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LR iOS Auto Add confusion

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toddcleaver

New Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2022
Messages
18
Lightroom Version Number
v 9.2.0
Operating System
  1. iOS
I shoot with an iPhone 15 Pro Max (native camera app), I have LR (v 9.2.0) set up to "auto add" all new photos to LR.

I thought that everything was working as it should until I realized that there is an inconsistency in what version of the photo that LR uploads. Under normal circumstances LR uploads the original file in the original format. If however I have edited the photo in Apple Photos then LR will only upload the edit, not the original.
So... if I do something simple in Apple Photos (like check to see if the photo looks better with Portrait Mode on or off, or better as monochrome) then only a copy of the file will be uploaded to LR not the original.

I consider LR cloud to be my primary photo storage. I ALWAYS want the original file transferred to LR. I understand why many people would prefer that the edited copy be uploaded, and I'm fine if both the original and edit are uploaded but I always want the original saved in Adobe CC for every picture I take.

It is evident in LR that this is a copy and not the original because the file name will be different and the file size changes slightly.
Examples:

Normal un-edited file:
Original file: File uploaded to LR:
IMG_5360.HEIC vs. IMG_5360.HEIC (exactly the same)

File that was edited in Photos before upload:
Original file: File uploaded to LR:
IMG_5364.HEIC vs. IMG_5364_jpg.heic (much different)

I have searched for a way to change this behavior to no avail. Am I missing something or is this just the default for Auto Add that can't be changed?

To be clear, all I want to do is assure that LR CC stores every original unedited photo I take from my iPhone.

Thanks in advance for helping.
 
If you only want the original in LR, why are you editing it in Photos first? When you edit a HEIC image using Photos, a derivative with the "_jpg.heic" extension is automatically saved by Photos, and it's that derivative which is exposed to you and any other app, such as LrM. IOW, Photos acts in much the same non-destructive method as Lightroom does. You can, if you wish, also export the original from Photos after editing it there, which you can then add into LrM....but that original would not contain any of the edits that you applied to it in Photos.

So if you want the original to be auto-imported into LrM, don't edit it first in Photos.
 
Thanks for answering Jim,
If you only want the original in LR, why are you editing it in Photos first?
It's not that I only want the original in LR. It's more that I always want the original in LR. It's fine, and actually preferred, if the edit from Photos is there also. The fact that I may have checked out what an edit would look like using the phone should not impact LR saving the original.

Right or wrong I kind of think of it like this:
If I use a real camera and shoot in Raw, then, using only the camera, develop the picture and apply a style. The developed picture will be saved as a jpeg on the same memory card as the Raw file.
Then when I go to import into LR or LRc both the original Raw file and the edited jpeg will be imported. That has always been the way it worked and seems perfectly natural.
To my mind the behavior of the auto add function when using a phone seems completely counter to this age old import method that we expect with our camera imports. Since this method of import does not bring over the original file if it was edited in "camera". It just seem strange that for all of the time that I have been a photographer the import function would bring over every iteration of an image stored on a memory card but that this particular method of transferring images from an iPhone to LR ignores the original image file if the photo was edited.

This may be some limitation in iOS, and what it lets LR see, I have no idea. It's just that this behavior caught me off guard because it is so counter to my years of experience importing photos from cameras.

You can, if you wish, also export the original from Photos after editing it there, which you can then add into LrM...
This I understand. It's just that once I turned on "auto add" in LR I had assumed (without checking) that LR had stored a copy of the original. I consider LR CC my primary repository of all photos, edited or not. Once my photos are in CC I often delete them from the source, in this case Apple Photos. To later discover that the original was not saved at all was extremely disappointing. Quite admittedly my mistake; I should never have deleted the source photos without fully understanding the behavior of the auto add function.

So if you want the original to be auto-imported into LrM, don't edit it first in Photos.
I certainly understand that this is one of the work arounds, the other, as you also mentioned, manually adding the original to LR. I suspect for me, unless Adobe modifies this behavior, I will just turn off auto add and do my transfers into LR manually to make sure I am actually saving the original and a copy of any edits I did in Photos.

So a bit of an explanation as to why edit in Photos and want both the original and copy saved in LR:

I have after many years of shooting with traditional cameras started using my iPhone as a primary shooter for everything on the wide end. I have used the LR as my DAM and for post processing for many years and I want to stay with it. That is to say I do not want to keep everything in Apple Photos and pay Apple for storage. So, to stay with the workflow that I have used for years I want to import EVERYTHING that I shoot with the iPhone into LR just like I always have with my traditional cameras.

However, Apple Photos does have some unique qualities (particularly in portrait mode) that aren't duplicated in LR. Also, it's so easy (and fun) to look at the editing possibilities on the phone following a shoot. So yes, I do use Apple photos to do some occasional editing and/or just to try a few things that I may or may not keep. And I often do this before the pictures have transferred to LR.

But for heavens sake, just because I played with the photo in Apple Photos does not mean that I don't want to save the original! Since I don't save the originals permanently in the Apple ecosystem if LR doesn't save the original I basically have done a destructive edit (without realizing it). Lr only has the edit, not the original. I deleted the original from Apple (in my mind the same thing as deleting it from my SD card once I import into Lr). This all just seems so counter to what we are accustomed to with traditional photography.

I completely understand that there are several other ways to accomplish my goal of saving both the original file as well as any edits done in Photos. It just seems that it would be so simple for Adobe to add an option: "Import original as well as edits".

Thanks to anyone who actually read through this. I tried to make it informative and not so much a rant, but in my frustration it may be a bit of a rant:giggle:
 
simple for Adobe to add an option: "Import original as well as edits".
I think this is an iOS issue. Apple likely does not expose both files to Lightroom or other apps. In fact, they may send the original to iCloud leaving a token (to save you space on the phone).
 
I think this is an iOS issue. Apple likely does not expose both files to Lightroom or other apps. In fact, they may send the original to iCloud leaving a token (to save you space on the phone).
Thanks @clee01l . I suspected that an iOS issue could be a possibility. In the case of a token then even copying files from the phone with a USB cable might not get the original. The only solution would be to run two exports from Apple Photos, one for unmodified originals and one for any edits.

I'll need to investigate and decide on a path forward. I have to say I do love shooting with the iPhone but I have used the same workflow for so many years with my cameras where I was in control of and understood exactly what was where and what was happening. I'm finding it difficult to adapt to adapt to the idea of letting go of the details. And now I have lost some original files (luckily nothing important) because I didn't fully understand what was going on behind the curtain.
 
. I'll need to investigate and decide on a path forward.
Here's what I have tested (and do) I have an album name iPhone. It is set to receive using Auto add. In the camera app I choose RAW Max to get a 48mp RAW DNG. Take the photo and it shows up as an unedited 48mp DNG file. Next I go to the Photos app and edit the 48mp RAW file I just shot. (to make it easy to Identify , I changed it to monochrome and severely cropped the image. Switch back to Lightroom Mobile and the Original unedited RAW image is still there. In Lightroom I switch to Local mode and I can see the edited version of the Image as adjusted by the Photos app. If I attempt to edit in LrM the image reverted to unedited RAW. I can Import this Local image to the Adobe cloud but Lightroom won't let me because it says the file is a duplicate. Trying to out smart Lightroom, I went back to the Photos app and tried sharing the edited image with Lightroom It tells me that it will be on the next import. And it is but as the unedited RAW DNG

I finally solved the issue of getting two versions of the iPhone Photos image into the Adobe Cloud. In the Photos app I exported the file to iCloud in a Files folder. In Lightroom Desktop (local) I opened the iCloud Files folder and found the edited Jpeg. This I imported into the Adobe Cloud so Now I have two version of a file generated using the Photos Camera, original and a Photos app edited JPEG.
 
There are times I wish to do a quick edit of an image on my iphone, mostly just a crop, but I wish to retain the original image and the edited image, possibly for later editing / archiving within my Classic Lr catalog.

Using my iPhone, I have got into the habit of clicking on the target image, click on the Duplicate option, complete my edit and normally then email it, post to WhatsApp, etc.

The iPhone now has my original and the edited, version. I know I have consumed a little more space, but this is only a small fraction of my iPhone images captured.
 
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