Really small file sizes after processing?

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briansy

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Brian
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Hi guys, I am new to shooting in raw and attempting any sort of post processing but I have recently been running my photos (in Craw format, circa 20-25mb) through denoise on lightroom (excellent results) and touching them up somewhat. The file gets converted to a dng file of about 60-80mb and then when I go to convert them to jpeg on lightroom the file size goes down to like 400K to 1.5/2mb which is what I end up uploading to flickr. Does this sound about right? I feel like somewhere along the line my image quality and detail is being sacrificed here and wondering am I missing a step or doing something wrong?
 
It really depends on the size and quality that you are exporting.

For instance, my compressed fuji 40mp raws are about 35MB, uncompressed I think they are about 80MB each.
Exported at 100% of original size and 100% quality they come down to about 12MB.
Exported at 100% size and 50% quality, they come out aeound 1.7MB
Exported at 800x640 and 100% quality, they come out just shy of 400KB.

Check what your export settings are :)
 
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briansy said:
Hi guys is this lightroom classic you are talking about? I can't find them in the regular lightroom, the cloud version
Click to expand...
Forgive me for being amused - 'regular' lightroom would be LR Classic for those of us who have been using LR for years, the cloud version is seen as the interloper and I think polls here suggest most don't use it.
 
But back to your question, when exporting to JPEG, you should have options to choose re quality and resolution, and both those things affect filesize
 
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briansy said:
Hi guys is this lightroom classic you are talking about? I can't find them in the regular lightroom, the cloud version
Click to expand...

Lightroom classic IS the regular version, the LR cloud is a recent-ish innovation.

jpg format is compressed, the amount of compression being selectable and also varying with the complexity of the image - more large areas of a single colour require less data than a complex and highly detailed image. Lots of data gets thrown away with a highly compressed jpg, and this is often noticeable in skies, with 'banding' as the shades of blue change in steps rather than a gradient.
 
briansy said:
I've been playing around and the penny has just dropped. The file size has reduced so much because I am cropping so much. It's gone from 25mb to 1mb for the jpeg. So it's not any additional compression lightroom is doing
Click to expand...

That was a piece of information that we needed to help explain the change - this explains why you aren't seeing compression artefacts!
 
Very odd though, when I export a random file to my pc it's 635k. When I do so via lightroom mobile it's 440k. But then when I send that file to my PC to compare it with the 635K file it is showing as identical file size of 635K. And when I send it back again to my phone, it is now reading at 635, not 440. Absolutely flummoxed, but I can only assume that uploading to the cloud (which is more convenient for me) and exporting to my PC result in identical images so I will try not to stress. I'm certainly not unhappy with some of the better images.
 
briansy said:
Very odd though, when I export a random file to my pc it's 635k. When I do so via lightroom mobile it's 440k. But then when I send that file to my PC to compare it with the 635K file it is showing as identical file size of 635K. And when I send it back again to my phone, it is now reading at 635, not 440. Absolutely flummoxed, but I can only assume that uploading to the cloud (which is more convenient for me) and exporting to my PC result in identical images so I will try not to stress. I'm certainly not unhappy with some of the better images.
Click to expand...

Pleased it's working for you in that case.
 
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