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Lightroom Classic or Lightroom CC?

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richardripley

New Member
Premium Classic Member
Premium Cloud Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2009
Messages
14
Location
Lompoc, CA
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Classic 9.2, Lightroom CC 3.2
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.14 Mojave
  2. iOS
I have been using Lightroom since it first was available. That certainly feels like quite some time ago! I understand LR Classic's workflow, though I am confused by the Sync ability which I never used to use.

As I said above, I am very used to how LR Classic works and feel comfortable using it. Now that there are two versions of Lightroom - Classic and CC, I was wondering if I should switch over to Lightroom CC? I do like the ability with CC to view and work on photos on my iPad.

I understand that it is recommended that the two versions - Classic and CC - should not be used together. I use an iPad and iOS quite a lot and if I stay with LR Classic will I be able to view and work on my photos on my iPad using Sync from LR Classic? I understand that there is a difference in functionality between Classic and CC and I was also wondering what I would be losing by using just LR CC or staying with LR Classic? TIA!
 
Well, the most basic consideration is: Do you want to continue to manage all your photos on your own local storage drives (Lightroom Classic), or do you want to move your primary photo storage completely to the cloud (Lightroom)?

I'm still using Lightroom Classic because I do want to continue having complete local access to and backups of all my photos and videos, using my local folder organization; and there are features in Lightroom Classic (printing, Survey mode, and much more) that are not in Lightroom.

But I do also use the Lightroom apps on my iPad and iPhone, syncing specific collections up to the cloud from Lightroom Classic, and letting Adobe sync edits and new originals from those devices back down to Lightroom Classic.

Understand that Lightroom Classic to Lightroom is a one-way trip. If you have a carefully organized folder structure that you can't give up (for example, other applications use the photos/videos in those folders), it will be lost if you migrate to Lightroom. But if that is not a concern to you, and if it would be much better for you to have cloud access to all your photos at any time from any desktop or mobile device, letting Adobe take care of storage space and backups, then you might want to migrate to Lightroom.
 
I think if you are using most of the functionality found in LR Classic, then you should convert your existing catalog and everything will remain familiar. There is some functionality that Lightroom (formerly Lightroom CC) does not yet have or may never have. Publish Services, and Printing are two big items. Keywords are not handled the same way in Lightroom as there is no hierarchal keyword feature and keywords assigned in Classic get a one time transfer to Lightroom (cloudy)

That said there are some workflows that can take advantage of both Classic and cloudy if you maintain Classic as your master catalog . You can sync an unlimited number of smart proxy DNGs to the cloud and you can use the cloudy app on any platform as a front end to import full size images files into your master catalog, This is only limited by the amount of online storage in your subscription. (20 GB is hardly a full camera card)
 
Thank You Cletus and Conrad. I’m going to stay with Lightroom Classic and use Lightroom CC on my iPad. I’ll use Collections to sync photos that I want on my iPad. I like the ability with Lightroom Classic to have local access and control. It’s what I’m used to and this method has worked for me in the past. I just was not that familiar with the syncing option which will satisfy many of my needs for editing on iOS devices. Thanks again!
 
@richardripley I also had a lot of questions regarding these two software solutions from Adobe. I have watched a lot of the review and video reviews. In short, these two programs complement each other. More concise explanation here. As for me, I like to love the Adobe software, although it requires powerful computers.
 
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