Using Lightroom Classic and CC

[sawhearn8-icloud]

Lightroom Version Number

Classic version 8.2.1

Operating System

1. macOS 10.14 Mojave

Hi, I have the Adobe Photography bundle, am using Classic on my iMac and have brought in RAW photos from an external hard drive. I own a MacBook Air and would like to view my photos on that when away from home. Is it a good idea to load Lightroom CC on my desktop and laptop so I can sync between the two? I've read conflicting reports about the wisdom of doing this. I'm a keen amateur photographer and just beginning to learn Lightroom properly (with great assistance from this site).

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Here is what I do, and as a "beginner" you might do the same until you learn more.
1. On my desktop- Lightroom-Classic only.
2. On my Laptop- Lightroom-CC
3. On my desktop- Lightroom-Classic - Add selected photos to Collections and mark selected Collections to Sync to the Cloud.
4. On my Laptop - Lightroom-CC- View, Edit, Share, the 'synced' photos.

Do not install Lightroom-CC on the Desktop computer- it will just confuse things.
Start by syncing limited number of Collections from Lr-Classic. If you add all your photos to a collection the sync may take a long, long, time!
Note that this workflow does not sync full-size files to the Cloud, but instead in Lr-CC, you are working with files (like DNG Smart Previews) with a long edge dimension of 2560 pixels, but with enough detail for most editing (and "Saving to JPG" on the Laptop)

 

[nkawoods]

I’ve been using Lightroom Classic on my Mac desktop and Lightroom CC on a traveling small MacBook. I have all my photos stored on my desktop; I keep an album “working collection” in LR Classic that I sync up with LR Mobile and use that with Lightroom CC on my MacBook when traveling.

I would love to just use the cloud to store all photos along with my catalog so I could access everything on both computers but I initially ran into big sync issues when I migrated to Lightroom CC on my desktop and tried to use Lightroom Classic on the same computer to edit . I migrated back to Classic and removed Lightroom CC from my desktop; it was a huge hassle to fix. I now only import photos to my desktop catalog using LR Classic.

Having been burned before I’m cautious about moving back to the cloud, but with all the recent improvements in Lightroom CC, I find myself revisiting the idea of trying to keep everything in the cloud but maintaining the ability to edit photos as needed in Lightroom Classic. There are some things I would hate to lose in Classic that aren’t available yet in Lightroom CC. Is there a way to do this that wouldn’t lead to the same sync issues I had originally? Thanks for any thoughts on this.

 

[nkawoods]

Update: I bit the bullet and bought both of Victoria’s books on Classic and CC, looks like I’ll be able to design a workflow that works for me based on the info in those books.

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Update: I made the statement- "Do not install Lightroom-CC on the Desktop computer " in my post above.
TBMK Installing Lightroom-CC (now just called "Lightroom") on the desktop is a way to easily transfer all your Develop presets to the laptop.
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/sync-presets-profiles-lightroom-classic-mobile/And yes Victoria's books are great!

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Update: I bit the bullet and bought both of Victoria’s books on Classic and CC, looks like I’ll be able to design a workflow that works for me based on the info in those books.

Thanks nkawoods. You'll have also gained a year's premium membership with it, so you can run your workflow ideas past us personally if you get stuck.

 

[nkawoods]

I've followed the instructions in the Classic book for working in Classic on my main computer, storing all photos there, and syncing a good chunk of them to mobile so that I can work with many more photos on multiple devices. So far, so good - but I'd like to verify that I have a good understanding of when I'm working with full resolution photos and when I'm working with smart previews:

- Everything that was previously synced to LR mobile is a smart preview - so when I work on one of those photos on my traveling MacBook, I'm really just working with a smart preview. However, any edits I might make on that MacBook in Lightroom CC will sync back to the original full res photo in Lightroom Classic. Correct?

- Going forward, the full res photo will be uploaded to the cloud no matter where I add the photo? Or is that only if I upload the photo using Lightroom CC or Lightroom Mobile?

- Within the scope of tools available in Lightroom CC and Lightroom Mobile, is there any loss of quality in the edits if I'm working on a Smart Preview?

Thank you in advance!

 

[Rob_Cullen]

- Everything that was previously synced to LR mobile is a smart preview - so when I work on one of those photos on my traveling MacBook, I'm really just working with a smart preview. However, any edits I might make on that MacBook in Lightroom CC will sync back to the original full res photo in Lightroom Classic. Correct?
Yes.

- Going forward, the full res photo will be uploaded to the cloud no matter where I add the photo? Or is that only if I upload the photo using Lightroom CC or Lightroom Mobile?
only if you upload the photo using Lightroom CC or Lightroom Mobile.
The other interesting fact is that uploads synced from a Collection (the 'smart previews') do not occupy any space of your 20GB Cloud space allocation. Only images you remotely import to download from mobile devices use Cloud space (Full size files).

-is there any loss of quality in the edits if I'm working on a Smart Preview?
The 'Smart Preview' that is synced from a Lr-Classic Collection has a long edge dimension of 2560 pixels. So it is plenty large enough for most development you can do. They look great on Standard 1920x1080 laptop screens. Although it is not recommended you do- Detail (Sharpening, Noise) and Lens Corrections until you are at the home desktop where you can view 1:1 with the full-size file.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Although it is not recommended you do- Detail (Sharpening, Noise) and Lens Corrections until you are at the home desktop where you can view 1:1 with the full-size file.

Lens Corrections would be fine, it's only the very sharpest detail stuff that might be an issue.

 

[nkawoods]

One issue has popped up as I’m working through this new workflow, and I haven’t been able to find an answer. I’ve been alternately culling recent photos using “pick” and “reject” flags on both my MacBook LR CC App and my iPad LR Mobile app, with the goal of actually deleting them on my MacBook Pro in LR Classic, which I understand is the way to go to make sure they get removed everywhere. I’ve always culled in this manner in Classic, then used CMD+A (select all), then CMD+Delete keys to delete only the rejects. Now when I try that combination I get a sound that indicates I can’t do it. It lets me delete photos individually but that will be a real bottleneck. I’ve checked to make sure I’m actually in a LR Classic window (I often get that sound when the window I’m looking at isn’t the active one). Is this related to my new workflow (rejecting them in LR CC or Mobile) or something new or something not working in LR Classic?

 

[Jim Wilde]

That should work. What happens if you try the Photo menu command to Delete Rejected Photos?

 

[nkawoods]

Thanks - not sure now, I had been away from my MacBook Pro for a while and before I posted the question I turned it off. Rebooting seems to have cleared up the issue. But I'm going to assume using the menu command would have worked. It could have been something to do with my keyboard, which can start acting strangely from time to time and a reboot usually cures it.

 

[nkawoods]

The problem is back - I can delete all rejected photos using the menu command; I can filter for rejected photos then hit delete and it works. It's when I try hitting command + delete that it fails. I also tried command + delete with only rejected photos selected and it failed. So something to do with that command plus delete shortcut. I tried other shortcuts that include the command key; no problem there so not the keyboard.