Offline editing

I recently upgraded to new version. I keep my originals on an external hard drive. Previously I was able to run NLP when the drive was not connected. I would do a bunch of DSLR scanning, import while connected to my drive, then I could do all my editing while sitting in bed on my laptop. I just tried with the new version, and get a message that it needs the original file.
Is there a setting I can change to make offline editing possible again?

Unless this is a specific NLP thing I don’t know about, you need to create ‘smart previews’ in Lightroom. These allow processing when the original file is off-line. Select the files you need and go to Library -> Previews -> Build Smart Previews.

They had 1:1 and Smart Previews. Just to be sure I plugged in my external drive and ran NLP on a photo. It worked. Then I clicked on Build 1:1 Previews and also Build Smart Previews on the remaining 11 photos. Then I ejected my external drive and tried NLP. Didn’t work. get the same message
ERROR: Could not access original photo for analysis.
Photo Location:
/Volumes/PHOTO DRIVE/Pictures/2015/2015-12/120 Film/120-092-2.DNG
If your photos are on a portable or networked drive, make sure they are connected.

PS: I went and un-converted a negative I had previously converted while being off line from my external HD. It won’t let me convert that one either. Has to be a setting in the new NLP somehow

I can use the Develop module on these same files while offline.
Help please! :innocent:
I tried removing/re-adding the NLP and it did not fix the problem

Hi @JayChadney

I believe I just responded to this on the facebook user group, but just to close the loop here in the forum, here was my response:

Ok, looking more into this, you are correct… as of v2.1, I started checking to make sure that photos were accessible at their original drive location in order to give more constructive instructions rather than just failing when the file wasn’t accessible, but doing this also broke the ability to convert smart previews (although that wasn’t a function I ever intended, you are correct that it did work)… I’ll add a patch in v2.2.1 to make it work with smart previews again.

tl:dr - this will be patched in v2.2.1

Awesome! Thanks you.

It’s a great option to being able to work with smart previews indeed. However I would not want to edit photos on a laptop display. Most laptop displays are mediocre in terms of color calibration and color space coverage. When it comes to converting negatives I’m out for the best possible visual results and these often manifest in subtle tonal changes. A good color calibrated display would always be my first choice, a reasonably adjusted good display my second choice, and any laptop display my last option only. Of course this is an individual choice and other users might have other opinions and expectations.

@nate I just wanted to bring up that this is an issue with 2.4.2 again. I’m getting the same “ERROR: Could not access original photo for analysis.” Is this something that you could patch again? Just left my NAS behind for a few weeks with the laptop but cannot do any conversions.