about the upscaling option. So that was still helpful too 

[Jao vdL]

The HDR file appears to be a smart preview since it has a long edge dimension of 2560 pixels which is typical for smart previews. Did you do the merge in Lightroom Classic by any chance? Classic can only upload smart previews.

[Ken Swenson]

That's for the response. I used the newer Lightroom that has the cloud backup not the classic one. But your making me wonder if I did the merge on my laptop or desktop....  I believe they are supposed to synchronize with the cloud version I'm using so I don't know if that would make a difference or not. I do know I loaded the original photos on the laptop while I was traveling, but I'm not sure if I did the HDR merge while traveling or after I got home. 

[Jao vdL · Accepted solution]

Ah. Yeah it probably merged the smart previews instead of the full raw files. I would try again making sure the full raw has been downloaded.

[Ken Swenson]

Jao, I believe you are correct. I pulled my laptop and made a new HDR merge and now I have 5532x3688. Reading online Lightroom is not supper to be able to made a HDR from a smart preview but somehow mine did. Pretty sure I was making edits on the flight home from Maui killing time on the flight. I figured the full files were on the computer so it would have automatically used them but I guess not...  thanks again for the quick help. 

[Jao vdL]

Thisn exact thing has happened to me when I had no internet connection so I recognized the situation. Glad it works correct now.