Can Lightroom show the camera’s embedded JPEG thumbnail from a RAW file?
Asked 11/3/2013
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2 answers
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When Lightroom imports RAW files, it first shows the camera-generated embedded preview, then replaces it with Lightroom’s own RAW rendering. Sometimes I prefer the in-camera preview and want to use it as a visual reference. Is there a way to view the original embedded JPEG thumbnail again after Lightroom has finished processing the RAW file?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
2
In absence of another answer, after a couple of days:
As was pointed out in Can I save the JPEG preview image that's generated in-camera when I shoot in RAW-only mode?, dcraw can extract the thumbnail. However, finding the raw file, running dcraw in a command window, and opening up the jpg it produces is a tedious process, so I made a little lightroom plugin to do all that automatically.
Originally by user23026. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user23026
12y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Not directly in Lightroom’s normal RAW preview. What you see first is typically the embedded JPEG preview from the camera, and Lightroom later replaces it with its own rendering of the RAW data.
If you want to view the camera’s original thumbnail again, you can extract that embedded JPEG from the RAW file. One way mentioned by the community is using dcraw to pull out the preview image. There’s also a Lightroom plugin created specifically to automate this process and show the camera thumbnail without manually running dcraw each time.
So the short answer is: Lightroom doesn’t normally keep displaying the camera preview once it has rendered the RAW, but you can extract/view that embedded JPEG as a reference using an external tool or plugin.
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