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Why does the process of printing in LR sometime convert Raw photos to thumbnails?

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dexterpeacock41

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Jan 10, 2021
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Lightroom Version Number
LR Classic
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.15 Catalina
I have a mystery to ask about. I have noticed over the years that when I print a photo in LR, it occasionally either turns up missing or degraded. Yesterday, I printed a JPEG photo with plenty of pixels. I didn't note the size, but I have the printed photo in front of me and it has high resolution. Today, I decided to tweak the editing. When I called up the photo back out of my Collections, it came up 640x420 pixels--a thumbnail. It has been converted in my external harddrive and backup into a thumbnail too, along with all the other photos in its series. Has anyone else ever experienced this? What the hell is happening? This is a real problem because, obviously, I only print my best shots. Dexter Peacock
 
I have never heard of this happening, and as Lightroom does not change original images, I find it hard to believe that Lightroom would do this. More likely it is the result of you using another app as well with these images. Do you perhaps use iCloud Photos?
 
I have never heard of this happening, and as Lightroom does not change original images, I find it hard to believe that Lightroom would do this. More likely it is the result of you using another app as well with these images. Do you perhaps use iCloud Photos?
I have never heard of this happening, and as Lightroom does not change original images, I find it hard to believe that Lightroom would do this. More likely it is the result of you using another app as well with these images. Do you perhaps use iCloud Photos?
 
Apparently, I do. But not intentionally. It does not have nearly enough room for my catalog. But I get the messages sometimes that photos are going to iCloud photos; I have not tried to understand it because it doesn't fit my needs. It just seems to happen.
 
When I called up the photo back out of my Collections, it came up 640x420 pixels--a thumbnail.
As Johan states, one of the main features of LightRoom, as opposed to other tools like PhotoShop, does not make changes directly to the file. Some thoughts:
  • You didn't by chance select 'Print to File' rather than 'Printer' which may have overwritten the file?
  • Check the History of the image to review what was done to it. Were there any Exports that may have created the problem?
  • I take it are not using any other applications other than LR to modify your pictures.
 
Apparently, I do. But not intentionally. It does not have nearly enough room for my catalog. But I get the messages sometimes that photos are going to iCloud photos; I have not tried to understand it because it doesn't fit my needs. It just seems to happen.
That must be the problem. iCloud Photos can offload images from your hard disk if you run out of disk space. The originals will be stored online, and your hard disk will only contain thumbnails. That is apparently what has happened here.
 
Interesting, and unexpected. I would not have thought that Apple would do something like that without some sort of warning, but perhaps that "warning" was the message Dexter referred to.
 
Interesting, and unexpected. I would not have thought that Apple would do something like that without some sort of warning, but perhaps that "warning" was the message Dexter referred to.
Several version of iOS, this was introduced as a feature. I believe that you can change this default in preferences. I no longer use the Photos app or stored any images in iCloud since everything is stored in the Adobe Cloud .
 
Interesting, and unexpected. I would not have thought that Apple would do something like that without some sort of warning, but perhaps that "warning" was the message Dexter referred to.
You've turned that option on yourself...
 
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