Advice on running both LrC to/and LR cloud

[frank.giblin]

Lightroom Version Number

LR classic v10

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I've been doing the research on this forum and other places and I think I'm ready to make the jump to LR cloud, but frankly, it's still a little confusing.

I currently have my LrC library on an external SSD (about 500GB) and it's all backed up to a third party cloud service. I run the catalog from the external SSD and my entire library is using Smart Previews. I'm looking to keep LrC as my main library etc. and simply add LR cloud to take advantage of Sensei and mobile access.

Any advice on the the best way to do this, considering both functionality and storage costs--and a very strong desire to not muck everything up?

From what I gather, I should be able to sync the entire LrC library to the LRcloud and then, as long as the sync is using only the Smart Previews, it won't count towards my 20GB of storage, as long as LrC is pushing the syncs to the cloud and not vice versa. That sounds fine, but where I'm not clear is on how to have the entire LrC library synced using only the Smart Previews rather than uploading the raw files. Also, it seems that the syncing is done at the Collection level, so would I have to ensure all images in my LrC library are in a collection prior to syncing in order for it to work? Finally, it's unclear to me whether the upload to the cloud process uses the Smart Previews I'm already created in my library or if it it creates a new copy of every image being upload, and those copies need to be stored locally. Seems the latter but then I'm wondering how involved this upload is going to be.

Much thanks for any advice or pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks,
Frank

 

[clee01l]

I've been doing the research on this forum and other places and I think I'm ready to make the jump to LR cloud, but frankly, it's still a little confusing.

I currently have my LrC library on an external SSD (about 500GB) and it's all backed up to a third party cloud service. I run the catalog from the external SSD and my entire library is using Smart Previews. I'm looking to keep LrC as my main library etc. and simply add LR cloud to take advantage of Sensei and mobile access.

Any advice on the the best way to do this, considering both functionality and storage costs--and a very strong desire to not muck everything up?

From what I gather, I should be able to sync the entire LrC library to the LRcloud and then, as long as the sync is using only the Smart Previews, it won't count towards my 20GB of storage, as long as LrC is pushing the syncs to the cloud and not vice versa. That sounds fine, but where I'm not clear is on how to have the entire LrC library synced using only the Smart Previews rather than uploading the raw files. Also, it seems that the syncing is done at the Collection level, so would I have to ensure all images in my LrC library are in a collection prior to syncing in order for it to work? Finally, it's unclear to me whether the upload to the cloud process uses the Smart Previews I'm already created in my library or if it it creates a new copy of every image being upload, and those copies need to be stored locally. Seems the latter but then I'm wondering how involved this upload is going to be.

Much thanks for any advice or pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks,
Frank

I think you have covered just about everything. True, Lightroom Classic syncs proxy file to the cloud and these do not count against the Plan storage limits. You can sync to the cloud via Collections that in the cloud are called Albums. You can also sync to the cloud by adding the images to the Special Collection (in the Catalog panel. Called “Synched Photos” ( or something named similar. I’m not at my desktop at the moment.)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Jim Wilde]

That sounds fine, but where I'm not clear is on how to have the entire LrC library synced using only the Smart Previews rather than uploading the raw files.

Nothing you need to do, LrC ONLY uploads Smart Previews, it does not normally upload the full-size original images.

Also, it seems that the syncing is done at the Collection level, so would I have to ensure all images in my LrC library are in a collection prior to syncing in order for it to work?

No. As Cletus has already explained you can sync images in one or two ways (or combination thereof): either by syncing collections (enabling the sync icon in front of the collection) or by adding images to the All Synced Photographs special collection in the Catalog panel. Syncing collections will ensure that an equivalent Album is created in the cloud, so if you've already invested time in organising some of your images into collections in LrC, syncing them will ensure that the organisation is retained in the cloud. Note, however, that while the cloud has "Folders", which are the equivalent to Collection Sets in LrC, the Collections Sets and Folders do NOT sync (though the collections/albums within them do), so any collection hierarchy you might have had in LrC would need to be recreated by manually creating the equivalent Folder hierarchy in the cloud.
The ASP is a list of all synced images, i.e. if an image is synced it will be included automatically in the ASP. Because of that simple rule, it logically follows that if you add images to the ASP collection they will automatically be synced to the cloud, where they will appear in the All Photos collection. More importantly, however, removing an image from the ASP collection will automatically "unsync" that image, and if it's no longer synced it cannot continue to exist in the cloud and is thus deleted from the cloud (it still exists in LrC though, just no longer synced).

Finally, it's unclear to me whether the upload to the cloud process uses the Smart Previews I'm already created in my library or if it it creates a new copy of every image being upload, and those copies need to be stored locally. Seems the latter but then I'm wondering how involved this upload is going to be.

If an SP already exists, LrC uses a transient copy of that SP to upload it to the cloud, i.e. separate copies of the SPs are not retained and stored locally by LrC (though of course you may elect to have LrDesktop stores a copy of the cloud-based SPs locally, but that would be completely unconnected with LrC).

 

[DaveMCO]

OP:
since you only have the 20GB plan, smart previews are the way to go for you. They are really terrific if you want to edit an image on your iPad in LR Mobile and have those edits show up back in LRC.

I went with the 1TB plan as I wanted to put the iPad at the center of my workflow and have full res versions in the cloud and LRC On my own SSD’s and in my own file structure. I, like you, have about 500gb of images so space is really not a concern for me right now.

anyway, the Smart preview thing really does work TERRIFICALLY —- until you want to do a quick edit in PS on the iPad..... then..... nope..... But, start with what you have And use the smart previews. You might wish to modify that down the road or there is a good chance that the smart previews are perfect for you......

G’ luck.