Writing Previews

[mtomalty]

Hi

Still using LR3b2 to become familiar and have a basic question concerning writing previews.


After importing  files  LR, of course, starts the process of writing each image's preview file.
What I can't figure out how to do is to have this writing process occur in the background.

As I am not set up, only the files that are immediately visible in the grid view are written
and I have to continually scroll down through the new import so that the next group is written.
This becomes a significant time waste when thousands are imported in on go.

Can't anyone point me in the direction to settings that will eliminate this need to monitor the previews being written


Thx,
Mark


www.marktomalty.com

[PeterAit]

Hi

Still using LR3b2 to become familiar and have a basic question concerning writing previews.


After importing  files  LR, of course, starts the process of writing each image's preview file.
What I can't figure out how to do is to have this writing process occur in the background.

As I am not set up, only the files that are immediately visible in the grid view are written
and I have to continually scroll down through the new import so that the next group is written.
This becomes a significant time waste when thousands are imported in on go.

Can't anyone point me in the direction to settings that will eliminate this need to monitor the previews being written

Did you use an earlier LR and not have this problem? It's automatic in LR 2.6.

Do you have a multiple core CPU? I wonder if having a single core would prevent this sort of background processing.

A work-around might be to scroll to the bottom of the import and then go get a coffee - this might start the process of generating all the previews.

[mtomalty]

Peter

The LR3 beta's are my first real serious look at Lightroom so I don't have experience with earlier versions apart from a test here and there.

I'm testing on  current 27" iMac (2.66 Intel Core i5)


Jumping to the end does not start the writing process for all  but only writes the previews for those in the grid pane at the time

Thx

Mark

[wolfnowl]

This is different but related - with LR3 Beta 2 I've had a couple of occasions where LR would start rendering previews and then 'hang' around the 2nd or 3rd.  I'd have to cancel, select all, and then tell it to render the previews again.  Posted it on the Adobe LR forum and the response was 'known bug'.

Mike.

[Victoria Bampton]

As you're new to Lightroom, let me just ask a daft question... have you actually asked it to render previews?

2 options:

1.  In the Import dialog, top right panel, you have preview rendering.  Go for Standard if you don't need to zoom in Library module on most photos, or 1:1 if you do.

2.  If they're already imported, select them all in Grid view and go to Library menu > Previews > Render Standard Previews - and then go get your coffee while it works.

[Victoria Bampton]

Brilliant, no worries Mark.  Lightroom does have its own way of thinking, for sure!

[Per Zangenberg]

I think you are talking about two different things here. Mark is talking about the thumbnail previews and not the actual preview that is shown when you open a single image.

What you are describing Mark I belive is the normal behaviour of Lightroom. It may be on purpose that it does not load all thumbnails into memory because it might put to much load on the computer if you were to show all your 40.000 images at once. So it only shows the once on screen.

Rendering previews is only for when you open a single image for larger viewing i belive. I never render previews because I find it is a waste of time because I usually go through my images in the develop modul making adjustments on-the-fly. I dont thinkt the pre-rendered previews are used in develop because it is not faster at loading an image if I pre-rendered.
You did not state how much RAM your iMac has, but 4GB is probably the absolute minimum if working with a large catalog. Also disk speed can play a factor and this is where an iMac is crippled because of the lack of RAID0.