Smart previews and optimizing cat.

[John_Ufford]

I'm looking to understand what happens to smart previews when you optimize your LR catalog. I was doing some reading and it seems that if I delete an image that has a smart preview associated with it the smart preview isn't deleted until I optimize my catalog. Is this correct? I have the same question about 1:1 regular previews.

I currently have one massive catalog I've been using for years. I think it's time to start a new one, but I'd like to still have access to the old images with out having to have the original files local.  I'm hoping to just build 1:1 and smart previews for all of them, remove the originals to long term storage (with a copy of the catalog of course heh) Move the catalog and previews to another drive and then start my new catalog. I'm just concerned that if I run "optimize catalog" on my old catalog LR might try to clean up my previews when it doesn't see the originals connected.

Any advice about my question or input on what I'm trying to do would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

John 

[dj_paige]

What is it you hope to achieve by performing this work?

Why the concern about optimizing your catalog? Usually it goes with "Lightroom is slow", but moving photos to some non-local storage won't fix slowness.

[John_Ufford]

Over all what i'm hoping to achieve is some performance boost and moving files from $$$ drives to less expensive drives for storage. I currently have 97442 files in my catalog and it's taking about 1.25 TB of harddrive space. Since I already use the edit smart previews option I realize I shouldn't receive much of a boost there, but I would think just a smaller Catalog would just run smoother. My current lrcat is 1.78 gigs. Thanks

[dj_paige]

John.Ufford  wrote

Over all what i'm hoping to achieve is some performance boost and moving files from $$$ drives to less expensive drives for storage. I currently have 97442 files in my catalog and it's taking about 1.25 TB of harddrive space. Since I already use the edit smart previews option I realize I shouldn't receive much of a boost there, but I would think just a smaller Catalog would just run smoother. My current lrcat is 1.78 gigs. Thanks

Size of catalog will not improve the performance of Lightroom. You are heading down the wrong path.

If you would state what specific actions in Lightroom are slow, we can possibly advise on how to improve the performance.

[JP Hess]

How big of a catalog are we talking about? I seriously doubt you will see any benefit in starting a new one. If you optimize the catalog whenever a backup is created you should be fine. Splitting up your catalog isn't really a very good idea, in my opinion.

[John_Ufford]

Jim see above comment.

97442 files

1.25TB

1.78 ircat file

Yah I really do see the benefit of just have one large catalog, but besides what I said in the other post about HDD space and performance I would just feel better if I could break it up so if there was some kind of catastrophic failure  in my backup plan there would be less of a chance of loosing EVERYTHING.

Thanks

[John_Ufford]

I suppose I'm also thinking of the smart previews and the 1:1 as a.. mini backup? I can copy them and the cat. to another external drive and have that as another backup.

[JP Hess]

Well, the 1:1 previews won't do you any good without the master files to associate with them. This smart previews can be used with the catalog without the master files attached, and any adjustments will be applied to the master files when they are next connected. I don't know. You'll have to experiment and see what works best for you. But if you are doing a good catalog backup on a regular basis as well as backing up your images with a good routine you should be covered.

[John_Ufford]

When you say "the 1:1 previews won't do you any good without the master files to associate with them" what do you mean? I thought the library module used those previews for browsing? I'm thinking to generate 1:1 for the library module because I'm not sure they would generate off of the smart previews and if they did it would be the same quality. Plus I read about a script to pull out the previews if need be (Script to extract previews of lost or deleted photos ). *I'm not sure which type of preview actually holds the most information* Say for instance exporting from smart previews or a full 1:1 preview.

[JP Hess]

I don't use 1:1 previews because they can cause your catalog to grow rather quickly. If you're going to use them you'll probably want to configure the catalog to discard them periodically. Otherwise, the catalog size can really get out of hand. Previews aren't designed to be used as a mini backup. They are there to expedite previews. Using smart previews even when the master files are connected is a much better way to preview your images and let Lightroom create standard or 1:1 previews as needed when you zoom in on images. I think you've got the wrong concept on utilizing preview images.

[John_Ufford]

The mini backup was just a plus, and in no was was going to be a main reason for doing this. I think I may have been misunderstood, Since I'm looking to remove the master files permanently to long term backup I would think I should build 1:1 because LR won't be able to generate them unless it can from the Smart previews, which I'm not sure if it can. But I will look into that shortly, it would save a lot of space.

John

[John_Ufford]

I think I should rephrase my initial question a bit. I'm needing to know about any issues with using a catalog with only smart previews. Does optimizing the catalog create any problems? (not that I would be doing that much, but it could happen if I made a backup or something). Or is there any other known things that might remove a smart preview besides me manually discarding them.

Thanks again

John