Is LR Mobile the best choice?

[paulgodard]

Lightroom Version

11.5

Operating System

1. macOS 12 Monterey
2. Android

Hi everyone
I am not really a fan of using apps such as LR on my phone but LR mobile might be the best choice for what I need to do.
I have been using LR since v1, so my desktop workflow is pretty finetuned for my needs. I have about 60k images in my main catalog, organised in folders (trip or assignment), and with location, title & keywords metadata. From there I export the best ones to my website portfolios which on top of the similar travel and assignment sections, also as themes (paulgodsard.com). I also export the same best ones as min 2000 px jpg (and with all metadata) and copy them to my phone (organised in the same folders as LR or the collections on my website for consistency). All these jpg images take about 17 Gb of storage. The purpose is to have them off-line when I travel so I can show people. The 2 above work quite well.
Being old school, I am very bad at posting on social media but my wife wants to rescue me!
1/ She says that she can not post pictures taken directly from my website although this is by far the best option to search for images and also get the whole metadata to write a proper post. If you click on an image on my website, you will see that below the large image there are many option to share the image on social media... but she says that does not work for her. Is that correct or she or I are missing something?
2/ She says that she wants all the photos she want to post on her computer or phone. The problem is that in that case she will have no search option apart the organisation in folders and she will not have the metadata information to write the post. If I take all the jpg images into LR and create a catalog, I can see all metadata. I presume that I could share that catalog to be used in LR mobile but where do I put all the jpg images? I have 6 Tb of cloud storage on MS OneDrive and I do not want to pay for other cloud storage. Also will it be easy for her to post a photo from LR mobile?
3/ Maybe there is another way to achieve the same result, so I am listening...
Thank you, Paul

 

[johnbeardy]

When I read your requirements, I wonder why you're not using LrMobile for this.

re "All these jpg images take about 17 Gb of storage. The purpose is to have them off-line when I travel so I can show people", you'd meet this requirement simply by dragging the photos to one or more synced ollections in your catalogue, and LrMobile will display them. If you subsequently edit some of those photos, those edits will be automatically reflected on your phone.

1-3 again, easy enough. You might "share" the collections with her, setting the option to allow jpg downloads and show metadata. Searching would be limited, so it's up to you to structure the collections in a way that makes sense - eg family scans, family holiday Easter 2022 etc. Or you might even install LrMobile on her device with your account - technically that may breach the licence - and take the risk that she'll be able to change titles and captions, ratings and flags.

"but where do I put all the jpg images?" Not sure what you're asking, but are these the "min 2000 px jpg" ? If so, they're irrelevant to LrMobile as you add the originals to the collections and LrMobile generates the mobile images. You could, if you really wanted, import those jpgs into your catalogue and use those files for syncing.

I've always used LrMobile most for having a large number of my photos available on my phone and elsewhere as a sort of mobile portfolio which allows me to do tasks like you describe. Other key capabilities - editing when I'm on the move, and importing new photos when I'm away from my computer - I find handy but secondary.

The starting point is to install LrMobile, enable sync in your catalogue, and add a few photos to a synced collection.

 

[paulgodard]

When I read your requirements, I wonder why you're not using LrMobile for this.

re "All these jpg images take about 17 Gb of storage. The purpose is to have them off-line when I travel so I can show people", you'd meet this requirement simply by dragging the photos to one or more synced ollections in your catalogue, and LrMobile will display them. If you subsequently edit some of those photos, those edits will be automatically reflected on your phone.

1-3 again, easy enough. You might "share" the collections with her, setting the option to allow jpg downloads and show metadata. Searching would be limited, so it's up to you to structure the collections in a way that makes sense - eg family scans, family holiday Easter 2022 etc. Or you might even install LrMobile on her device with your account - technically that may breach the licence - and take the risk that she'll be able to change titles and captions, ratings and flags.

"but where do I put all the jpg images?" Not sure what you're asking, but are these the "min 2000 px jpg" ? If so, they're irrelevant to LrMobile as you add the originals to the collections and LrMobile generates the mobile images. You could, if you really wanted, import those jpgs into your catalogue and use those files for syncing.

I've always used LrMobile most for having a large number of my photos available on my phone and elsewhere as a sort of mobile portfolio which allows me to do tasks like you describe. Other key capabilities - editing when I'm on the move, and importing new photos when I'm away from my computer - I find handy but secondary.

The starting point is to install LrMobile, enable sync in your catalogue, and add a few photos to a synced collection.

Thank you very much for your reply but honestly, I am lost.
Remember that the whole objective of this exercise is for my wife to easily find a photo (2000px jpg), have access to all metadata for that image and post it on social media from her phone or computer.
IMO, she does not need to access the original files. She only need to access the 17 Gb of 2000px jpg images in a very organised way.
So here is what I kind of understand to do...
1/ Create a new catalog (called Albums) on my desktop map by importing all the 2000px jpg images stored on the same computer.
2/ Create a collection with all these images (of course test with only a few first)
2/ Share that collection so it can be use on LR mobile on my phone as well as her phone.
Will that work?
Where will the images viewed on LR mobile be?
How can she use an image from LR mobile to post on social media from her phone?

 

[clee01l]

If you want your wife's phone to have access to all of your images, then install Lightroom Mobile on HER phone and sync the shared Lightroom Classic collections to the cloud. This will place a suitably sized image in the Adobe Cloud and grouped by Sync'd Lightroom Classic Collections (called Albums in Lightroom Mobile). These will have all of the metadata stored with the sync'd images. Some things do not sync well between Lightroom Classic. Notably these are Keywords which which Lightroom only maintain a flat hierarchy and the sync process is one way one time from Classic to the cloud. Images sync'ed from Classic to not use any of your plan storage (20GB basic) while images imported via Lightroom (cloudy) will consume your plans storage and sync down to Lightroom Classic catalog as full size images

 

[paulgodard]

Thank you Clee.
Can you please confirm that if I only sync images from LR Classic to be used on LR mobile, I do not have to worry about to be for extra cloud storage?
Also, it seems that I HAVE to create a collection for the images I want to sync. As my physical images are organised in about 200 folders (trip/assignment), does that mean that if I want all the "best" images of all the folders to be organised in similar albums, I will have to create 200 collections to be shared?

 

[clee01l]

Thank you Clee.
Can you please confirm that if I only sync images from LR Classic to be used on LR mobile, I do not have to worry about to be for extra cloud storage?
Also, it seems that I HAVE to create a collection for the images I want to sync. As my physical images are organised in about 200 folders (trip/assignment), does that mean that if I want all the "best" images of all the folders to be organised in similar albums, I will have to create 200 collections to be shared?

Adobe does not charge for storage for images that are sync'ed FROM Lightroom Classic. The reason for this is that the full size image isn not sent but a proxy Smart Preview is generated. This Proxy image has a long edge of 2560 px and is suitable for use by mobile devices. These image proxies are about 10% larger than the image that Facebook will store on its site.
In Lightroom Classic, you can turn on sync for the Collections that you already have. This is available in the Collection setting menu dialog. This will create like named "Albums" in the Adobe Cloud available to Lightroom Mobile apps. Once you have turned on Syncing, Lightroom Classic will display an "All synced Photographs" special collection. It will be a reflection of all of the synced images that are in your syncing collections. Additionally, you can drag images to this "All synced Photographs" special collection and they too will sync but not be assigned to any collection or album
One reason that Folders are not recommended as an orginazion tool is due to the limitations. This is one of them. You can create a collection for each folder from the Folder panel Context menu. I would suggest that you create one or two Collections this way and see how that appear in Lightroom. You can use a Lightroom Mobile app or install Lightroom for the Computer to see what you are putting on the Adobe Cloud. Once you are satisfied, you can them proceed to create all of the synced collections that you wish.

 

[johnbeardy]

While keywords will not generally sync from Classic to LrMobile, your wife will be able to do searches in LrMobile. These searches use metadata you applied to the image (eg title and caption) and also data which has been generated by Adobe's cloud AI. This means, for example, that I might search for "yellow" and get some images where the metadata includes "yellow vests" and other things such as bananas.

That's in addition to you being able to organize photos in collections.

John

 

[paulgodard]

So I create a smart collection that includes the best images of the last folder but I can not see anywhere to share it. Help please...

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Can I throw in a comment-
NOT a "Smart Collection". You can only use standard Collections. You can place the standard Collections in a Collection SET however to keep the Collections panel tidy.

You do NOT need to create "Smart Previews" at any time. The Sync process LrC>Lr does that automatically for images it syncs.
To sync a Collection you check the (almost invisible) box on the left of a Collection name and the Sync icon will appear.
And you need to [Start Sync] from the Cloud icon on the Module Menu line.

 

[johnbeardy]

Notice you can filter the Collections panel to show those synced with LrMobile.

 

[paulgodard]

Step by step, I am getting there. Thank you guys.
I discovered that only one catalog can sync to the cloud... Does that mean that if I set another catalog to sync in the future, I will loose all the synced images on LRm from the first catalog?

 

[johnbeardy]

Yes. Only one catalogue can be synced. If you try to sync a different catalogue, you do get a warning message.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Step by step, I am getting there. Thank you guys.
I discovered that only one catalog can sync to the cloud... Does that mean that if I set another catalog to sync in the future, I will loose all the synced images on LRm from the first catalog?

You won’t lose them, but they get disconnected from the originally synced catalog, and then downloaded as new originals into the newly synced catalog.

 

[clee01l]

Step by step, I am getting there. Thank you guys.
I discovered that only one catalog can sync to the cloud... Does that mean that if I set another catalog to sync in the future, I will loose all the synced images on LRm from the first catalog?

To use Lightroom Classic most efficiently, all you should need is one catalog for all of your images. If you merge all of your catalogs into a Master Catalog and use collections for organization instead of folders, you would start using Lightroom Classic as intended and both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic will work harmoniously.

 

[paulgodard]

That is what I have for my own images but for clients, I prefer to keep it separately.

 

[clee01l]

That is what I have for my own images but for clients, I prefer to keep it separately.

If you are creating a sharable site for your wife’s social Media, why would you want to include client data?

You might want to take a look at The Adobe Portfolio website and process. You can create fairly sophisticated web pages in Portfolio and link them into you own domain. This might make a good avenue for sharing Client images.


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