These days I spend a lot of time working in a commercial photo studio as a photo assistant and digital tech. At the end of each job, I’m required to print an 8×10″ contact sheet of the day’s images for filing, create a PDF of that same contact sheet for storing on the network, and a 4.75″ square version of the contact sheet to file with the backup DVD of the day’s images. What this amounts to is having Lightroom crunch large image files into prints a minimum of three times every day that we shoot, and that rendering time really adds up.
When having to create contact sheets of the same images in multiple formats, I’ve found this easy trick can save tons of time. First, export the images as JPG files and have Lightroom then re-import those JPGs to the catalog:
Once the export is finished, the JPG files will be a part of your catalog. Use these JPG files for your contact sheets.
In my situation, I need to print at least three different contact sheets, and would therefore be asking Lightroom to render RAW files into prints three times — a process that takes an eternity. By exporting and printing from JPGs, Lightroom instead renders from the large RAW files only a single time. When printing from those JPG files, Lightroom is able to generate prints much more quickly, saving me a great deal of time and allowing me to go home at the end of the day, rather than sitting around the studio waiting for the computer to crunch data.
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After reading this, would this work for the web gallery also? I export and add a watermark using LR MOGRIFY. I want to subsequently use those watermarked photos in a web gallery.
Aye, you can do that. Sean McCormack has a good tutorial on it.