- [Instructor] Lightroom Classic uses preview files
so that you can see the images that have been imported,
and there are four different types of previews
offered during the import
plus there's an option to generate smart previews.
Let's import some more images and check these out.
I'll click on the import button
in the lower left corner here
and then on the external photos drive,
I want to open the chapter 2_02_05 lesson folder,
and we'll see a folder for Italy,
inside of there, we have a couple more folders here,
so I'll select Pompei and then confirm at the top
that we are adding these images,
not copying or moving them.
And then over to the right hand side here
under file handling, we have build previews
and by default, this is set to standard.
If you click on standard, you'll find the other three.
There's minimal, embedded & sidecar, the standard
and then the one-to-one.
Standard is the default preview and the one I use most,
but these others have benefits too.
Let's take a look at what those are for.
Minimal, this is the smallest preview possible.
It saves space and makes for a fast import,
but the previews aren't very high quality and later
when you want to get a closer look at an image,
Lightroom has to create a larger preview.
But this could slow you down while you're working
so I don't recommend it.
Let's choose the next one, embedded & sidecar.
Remember if you're importing your own photos,
you should be adding keywords too,
but I'll skip that here for time and go ahead
and click the import button.
Most digital cameras save an embedded JPEG preview
in the raw file when the photo is captured
and saved to the memory card.
Importing with the embedded & sidecar option
uses the camera preview JPEG instead of Lightroom having
to generate one during the import.
These embedded previews reflect any filters or effects
that might have been applied in camera,
so the images imported with this preview may look
quite a bit different than the previews
you get with the standard.
I'll go ahead and make the thumbnails a little bit bigger
so we can see that.
The colors look a little bit different here
and also notice in the upper left hand corner,
there's an icon, these two arrows
that tells us that these are using
the embedded camera profile.
Eventually, Lightroom needs to replace this embedded preview
with a higher quality one, and that could slow you down
at a later time.
In Lightroom's preferences, you can choose to replace these
embedded previews with standard previews during idle time
so let me show you where that is.
I'm going to go up the Lightroom Classic menu.
If you are on a Windows machine,
you'll go to the edit menu and then come down
to the preferences.
And in the preferences, we want to make sure we're on the
general tab and under import options at the bottom,
it says replace embedded previews
with standard previews during idle time.
So if you use that preview option, embedded & sidecar,
make sure to turn that preference on.
Okay, let's go back and do another import.
We'll click on import.
We'll choose the Venice folder this time,
and then notice that it remembers the last preview choice.
So let's click on this again
and talk about the standard previews.
This is the default.
The preview is generated to match your monitor resolution.
The import process could take a little bit longer
than these first two minimal or embedded & sidecar,
but the benefit is that in general,
the library module should run much faster.
The only problem with standard previews
is that they are not designed for zooming into your photos.
So when you zoom in, Lightroom has to build
a one-to-one preview and there could be a delay
in a library module,
depending on the speed of your computer.
So if that's a problem, you can choose the one-to-one.
So let's import these with the one-to-one.
The one-to-one is the best quality preview,
but it can slow down the import process.
They also take up a lot of hard drive space.
Lightroom handles that by automatically discarding
one-to-one previews after a set amount of time.
We can also turn on build smart previews.
So let's turn that on by checking this
and then talk about what build smart previews does.
A smart preview measures 25 40 pixels
along the longest edge, and can be used
in the develop module.
With smart previews, you can edit photos that are offline,
or not connected to your computer
and this is convenient if you travel with a laptop,
but you keep your photos on an external hard drive.
So let's go ahead and import these images from Venice
with a one-to-one preview and build smart previews.
It tells us that the smart previews were built
for the three photos so I'll click OK.
And if we look under the histogram here
in the upper right hand corner,
it tells us that the image that is selected
has a smart preview.
So let's review the benefits of
the different preview options.
If you are importing a large amount of photos
and it's taking too long,
change the preview option to minimal
or embedded & sidecar.
If you and your images in the library module
is slowing you down and you are concerned
about the preview file sizes, then use
the one-to-one preview option.
And if you need to edit photos that are offline,
create smart previews during the import.
You can do that regardless of which
of the other preview options you choose.
In all other cases, leave the preview import option
to the default standard setting.