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Am I doing this right? LR CC sync with Classic

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Christopher

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Hi! I just joined, and am excited to learn as I'm a bit of a newbie with lightroom. I have always just used photoshop and managed my files manually (started using PS in the early 90's).

I'm hoping I can get some feedback on my setup so that I know I'm not missing anything.

Some background, my computer was ancient, so I just archived all of my old stuff and wanted to start fresh with Lightroom CC so that I could move my process to my ipad/phone until I could upgrade my desktop. So for the last year, I've been simply importing my images to the cloud and setting up albums in Lightroom CC. It's worked great so far.

So I just purchased a new iMac and am setting up Lightroom Classic CC. I am hoping to keep my main photos on the cloud, but have a local copy now as well, that is 100% synced so that I can still do work remotely.

This is how I have it set up: I simply set LR Classic to sync to my cloud catalog, and set a custom location for the local copy of the data. I did not set LR CC to save a copy of the files to my desktop, as I didn't want two separate copies of the files. It seems to be working well, and I still use LR CC for all of my RAW imports.

Setting this up took a lot of Googling and head scratching, but I think I've got it?

Any advice would be very helpful. I want as simple a setup as possible. I'm an amateur enthusiast photographer, and I find simply organizing by LR CC album to be the easiest for my workflow.

Most of my work is now done on my iMac 21.5 Retina with Mojave, but I often edit on my ipad, iphone, and occasionally on my work Windows 10 machine.

Thank you!

Cheers,
Chris
 
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Hi Christopher, welcome to the forum! Sorry we missed your thread.

Classic syncing to CC is tricky, because they're not designed to work perfectly together. Classic only uploads smart previews rather than full size raw. Do you need specific features that are only available in Classic and not CC? If not, removing Classic from the equation is by far the simplest option.
 
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Hi all, I am also a newbie and this is my first comment in this forum :)

Like Christopher, I am interested in using Lightroom CC for the cloud back-up and the possibility to edit "on-the-go", but I would like to keep Lightroom Classic because there are still some features (not a lot to be honest) that I want to use from it.

In addition, I would like to store in the cloud the original RAWs, not the smart previews, and possibly to be able to upload them equally from my Mac - when at home - or from my iPad - when travelling.

I thought of setting up things like this:
  • Install both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC on my Macbook and install the Lightroom CC app on my iPad
  • Migrate my current Lightroom Classic catalogue to Lightroom CC: collection sets and collections should be converted to folders/albums
  • Enable sync in Lightroom Classic: I would configure synchronisation to download photos from Lightroom CC in a specific folder on the hard drive and with folders organised by date. I currently use a different folder structure but I don't mind moving to a year/month organisation (actually, with the migration to CC I would get this without having to re-arrange photos manually).
  • From that moment on:
    • only use Lightroom CC to import new photos, either from the Mac or from the iPad, depending if I am travelling.
    • Use Lightroom Classic for editing, as soon as photos are sync'd.
  • Still, I could use Lightroom CC to do some basic editing directly from the iPad while still travelling.
Now, my question is whether the above would work or there are issues / pitfalls that I cannot see.

Specifically, my doubts are:
  1. When migrating to Lightroom CC the first time, are all collection sets and collections correctly converted to folders and albums?
  2. Vice-versa, every time a new import in Lightroom CC is synchronised to Lightroom Classic, are the folders and albums created in Lightroom Classic as collection sets and collections?
  3. In general, is the non-destructive editing synchronised between Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC? How would the history of changes work?
My idea is to prepare things so that when the features I miss will be added to Lightroom CC I can take out Lightroom Classic from the equation and only use CC, as Victoria suggest.

Thanks in advance for any feed-back!

Ciao,
Stefano
 
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Hi Stefano,

Yes, if you can maintain the discipline of only importing into one of the LRCC apps, and not Classic, then you shouldn't get into difficulties. Having said that, and trying to answer your three questions:

1. During the initial migration of the Classic catalog, yes the existing collections sets and collections should migrate as folders/albums in LRCC. It's worked whenever I've tested it, but do check carefully after the migration. Now, a word of warning about your plan to re-enable syncing in the Classic catalog after the migration is completed....Adobe never intended the user to do that, i.e. migration is meant for the situation where the user is intending to permanently switch from Classic to LRCC. This can mean some odd things may happen once you re-enable Classic syncing.....when I tested this in the early days I found that a lot of files in Classic "re-connected" OK, but many didn't which resulted in a lot of Virtual Copies being created in Classic (the VCs being synced, the originals in Classic not being synced). Things may have improved since that initial test, but just be warned and check carefully.

2. Unfortunately collection sets/folders do not sync between Classic and LRCC, but collections/albums do. So if you create new folders and albums when importing new images into LRCC, only the albums will sync as collections into Classic. You have to manually create the collection sets in Classic, then drag the collections into them as needed.

3. Yes, no issue with syncing of edits from either direction. However, LRCC does not show you the history as Classic does, so edits made in Classic will sync OK, but there's nothing in LRCC to tell you what edits you have made. Also, edits made in LRCC will sync back to Classic, but the only entry made in the history in Classic will be a "From LR mobile" step.
 
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Victoria Bampton said:
Hi Christopher, welcome to the forum! Sorry we missed your thread.

Classic syncing to CC is tricky, because they're not designed to work perfectly together. Classic only uploads smart previews rather than full size raw. Do you need specific features that are only available in Classic and not CC? If not, removing Classic from the equation is by far the simplest option.
Click to expand...


Thanks Victoria,

Sorry this reply took a while. I've been having login issues on this forum.

It seems like the way I have it set up is working. I import into CC, and then I have access to my RAWs from either my mobile devices, or my desktop with Classic. It seems to be working well. :)

I keep a separate archive of all my RAWs before uploading them to CC, so those stay out of the Adobe ecosystem and safe. It's definitely confusing. Hopefully it will become more seamless as the ecosystem matures.

Cheers,
Chris
 
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Jim Wilde said:
3. Yes, no issue with syncing of edits from either direction. However, LRCC does not show you the history as Classic does, so edits made in Classic will sync OK, but there's nothing in LRCC to tell you what edits you have made. Also, edits made in LRCC will sync back to Classic, but the only entry made in the history in Classic will be a "From LR mobile" step.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is my biggest annoyance. I tend to deal with it by using CC on my mobile devices for basic editing for social media, and when I need to do a proper job for print, I just revert to the RAW in Classic and do it for real there.

It makes sense though, how can you look at editing history in CC when you've used tools in Classic that CC doesn't have. Until both Classic and CC have a common tool set, I don't see this changing.

Cheers,
Chris
 
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Oh dear, sorry about that Christopher. Are your login issues all sorted now? We switched systems recently and it went remarkably smoothly, but there's sure to be a bug or two!
 
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Jim Wilde said:
Hi Stefano,

Yes, if you can maintain the discipline of only importing into one of the LRCC apps, and not Classic, then you shouldn't get into difficulties. Having said that, and trying to answer your three questions:

1. During the initial migration of the Classic catalog, yes the existing collections sets and collections should migrate as folders/albums in LRCC. It's worked whenever I've tested it, but do check carefully after the migration. Now, a word of warning about your plan to re-enable syncing in the Classic catalog after the migration is completed....Adobe never intended the user to do that, i.e. migration is meant for the situation where the user is intending to permanently switch from Classic to LRCC. This can mean some odd things may happen once you re-enable Classic syncing.....when I tested this in the early days I found that a lot of files in Classic "re-connected" OK, but many didn't which resulted in a lot of Virtual Copies being created in Classic (the VCs being synced, the originals in Classic not being synced). Things may have improved since that initial test, but just be warned and check carefully.

2. Unfortunately collection sets/folders do not sync between Classic and LRCC, but collections/albums do. So if you create new folders and albums when importing new images into LRCC, only the albums will sync as collections into Classic. You have to manually create the collection sets in Classic, then drag the collections into them as needed.

3. Yes, no issue with syncing of edits from either direction. However, LRCC does not show you the history as Classic does, so edits made in Classic will sync OK, but there's nothing in LRCC to tell you what edits you have made. Also, edits made in LRCC will sync back to Classic, but the only entry made in the history in Classic will be a "From LR mobile" step.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot Jim, and sorry for the late reply.

I think I can live with the limitations you mention in 2 and 3, so I'll back-up my photos and current Classic catalogue and give it a try.

Hopefully as CC gets more features there will be less and less need of the Classic.

Cheers,
Stefano
 
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