Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: Can I change the cell color on the filmstrip in Lightroom Classic to make selected images more visible than the rest of the cells?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Assigning color labels to all images on the filmstrip can help make selected images stand out better, although this is obviously not ideal if you use color labels for specific purposes in Lightroom Classic. You may also find it helpful to increase the thumbnail size on the filmstrip by enlarging the bottom panel.

More Detail: Lightroom Classic provides only a few options for changing the appearance of the interface in terms of contrast. For example, you can change the background color that surrounds the image in the loupe view. You cannot, however, adjust the default cell color in the grid view or filmstrip. In particular, this can create a problem where it isn’t especially easy to tell the difference between the active image and other selected images when you have more than one image selected.

Temporarily assigning a color label to all images you’re working with can make it easier to see the difference between selected and non-selected images. This is in large part because if you have the option enabled to tint the cell color for thumbnails with the color label that is assigned, that tint becomes a smaller frame when an image is selected. This helps selected images stand out better, but unfortunately it doesn’t help distinguish between selected images and the active image among those that are selected.

I also find that it helps a little to enlarge the thumbnails in the grid view or on the filmstrip. This doesn’t actually enhance contrast, but in my experience it does make it a little easier to see which images are selected. You can enlarge thumbnails in the grid view by dragging the Thumbnails slider to the right on the toolbar below the image preview area. For the filmstrip you can enlarge the thumbnails by enlarging the bottom panel, which you can resize by dragging the top edge of the panel up or down.

Today’s Question: I made a collection of the best photos from a trip and included some videos in the collection. When I enable synchronization for the collection everything syncs except the videos. What’s going on?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Synchronization to the cloud from Lightroom Classic only supports still photos, not videos. Videos can synchronize from the cloud to Lightroom Classic, but not the other way around.

More Detail: While you can use Lightroom Classic to manage and even edit videos, you can’t synchronize videos to the cloud from Lightroom Classic. If you enable synchronization for a collection that includes both photos and videos, only the photos will be synchronized to the cloud.

If you add videos to Lightroom cloud storage through other means, such as by importing a video into the Lightroom app on a mobile device, that video will be downloaded into your Lightroom Classic catalog just like photos do. So, the issue with videos not uploading to the cloud is purely a limitation of Lightroom Classic.

I suspect part of the reason Lightroom Classic doesn’t synchronize videos to cloud storage is to avoid the issue of videos quickly consuming the available storage in your Creative Cloud plan. However, since video is supported in Lightroom cloud storage, I’m hopeful that Adobe will remove this limitation and allow videos to synchronize to the cloud via collections in Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: We use our Nikon set to the Adobe RGB color space for real estate photography. Sometimes in tight spaces we use the iPhone 17 Pro, but the colors rendered are so different. Is there a way to correct or balance the two in Lightroom or Photoshop? Do you know the color space that the iPhone shoots in?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The difference in colors most likely relates to the in-camera processing done by your smartphone, rather than the color space being used. You would need to adjust the camera captures (whether with camera settings or post-capture processing) to get closer to the smartphone captures with your regular camera.

More Detail: The iPhone uses the P3 wide-gamut color space by default, which is relatively close to the Adobe RGB color space. P3 covers a bit more in the reds and oranges, while Adobe RGB has better coverage of the greens and cyans, but the color spaces are pretty similar in overall capability. This is therefore not likely to cause any issues in comparing images from an iPhone versus Nikon camera, for example.

The real issue is that the iPhone is performing in-camera processing. That includes some processing even if you’re using the ProRAW format for capturing images on your iPhone. This causes the images to generally look better than raw captures from a normal camera, for example.

If you were willing to shoot in JPEG on your regular camera (which is not something I recommend) you could also take advantage of in-camera processing to get photos that are a closer match to the iPhone right out of the camera. However, I recommend taking advantage of raw capture, which in turn means you’ll need to perform adjustments after the fact to get the raw captures looking closer to the iPhone captures.

You could, of course, use a preset in Lightroom Classic (or in Camera Raw) to batch process your raw captures from the regular camera to more closely match the iPhone captures. As a starting point, for example, I would recommend a moderately high boost in Clarity (perhaps around +20 or so) and Vibrance (around +25 or so) to enhance overall contrast and color. But you can apply additional adjustments as part of a preset to get these images closer in appearance to what you get with your iPhone.

Today’s Question: Would the adjustments demonstrated in this tutorial [“Advanced Color Adjustments”] hold up for most image contests or will it cause image to be rejected?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In my experience applying advanced color adjustments, such as refining the appearance of individual colors in an image would not cause an image to be disqualified from most photo contests, as long as the color of an object was not completely changed from the original color.

More Detail: While the rules for individual photo contests can vary widely, limitations are generally focused on ensuring the veracity of the contents of an image. For example, there are often limitations on completely removing objects from an image or changing key details about an object such as the overall color.

In my recent presentation on “Advanced Color Adjustments” as part of the GreyLearning Ultimate Live Learning series, I shared presentations that enable you to fine-tune the color in a targeted way, based on either the underlying color or tonality of areas of a photo. For example, you can shift the color of the sky to make it appear a little more cobalt blue rather than cyan.

In my experience these types of more sophisticated color adjustments do not violate the rules of most photo contests, as long as the adjustments are refining the colors rather than completely changing the colors of an object in the photo. I’m sure, however, that there are some exceptions with some photo contests. And, of course, there are also photo contests that take more of an “anything goes” approach, although these tend to be in a creative category where, for example, even a composite image might meet the rules of the contest.

The key, of course, is to make sure you’re familiar with the rules of a photo contest before submitting an image, to ensure you remove adjustments that might violate the rules. But again, in most cases the rules for photo contests forbid completely removing or replacing an object in the image, and are generally less strict about more general targeted adjustments that refine (rather than completely change) the appearance of colors in a photo.

Today’s Question: When I use the “Go to Folder in Library” command on one of the images that appears as a downloaded Smart Preview, it takes me to the Imported Photos folder. How do I confirm that I have the original source image other than doing a manual search, which would be tedious?

Tim’s Quick Answer: A quick way to confirm that the original (or a duplicate) file exists in Lightroom Classic is to select an applicable image, go to the All Photographs collection, and sort by capture time.

More Detail: Today’s question is a follow-up about an earlier question related to Smart Previews appearing in Lightroom Classic after having been downloaded automatically from cloud storage. As I explained in my original answer, this generally happens when you have changed which catalog is being synchronized to the cloud, and that as long as you’re completely sure you have the original images you can safely delete the Smart Previews. So, how do you confirm that you have the originals.

To get started, select an image you want to “test”, such as in this example a Smart Preview that downloaded automatically from the cloud, or an image you believe might be a duplicate. With that image selected, choose the “All Photographs” collection in the Catalog section of the left panel in the Library module. Make sure the Library Filter bar above the grid view is set to “None” so you’ll be viewing all images. Then make sure the Sort popup on the toolbar below the grid view is set to “Capture Time”.

At this point you can review images that appear directly before or after the selected image, to determine whether they are a match. In this case, for example, that would mean looking for the original capture (such as a raw image file) directly before or after the Smart Preview. Once you’ve confirmed that the Smart Preview does correspond to a matching original capture, or that an image is a duplicate that you don’t need, you can delete the unnecessary file while leaving the original capture where it is.

As referenced in today’s question, to determine which folder a particular image is stored in you can right-click on the image and choose “Go to Folder in Library” from the popup menu.

Note that this same process can be used to check for duplicate images in general, since sorting by capture time when browsing the “All Photographs” collection should cause any duplicates to appear next to each other when the sort order is set to “Capture Time”.

Today’s Question: Regarding the checkbox for “Write date or time changes into proprietary raw files” in Catalog Settings in Lightroom Classic, why would I want to enable this? Wouldn’t that overwrite the capture time of the raw file?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The capture time for proprietary raw images will only be updated if you have the checkbox turned on in Catalog Settings and you actually change the capture time, such as to correct for not having changed the time zone on your camera when traveling.

More Detail: The capture time for photos will never be changed in Lightroom Classic unless you use the Metadata > Edit Capture Time command in Lightroom Classic. By default, changing the capture time will only update the information in the Lightroom Classic catalog, without updating the source images on your hard drive. This can cause a mismatch between the capture time in the file versus the capture time in the catalog.

If you do update the capture time for your photos in Lightroom Classic, the change will only be saved to the source image file if you have the “Automatically write changes into sidecar files (XMP/ACR)” checkbox turned on, which can be found on the Metadata tab of the Catalog Settings dialog.

Furthermore, even if you have the “Automatically write changes into sidecar files (XMP/ACR)” checkbox turned on, changes will not be applied to proprietary raw captures unless you also turn on the “Write date or time changes into proprietary raw files” checkbox as well.

The reason you need to turn on an additional checkbox to apply date/time changes to proprietary raw captures is that there is a small risk that doing so could corrupt the raw capture. This is not something that I consider to be very likely, but it is a risk, and so there’s an extra precaution involved. I’m perfectly comfortable having this checkbox turned on, both because I trust that Adobe tests this feature on all supported raw capture formats and because I prefer the source file to reflect any corrections to date and time that I might have applied in Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: What are your thoughts about using Lightroom on an iPad Pro to replace Lightroom Classic on a computer? I currently have Lightroom Classic, which I use on an iMac. Looking ahead, and wanting portability, I went to the Apple Store to look at MacBooks that I could use with a large external monitor. The gentleman I spoke with (also a Lightroom user) surprised me and suggested I think about using an iPad Pro instead of a MacBook. His reasoning was that the screen colors are far better than the MacBooks unless I get I very high-end MacBook, I can use it with an external monitor when I’m at home, and there is the capability to plug in my external hard drives on which my library is stored. Does his idea sound like a good one?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I completely disagree with the advice you received. I highly recommend Lightroom Classic to the cloud-focused version, and Lightroom Classic won’t run on an iPad Pro. You can also get excellent color fidelity on a computer without having to buy an expensive display.

More Detail: There’s no question that an iPad Pro can easily replace a computer for many tasks. With the ability to connect an external display, external storage, and even a keyboard and mouse, in many ways I think it is fair to think of an iPad Pro as a variation on a laptop computer.

However, the iPad Pro can’t run Lightroom Classic, which means you would need to switch to the cloud-focused version of Lightroom as part of the switch to using an iPad Pro instead of a computer. For most photographers I don’t recommend the clous-focused version of Lightroom, because I feel the workflow and storage logistics of Lightroom Classic better meet the needs of photographers.

I also strongly disagree with the notion that you would need to spend a lot of money to have the same color fidelity on a computer that you can have on an iPad Pro. It is true that you would spend a lot more if you opted for an Apple monitor display, but there are many high-quality displays that support (or nearly support) the P3 color space used by the iPad Pro. There are also a number of displays that support a wider color gamut, in some cases extending all the way to the larger Adobe RGB color space.

If you felt that the cloud-focused version of Lightroom was a better fit for your workflow compared to Lightroom Classic, I would certainly consider an iPad Pro to be worth considering in place of a laptop, especially if portability (and a touch screen) was a high priority for you. But if you’re happy with Lightroom Classic I would not recommend making the switch just to make use of an iPad Pro.

Today’s Question: In Lightroom Classic I have a folder labeled “Imported Photos” with 2,153 images. All carry a designation “downloaded-smart-previews”. Can I safely delete these without losing the original image? If so, what is the best way to do the delete?

Tim’s Quick Answer: As long as you don’t have any original photos that are missing that could be represented by these Smart Previews, you can safely delete the applicable Smart Preview images and the folder.

More Detail: When images appear as standalone Smart Previews in Lightroom Classic, it is generally an indication that at some point you changed which catalog was being synchronized to the cloud. In that situation, any images that had been in cloud storage prior to enabling synchronization for a different catalog would be synchronized to the new catalog. The result is Smart Previews that appear as standalone images.

As long as you’re confident that the Smart Previews do indeed relate to images that had previously been synchronized to the cloud, and that the original files the Smart Previews were generated from are still accounted for, then you can safely delete the Smart Previews.

To delete the downloaded Smart Previews, you can browse the folder that contains the Smart Preview downloads, select all of them in the grid view, and choose Photo > Remove Photos from the menu. In the confirmation dialog click the “Delete from Disk” button so the source files will be deleted. Then right-click on the empty folder and choose “Remove” from the popup menu to delete the folder.

It is important to keep in mind that if for any reason the source photos related to the Smart Previews have been lost, you don’t want to delete the Smart Previews because they can be used to recover reduced-resolution copies of the source images. But it is quite likely that in this case the Smart Previews are just superfluous images created based on a change in synchronization to the cloud for Lightroom Classic.

Today’s Question: When adding photos with GPS coordinates, Lightroom Classic looks up the city/state/country, but the results are faint and in italics. Do you know of a keyboard shortcut, or other way to accept the suggestions? Currently, I am typing in the same text that is suggested.

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can apply the location metadata suggestions by clicking on the label associated with a metadata field and then clicking the text on the popup. You could then synchronize metadata for multiple images to apply the updates in batch.

More Detail: If you have the Address Lookup feature enabled, Lightroom Classic will provide suggested location information when possible for the City, State, Country/Region, and ISO Country Code fields. To enable this option, turn on the “Look up city, state and country of GPS coordinates to provide address suggestions” checkbox in the Address Lookup section of the Metadata tab in the Catalog Settings dialog.

For images that have GPS coordinates in metadata, Lightroom Classic will then use the Google Maps data to determine the name of the location for each image. When it is able to determine that location information, the name of the city, state, and country will appear in faded italic text in the applicable metadata fields. This is an indication that the metadata represent suggestions, but they aren’t actually saved to metadata.

If you have the “Export address suggestions whenever address fields are empty” checkbox in the Address Lookup section of the Metadata tab in the Catalog Settings dialog, those address suggestions will be included as metadata in the exported copies, as long as you don’t otherwise disable the export of location metadata.

If you want to apply the metadata to a photo, you can click on the label for each applicable metadata field on the right panel in the Map module, such as the labels for City and State. This will bring up a popup with the suggested location text, which you can click on to confirm. The metadata will then be included as actual metadata rather than just suggestions.

If you have a large number of images to update, you can use the Sync Metadata option to process them in batch. Start by updating one image, and then select all images that have the same location details. Then click the Sync Metadata button at the bottom of the right panel, turn on the checkboxes for the applicable location metadata fields you want to update for all selected images, and click the Synchronize button.

Today’s Question: I sometimes send a file from Lightroom Classic to Radiant Photo and the adjusted file is saved as a TIFF. While the raw capture is typically around 40MB in size, the TIFF comes back in the 170MB range. If I convert that TIFF to a DNG in Lightroom Classic and select lossy compression, the file size comes down to the range of 10MB, roughly the size of a JPEG. What am I losing or gaining in this process vs. bringing the file back from Radiant as a JPEG?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In the case of the Radiant Photo plug-in, there’s no issue with converting to DNG or saving as a JPEG, as long as you’re comfortable with the degradation in quality that occurs with converting the TIFF image to a file with lossy compression.

More Detail: If you turn on the “Use Lossy Compression” checkbox when converting an image to the Adobe DNG format in Lightroom Classic, you are getting about the same result in terms of file size and image quality compared to saving the image as a JPEG. That means there will be degradation of image quality due to the lossy compression, which is how the significant reduction in file size is achieved.

This loss of quality isn’t generally a problem for images that will only be shared digitally, such as in a digital slideshow or via online sharing. However, it can be an issue when printing an image, potentially resulting in visible compression artifacts in the print.

It is important to also take into account the software that was used to create the derivative image, and whether there is a benefit to retaining the file created with that software. For example, when editing an image in Photoshop you might create various layers and other elements that are only editable in Photoshop. Converting an image from TIFF (or PSD) to a format that does not support layers, for example, would cause you to lose the editable layer elements from the original image.

Radiant Photo does not use layers in this way, so converting the file created via Radiant Photo won’t cause any issues other than the degradation in quality when lossy compression is used in that conversion.