Lightroom Smart Previews – Love at First Sight
Lightroom Smart Previews are a killer *new* way to upload your images to us! They cut your upload time by about 90% and much easier to work with than XMP files! Follow the instructions below to upload them to us:
What Are Smart Previews?
Smart Previews are compressed RAW files that are 5%-10% of the original filesize. Does this mean they effect the quality of the editing? Nope!! When we send you back the Lightroom Catalog with our edits, it uses the uncompressed RAW images on your end. There is NO quality loss!
Smart Previews Workflow
- Create a new catalog. I would suggest the Order Number as a name.
- Import only the images you are sending us into the catalog.
- Select all of the images, and click Library>Previews>Build Smart Previews
- Browse to where the Lightroom Catalog is. Zip up both the ‘lrcat’ and the ‘Smart Previews.lrdata’ (NOT the Previews.lrdata) files.
- Upload the zip file to us.
Receiving back an edited Lightroom Catalog
This part is soooo simple! Just open up the Lightroom Catalog we sent back! It will automatically link up to the RAW files on your computer, no other work necessary! :D