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Backing Up Lightroom CC With Lightroom Classic CC

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MarcRJacobs

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Premium Classic Member
Premium Cloud Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2019
Messages
59
Location
Houston, Texas, USA
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
Don’t have Classic here, but it is the latest and LR Mobile is v4.1.1 711BD8
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.14 Mojave
  2. iOS
Hi;

I am running the latest versions of both products as of this date and have a 1TB Photography plan. I have used Lightroom desktop for years and always backed up my catalogs and photos to an alternate drive nightly, and then the alternate drive is synced to Dropbox. This has always worked very well for me. Recently I started using Lightroom CC on my desktop, iPhone and iPad. I have LR Classic synced to the cloud and the numbers match :).

My question is: When I make edits on my iPad that sync to the cloud, and then ultimately to LR Classic, are my LR Classic backups sufficient to include all photos, non-destructive edits and catalog to protect in in case of a disaster?

Thank you,
Marc
 
Marc, Lightroom Classic backups only back up the catalog, not the photos or any develop module edits -- these are stored in sidecar .xmp files in the same folders as the original photo.

I recommend using a cloud backup service to back up your photos. Crashplan Small Business is the best, but if you need something simpler and cheaper, Carbonite is ok.
 
not the photos or any develop module edits -

Half right: photos aren't backed up, but the edits are definitely stored in the catalogue.

Marc,
If you mean the extensive backups you're doing now, then yes, you'll have everything.
 
Hal, of course you're right about the edits being stored in the catalog. But when I think of a complete backup, I think about protection from my own mistakes, such as inadvertently deleting a bunch of images from Lightroom. In that case, restoring the images and their sidecar .xmp files from a backup is the only way to get my images back the way I had developed them.

Hal, you know this, but for others who don't: the .xmp file is only created for raw images and, then, only if you turn it on in Catalog Settings. It's under the Metadata tab and the setting is called "Automatically write changes into XMP." It's off by default. For all other image types you need to enable the setting "Include Develop settings in metadata inside JPEG, TIFF, PNG and PSD files." This one is turned on by default.

12250
 
I think about protection from my own mistakes, such as inadvertently deleting a bunch of images from Lightroom. In that case, restoring the images and their sidecar .xmp files from a backup is the only way to get my images back the way I had developed them.
No it's not. Saving to .xmp creates a duplicate of the edits that are saved in the catalog. If you backup the catalog and any .xmp files then the backup catalog will contain the same edits that are duplicated in the .xmp files. So restoring the catalog will give you back the same info as restoring the .xmp files.
 
That's true to a point. What has happened to me is that I didn't realize I had deleted an image until months later when I went looking for it.

By that time, there had been so many additions and changes to my catalog, restoring a months-old catalog wasn't an option because many other images would have been affected.

Fortunately, I had the original raw file and it's xmp file backed up through Crashplan. Restoring those two files solved my problem.
 
And still sidecars aren’t needed for this. I agree a sidecar made it easy in this case, but you could have opened an appropriate backup catalog, exported that image as a new catalog, and then imported that catalog into your current catalog. Granted, that is more work, but the advantage would have been that you would have restored all collection memberships, and if you had made one or more virtual copies then you would have restored these too.
 
Johan, your idea is an excellent solution in some cases. But, in my case, it would be a lot more work. Since I didn't know exactly when I had deleted that image, imagine how many backup catalogs I would have to open to find that image in its final form.

All this discussion about backups really drives home the point: backup everything and backup often.
 
My question is: When I make edits on my iPad that sync to the cloud, and then ultimately to LR Classic, are my LR Classic backups sufficient to include all photos, non-destructive edits and catalog to protect in in case of a disaster?
Regardless of the mechanism of backing up, catalogue or xmp files, one thing you would be missing is keywords. If you enter keywords in an LRCC app, they will not appear in Lightroom Classic and will not be independently backed up.

Update: to clarify my assumptions, you said "Recently I started using Lightroom CC on my desktop, iPhone and iPad", and the post title also made me think you are now using LRCC desktop as your main desktop tool, with LR Classic only for backup.
 
Last edited:
Johan, your idea is an excellent solution in some cases. But, in my case, it would be a lot more work. Since I didn't know exactly when I had deleted that image, imagine how many backup catalogs I would have to open to find that image in its final form.
Unless you keep working on your images indefinitely, the answer is “any backup from a reasonable time after you first imported it”.
 
Ok, guys, now I'm really confused. I thought I had it for a minute. :)

I currently backup my catalogs that are made every time I exist LR Classic. In the middle of the night I also backup my photos to the cloud and my entire Adobe folder inside Application Support every night, i. I have it all from my MacBook.

I also have Lightroom CC for the desktop and Lightroom Mobile on my iPhone and iPad. Photos that originate in the mobile versions make it all the way back to Lightroom Classic for backing up as I understand it. But, photos I enter into Lightroom Classic show a grey dot with diagonal black stripes in LR CC for the desktop, indicating they are just previews. If I edit one of these "previews" in LR CC for the desktop or on the mobiles, am I correct in assuming I am only editing the preview and it will go back to Lightroom Classic, thereby overwriting the original full sized image?

Thanks,
Marc
 
If I edit one of these "previews" in LR CC for the desktop or on the mobiles, am I correct in assuming I am only editing the preview and it will go back to Lightroom Classic, thereby overwriting the original full sized image?
The sync icon showing the diagonal lines in LRCC indicates that the image originated in, has been synced from, LR Classic. Thus the original is in Classic, but Classic only syncs Smart Previews to the cloud. If you edit that image in LRCC then yes, you are working with the smaller smart preview....but only those edits will sync back to Classic where they are applied to the original (no files are overwritten by the syncing process).
 
The sync icon showing the diagonal lines in LRCC indicates that the image originated in, has been synced from, LR Classic. Thus the original is in Classic, but Classic only syncs Smart Previews to the cloud. If you edit that image in LRCC then yes, you are working with the smaller smart preview....but only those edits will sync back to Classic where they are applied to the original (no files are overwritten by the syncing process).

Thank you, Jim, that makes sense. The reason I kept LR Classic is as a way to do clean and full backups. If I were to give up LR Classic, and backup the originals that I am also saving in LR CC, will I have the same backup completeness, meaning edits etc?
 
Since LR CC has no catalog (at least at my end), if I do edit the images in LR CC or LR Mobile that I migrated from LR Classic, is there any way to backup the original AND edits from LR CC?
 
Only by creating a new Classic catalogue and allowing it to sync.

The lack of independent backup is a weakness of the cloud-only model.
 
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