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Extract previews

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Sometimes, lost or deleted photos in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 still display a preview. This script allows you to extract and save those previews.

The script extracts previews for all the images that are selected at the time you run the script. It extracts poster frames for any video clips that are selected at the time. You can choose a location for these files. The previews are in JPEG format, and the name contains the size of the image, for example: _MG_0233-360x240.jpg.

Note:

 

  • The extracted previews don't contain any metadata from the original image.
  • The extracted previews don't contain an ICC profile. So, if you import the extracted previews back into Lightroom, the images are imported with the sRGB profile.

To install the script, do the following:

  1. Ctrl + click (Mac OS) or right-click (Windows) the link to the script below, and save the script to your desktop. Double-click the file to decompress it. This creates a file named ExtractPreviews.lua. If you can't locate this file, you can search your hard disk for it.

    * ExtractPreviews.lua.zip
    Extracted preview script

  2. In Lightroom, choose Lightroom > Preferences (Mac OS) or Edit > Preferences (Windows).

  3. Choose the Preset tab and select Show Lightroom Presets folder.



    Note:

    The Show Lightroom Presets Folder button takes you to the correct location only when Store Presets With Catalog is not selected. If Store Presets With Catalog is selected, navigate to and open the /Users/[user name]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom folder.

    Important: Apple made the user library folder hidden by default with the 10.7 release. If it's necessary to access these files to perform Adobe-related troubleshooting, use this TechNote to open this folder.

  4. Create a folder in the Lightroom folder called Scripts.

  5. Copy the ExtractPreviews.lua script (from Step 1) into the Scripts folder.

  6. Quit and reopen Lightroom.

  7. In Lightroom, choose the ExtractPreviews from the Script menu.

    Note:

    In Windows, the script menu is the last menu on the right.

    In Mac OS, the script menu is to the right of the Help menu. See the following illustration.



  8. Choose a location for your extracted previews.

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