1 Reply Latest reply: Jul 27, 2011 1:47 PM by thedigitaldog RSS

    Standard VS 1 to 1 Previews - and 1400, 1600, 2800 pixels for Preview

    suzzie12 Community Member

      Have LR 3.4.1 on XP

       

      Need conceptual guidance on what to best choose for previews.

       

      I have 600 raw images in a photoshoot.

       

      I want to import them and then be able to see them in Library

       

      Problem is:  When I go to look at an image...it takes 10-12 seconds for it to come into focus for me.  It says loading.

       

      I tried to do standard previews...then I thought id try 1 to 1 previews...but both are still slow.

       

      Then I saw in preferences where I can do 1000, 1440, 1680 or 2800 pixel previews?  What do I pick?

       

      I want to examine my images full size pretty quick without having to wait, wait, and wait for my focus to come in.

       

      I thought that taking the time up front to render them 1 to 1 would be a big help.

       

      Now heres the biggie...dont automatically grab this as an easy answer...im using an external  western digital 1TB USB drive to store my images on.

       

      The catalogue is on MY 10,000rpm fast C: drive (are the previews there?  or can I make them go there with the catalogue?)

       

      Can someone conceptually help me to understand which way to import and set up preview settings so I get nice fast views of my images without waiting for 12 seconds...or having to put all my shoots on my C: drive.  I want to store all my files on an external drive. its a 20mb sec speed drive.

       

      Thanks

       

      Suzzie

        • 1. Re: Standard VS 1 to 1 Previews - and 1400, 1600, 2800 pixels for Preview
          thedigitaldog CommunityMVP

          There are various places in the application where previews come up so its necessary to understand the role. You have options for the Standard Size previews as you have discovered. They are used to view the images in the modules based somewhat on the size of your display and how large they would thus appear ‘zoomed out’ (not 1:1, we’ll come to that in a moment). If all you want is standard-sized then choose a size equal to or just slightly less than your screen size. Lightroom will build the smaller versions at the same time. These previews  are used for the thumbnail, 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4 zoom levels. These previews are known as the "preview pyramid" by Adobe due to the group of preview sizes built. I run my 30” display at 2560x1600 so I have my preferences set for 2048.

           

          Now in Develop, when you want to view at 1:1 (or greater), LR has to build a different, high quality preview, that takes some time. I suspect this is the delay you are referring to. But these previews are different from the previews used above. The previews once built actually populate the ACR cache so you may want to look at the preferences here and decide if you want to store more of these pre-previews if I can make up a term, so that when you revisit Develop, the previews load much faster.

           

          Of course, you can decide upon import what to do in terms of building the previews. You can pay me now or pay me later. If you want to build the 1:1 on import and walk away, while you edit those images later, everything will be much faster. As you delete images, you are deleting (eventually) preview data you didn’t have to build but then its usually easier to see what images to throw away when you can clearly see them. That’s why I take the speed hit on import, take a coffee break then come back and edit without having to wait too long for the previews to load (its still not instantanious but its much, much faster to build the big previews first).