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Inexperienced user seeking advice

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joyschreier

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Apr 14, 2020
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5
Lightroom Version Number
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.2
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
I am so happy that I found this forum - I feel lost in all of the options. I have Lightroom 6 (desktop) and Lightroom CC. I did a good amount of work in Lightroom 6, then tried to make the switch to Lightroom CC. I imported my library, and I think it worked but none of my organization seems to have carried through. I realized after making the move that I had to increase my storage so am now paying additional for a terabyte of storage.

I am now reconsidering which direction I should be going. One of my fears is that, if I ever stop paying for the storage, that I will either lose all of my pictures, or at least lose my organization and tagging. Is there a way to make a local copy of the online organization/storage as backup or in case you ever stop your subscription? What happens if you lower the storage size of a subscription -- do you keep access but cannot edit or change, or do you somehow lose the pictures?

I believe that the online version has some reduced functionality, but I know it is available on all of my computers, and does a really good job with facial recognition.

I honestly feel pretty overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task ahead of me, and would really appreciate some advice. I am a mother with two kids (one 7 years old, one 1 year old). I have somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 pictures, and want to make sure that I pick one direction and stick with it.

Thank you so much for any advice or guidance you can offer.

Joy
 
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If you were comfortable with LR6, you might consider using Classic instead of the 'Cloudy' version of Lightroom. As you indicated, it has limitations to what you were used to. Classic will look familiar to you, which looks like two drops of water on LR6. Your previously introduced organization is therefore back.
 
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CC’s lesser functionality combined with the need to purchase cloud storage for all but very small numbers of images makes me wonder who it is really for. That said, go to Classic - it will be familiar and you files will stay on your computer. You should do backups though - but that’s another story.
 
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FWIW, I researched what to move to from LR6 and chose Classic. CC does/was not have all the features I wanted. Plus I was not, and still not, interested in getting into syncing and/or using mobile.
 
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If you use Classic on the Photography Plan, you get the Cloudy version thrown in as well, so (in my opinion) it's the best of both worlds. You can do all your regular work in Classic, in the way that you're used to, but you can also use the Cloudy or mobile version for doing work on other devices, or just to experiment with. If you stick to using Smart Previews in the cloud, they do not count against your online storage so you don't need to pay anything extra. So it's Classic all the way for me :)
 
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BruceHatcher said:
CC’s lesser functionality combined with the need to purchase cloud storage for all but very small numbers of images makes me wonder who it is really for.
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Its just for me! :)
I love having all 79,000 photos available on two computers, two iPads and two phones. Photos, culls, edits all sync'd....wonderful!
 
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Thank you all for the responses. I am very interested in moving to Classic, even though it sounds like I would need to migrate my library again from the Cloud to my hard drive?

If I ever stop paying -- what happens (with either CC or Classic)? With CC - do I lose my pictures?
With Classic - I assume I would be able to access the pictures with any program - but do I lose the tagging/metadata that I have added?
 
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joyschreier said:
Thank you all for the responses. I am very interested in moving to Classic, even though it sounds like I would need to migrate my library again from the Cloud to my hard drive?
Click to expand...
Yes, but that is easy. Create a new catalog in Lr Classic, enable sync and all the content from Lightroom CC will be downloaded.

joyschreier said:
If I ever stop paying -- what happens (with either CC or Classic)? With CC - do I lose my pictures?
With Classic - I assume I would be able to access the pictures with any program - but do I lose the tagging/metadata that I have added?
Click to expand...
For Lightroom CC you would have a year to download your images with the special downloader app. Lightroom Classic will continue to work, but the Develop module and the Map module will be disabled. That means you can not only access your images with other programs, you can still export images from Lightroom with all the develop settings applied to them. You will not lose anything.
 
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“Yes, but that is easy. Create a new catalog in Lr Classic, enable sync and all the content from Lightroom CC will be downloaded.”

and then what with LRCC? Do you have to delete all photos from it in order to clear the CC files from the cloud? Or can you just delete CC from your Mac/PC?
 
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Pvonk said:
“Yes, but that is easy. Create a new catalog in Lr Classic, enable sync and all the content from Lightroom CC will be downloaded.”

and then what with LRCC? Do you have to delete all photos from it in order to clear the CC files from the cloud? Or can you just delete CC from your Mac/PC?
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You can remove the Lightroom (cloudy) version form the Mac. All of your original images would remain in the cloud and sync to the Classic with a copy of the images stored locally. If you only want SOME of the Classic images in the cloud, you can remove the others from the "All synced Photographs" special collection in Classic.
 
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joyschreier said:
Thank you all for the responses. I am very interested in moving to Classic, even though it sounds like I would need to migrate my library again from the Cloud to my hard drive?
Click to expand...
You haven't mentioned how much work you have done on your photos after you migrated from LR 6 to the cloud version. If the answer is "none", then you could just upgrade your old LR 6 catalog directly to the latest version of LR Classic (9.2.1). That way, you would get all of your "old organization" back, too.
 
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prbimages said:
You haven't mentioned how much work you have done on your photos after you migrated from LR 6 to the cloud version. If the answer is "none", then you could just upgrade your old LR 6 catalog directly to the latest version of LR Classic (9.2.1). That way, you would get all of your "old organization" back, too.
Click to expand...
That would be my suggestion also. It's also the most easy and quickest way.
 
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