Last Updated on 09/20/2016 by Anthony Thurston
If you are reading the title to this post and checking the date then you are not alone. Adobe today announced the latest version of Lightroom CC and within that update one of the biggest features was the addition of Smart Preview functionality.
Now Smart Previews have been a part of Lightroom for some time now as a way to speed up the workflow of Adobe’s connected versions of Lightroom when editing images without the original RAW files being available. Funny enough, if you made Smart Previews and enabled them, but the original RAW files were available, then Lightroom would not make use of the Smart Previews. Thus giving you no performance benefits – part of the new update today is removing that silly limitation, allowing the program to use Smart Previews by default, regardless of the status of the RAW files and the result is a much faster overall experience in Lightroom.
To enable the ‘new’ Smart Preview performance boost functionality you can open your Lightroom Preferences and go to the performance tab. Then simply click the Smart Previews checkbox and then restart Lightroom – and you are good to go. If you don’t already make Smart Previews of your images you will need to do so before you see any advantage here, but if you have already been making them, then you should see a boost right off the bat.
The updates to Lightroom don’t end there though, with Adobe also adding the ability to submit your images to Adobe Stock directly from Lightroom making the process of selling your images through the stock image service that much easier. For those who have wanted to sell images to stock but never wanted to jump through the hoops, this could be a great wy to do so directly from Lightroom – eliminating almost all hassle.
For more information on the full Lightroom CC software update you can head on over to Adobe’s website for the details, here.