So can I not export from Lightroom?

EphTwoEight · February 24, 2013

Aperture was so much easier. But I can't make it work with LR 4

Thanks

tomnovy · February 24, 2013

Hi there,

We have a great instruction article on our help page on how to upload from Lightroom to SmugMug - please check it out:

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93281-how-do-i-upload-from-lightroom-

Take care,

Tom
SmugMug Support Hero

EphTwoEight · February 24, 2013

Cool thanks!

EphTwoEight · February 24, 2013

Why is it so miserably sloooow?

mbonocore · February 25, 2013

EphTwoEight wrote: »

Why is it so miserably sloooow?

Hi,

The upload speed is based on a number of factors, but the LR plug in upload should be the same speed as a web upload.

Michael

EntropicTendencies · February 25, 2013

The in-depth answer:

Lightroom upload performance is driven by a number of factors.

When publishing from Lightroom, a temporary JPEG copy of your image is rendered prior to upload - the rendering time is driven by your local system performance (CPU, memory and disk).

The time then taken to upload the image is then a factor of the file size and your local upload bandwidth.

The rendering of the JPEGs and the upload run as two separate tasks (the rendering task feeding the upload queue), so the rendering and upload happen in parallel. The total time isn't simply render time + upload time (it's probably closest to the longest of the two times plus a little bit extra)

To understand the contribution of the rendering time, you can perform and time a sample export/publish of the same set of images to disk (using the same JPEG settings).

Your upload bandwidth is a fixed bottleneck (though it is sometimes worth testing with a wired rather than wireless connection to your Internet router).

What you can influence is the size of the files you upload. The size of a JPEG file is driven by three main factors: the image content, the image dimensions and the output quality settings.

The dimensions of the image will constrain the maximum size that we can print. We list our recommended minimum dimensions at this page: http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93359-resolution-for-printing

We generally recommend that you upload images at their original dimensions, but to reduce upload times we can offer a couple of suggestions:

Reduce the JPEG quality setting - 70 - 80 should be adequate. (In my opinion if you can see the difference between anything over 70% you are looking too closely).

Upload reduced size images (with a lower JPEG quality setting) for client selection and then use the proof delay on the order to replace any purchased images prior to printing. This also allows you to optimize your workflow by only performing your full quality edit/retouch on images that are sold.
However, you can't reduce the images dimensions too much - if your original images are too small then that will limit the available sizes to your customers (even if you plan to replace the images during proof delay).

As an example (I use Lightroom), a 21MP image is an 10.4MB JPEG at a quality setting of 100%, 6.1MB at 90% and 3.5MB at 80% Taking it a little bit further, I get 2.3MB at 70% and 1.6MB at 65%. Limiting that same image to a maximum dimension of 1900 pixels and setting JPEG quality to 60 generates a 220kb file - that's big enough to fill most screens at 1:1 and the quality is fine for on-screen viewing. I would not hesitate to print the 2.33MB/70% JPEG at 20x16".

For me, it takes roughly 5-10 seconds to render an image. If upload bandwidth is a nice round 1Mbit/s then a 6MB JPEG will take roughly 1 minute to upload (conservatively allowing 10s/MB).

For a single image generating a 6MB JPEG, that suggests that it will take roughly 1m10s. For a 60 images that means that Lightroom grinds your system for 5 - 10 minutes, but then starts uploading after the first JPEG is available - the upload time of an hour dominates.

Experimenting with a local export/publish to disk is a good way to see the effect of the different settings. Not only will you see how long LR takes to render your images, but you can see the file sizes and view them make your own decision on the quality settings.

Barrie
Smugmug Support Hero

EphTwoEight · February 25, 2013

Ah, excellent!! Thanks!

mbonocore · February 25, 2013

Thanks for the detailed breakdown Barrie!

BradfordBenn · February 26, 2013

Also something to be aware of, Lightroom does not purge its "scratch" JPG's until the program is quit (as least that it what happens on my Mac). So all those upload JPG's will be sitting in your scratch disk. If your local disk hosts both your originals and your scratch disk (which you can't change) and is a slower drive. That will add to the slowness. I have found that doing batches as I go is the fastest way as I do all my keywording and gallery organization in Lightroom that is then mirrored on my SmugMug site. I have found that the "slowness" of uploading is more than made up by the speed of managing galleries, keywords, and pictures in Lightroom.

EntropicTendencies · February 27, 2013

Hi Bradford,

The temporary storage location can be problematic - it's not something we can currently change.

If you don't need to re-publish updated images then it is possible to tell the plugin to only update the online meta-data when re-publoshing (that's clever until you're left scratching your head wondering why your edit updates aren't publishing).

Barrie
Smugmug Support Hero

So can I not export from Lightroom?

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