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LR6 with LR Classic

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BobT

Active Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
Messages
632
Location
Australia
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
LR6.14
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
Is it possible to use LR6 and LR Classic interchangeably on the same data set? Is so, if edits are written to XMP, will LR Classic read the edits of LR6 and vice versa given that LR6 does not have as much functionality?
 
I believe the answer is no. LRc upgrades your LR6 catalogue so it is no longer usable by LR6. Also, while most changes may be replicated in the XMP sidecar, some changes are only held in the catalog such 'Pick'.

I guess I'm curious why you would want to use both LR6 and LRc?
 
I believe the answer is no. LRc upgrades your LR6 catalogue so it is no longer usable by LR6. Also, while most changes may be replicated in the XMP sidecar, some changes are only held in the catalog such 'Pick'.

I guess I'm curious why you would want to use both LR6 and LRc?
I have no intension of using both. It's just that I'm overly cautious and like to know what fall-backs I have.
 
The answer is actually yes. If you make edits in one catalog and save metadata to files, then you can read metadata from files in the other catalog. This way you can make changes that go two ways, but obviously Lightroom 6 will only read those changes that it understands, so no range masks for example. And of course it is limited to those things that are actually written to XMP in the first place.
 
The answer is actually yes. If you make edits in one catalog and save metadata to files, then you can read metadata from files in the other catalog. This way you can make changes that go two ways, but obviously Lightroom 6 will only read those changes that it understands, so no range masks for example. And of course it is limited to those things that are actually written to XMP in the first place.
Thanks John. This is what I was hoping. Of course it's not ideal but it's a bit of reassurance if all goes pear shaped with one or the other of the apps. It does mean writing to XMP but I've recently done just that for my entire catalogue anyway. After a decade of near faultless operation, my system has started throwing the occasional blue screen of death so I'm a bit wary.
 
Is it possible to use LR6 and LR Classic interchangeably on the same data set?
This was your original question. And that answer is No. The Structure of the catalog files in LR6 and LrC 10 are different and so the data in them will be unique to that version. The image files catalogs can be the same images in the same location but that is as far as it goes. LrC v10 uses Process version 5 which IIRC LR6 does not understand as it is limited to an older process version. So even if you write to XMP, Lr6 will only be able to interpret develop instructions for the process versions that it knows about.
When you upgrade to LrC v10, Lightroom will build a new V10 catalog file from the contents of the LR6 catalog file. These are not backward compatible. So, any additions made to images in the V10 catalog will not be recorded in the v6 catalog.

Can you install LrC and LR6 on the same machine and import the same image files? This is a definite Yes. You will have 2 separate catalog files and separate data. But the data is not interchangable except one-way (Lr6 => LrC v10)
 
It depends what you define as 'data set', but we are going into nitpicking now. If the 'data set' is a catalog, then the answer is no, you can't share a catalog between two different versions of Lightroom. If the 'data set' is XMP, then the answer is yes, with the limitations I already mentioned.
 
By "data set" I meant one's library of image files excluding the catalogue but let's not quibble. I get the picture.
Thanks guys.
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