Are Lightroom 5 Smart Previews useful if you never edit offline?
Asked 4/11/2014
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Lightroom 5 introduced Smart Previews for offline editing when the original files are unavailable. If I always edit with my originals connected, do Smart Previews still offer any benefit? After upgrading from Lightroom 4.4 to 5.3, the Smart Preview data is taking up a lot of disk space, so I want to know whether they are worth keeping.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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Smart Previews surfaced for one primary reason: RAW file size.
Smart Previews are essentially small RAW files, re-sizing the RAW file down to a copy with 2048px max width. Keeping full sized RAW files on a server is impractical due to their large size, but there are other local advantages, too.
Each time you make an edit in LR, it has to "consult" the original RAW file and generate a new JPEG preview. If you keep your RAW files on a HDD, and your library on a SSD, it's spooling up that HDD each time you make an adjustment. This use of energy is increased if your RAW files are external, on a NAS, or in the cloud. This small size allows quicker updates as it "consults" the smaller RAW file, which, due to their smaller size, Adobe is hoping is more local.
This means that you have a good gain from using these files locally, even if you're always connected to your RAW files. More efficient preview updates means better performance. The only time this is not true, is if you keep your Lr library and RAW files in the same location. Lr will then consult the original RAW and you are wasting space with the Smart Previews.
This opened the gates for Adobe to take your RAW files into the cloud, put RAW files on tablets, etc. These are the benefits that Adobe is pushing since these are the benefits that bring in more $$ by selling subscription based Creative Cloud.
Originally by user10283. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user10283
12y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—Smart Previews can still be useful even if you never intentionally work offline.
They are smaller proxy versions of your RAW files (up to about 2048 px on the long side), so Lightroom can use them for editing work more efficiently than constantly reading large original RAW files. This can help responsiveness, especially if your originals live on a slower hard drive, external drive, network storage, or cloud-backed location. It may also reduce drive spin-up and disk activity.
They’re particularly handy if your catalog is on a fast local SSD while the originals are stored elsewhere. In that setup, edits and preview updates can feel smoother.
They also support Lightroom mobile workflows, so if you plan to use that, Smart Previews are useful.
If your originals are always connected on fast local storage and you don’t use mobile or remote/offline workflows, the benefit may be small relative to the extra storage they consume. In that case, you may decide they’re not worth keeping for every image.
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