Workflow feasibility - struggling to get the big picture

[nremy1984]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic v9.2

Operating System

1. Windows 10
2. macOS 10.15 Catalina
3. iOS

hi everyone,
As a long-timer Lightroom 6 user, I am trying to get a sense of whether i can satisfy all my needs with/within the Adobe software for photographers.
The Adobe online help articles didn't... help me do so. They are topic-specific and i feel, fail to explain the big picture well.
I have browsed topics including "workflow" in this forum, but haven't found one addressing my whole problem... or i am too "new" on the topic to connect the dots.
Long story short, here i am, with my requirements for my future photography computer/software setup:

MY REQUIREMENTS:
A/ Comprehensive application to cull, catalog (keywords, stars, ...), edit, and export my photos on my home computer. By "comprehensive", i mean similar to LR6, clearly i do not need photoshop. Probably worth calling out the must haves beyond basics: clarity, ability to recover highlights/shadows, de-haze (can’t wait), some graduated filters, clone/dust removal, export with ability to specify file format, max dimensions (width pixels), max file weight (e.g. 500 kb), and include my custom graphical watermark.

B/ Ability to cull and catalog (keywords, stars...) on other "not in home" situations. This will essentially be: on my iPhone when commuting on the train (approx 1h per weekday), and from time-to-time, maybe 3-4 hours per month, on another laptop (work laptop, shared laptop).

C/ Ability to export an already edited photo (applying my graphical watermark + max width in pixels) from my iPhone. This is after i have edited a bunch of photos, they are ready, i want ability, during my commuting time, to post some of my work on Instagram. Today i have to export these photos from LR6 on my laptop, then copy on my iPhone, and from there i will post on Instagram. Because i often forget to do it, then i am unable to post timely content whereas i have that commuting time.

D/ Ability to access my original RAW files form anywhere. This won't happen often though, 5 few times per year maybe, typical scenarios are: i am away for 1-2 weeks and i have urgently to send RAW files (being down-selected for a photo contest), which are stuck on my backup hard drive at home.

E/ Having an online backup for all my RAWs + XMP files, in addition to my home external hard drives. I have approx 800 GB today, probably won’t cross the 1 TB limit for another 2 years.

F/ A simple solution to create my own photography website. Has to allow showing both photos galleries, and free text content (e.g. « about me », services i offer, etc.), and integrate somehow with my future LR workflow.

In summary, i still plan most of my detailed work to be done at home, but i’d like to do culling/sorting on-the-go regularly (make best use of commuting time) and would like online backup + ability to access RAW files from anywhere (ad-hoc, won’t happen often).

Potential Solutions which i have identified:
A/ i have read the « new LR » applications (desktop, iOS, web-based) lack some of the export functionalities i need. That’s a deal breaker, and due to this i think i am stuck to « LR Classic » for my need #1.

B/ Looks like the « new LR » applications would do the trick.

C/ I haven’t seen a solution for this.D and E/ I think the online 1 TB storage offered with some Adobe plans would do the trick. Alternatively, i guess other personal Cloud storage solutions could work too (Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, iCloud…).

F/ The Adobe Portfolio application packaged in the photography plan seems a good match for my needs.

Where i am stuck in my decision for my next setup/workflow
I wish i could do everything within the « new LR » suite of applications (desktop, smartphone, web-based), and i don’t mind re-learning a user interface, but the lack of graphical watermark and other export functionalities mean i still need « LR Classic ». Maybe in 2 years time all of my needs can be addressed by the « new LR », but i don’t think that’s the case yet.
For now, it looks like i’ll be juggling between the « new LR » apps (for culling « on the go ») and « LR Classic » when i sit down for editing at home.
But then, I am very confused with which application would be the « master » of my future photography database/catalogue, and what would be the influence of which online storage solution i pick. It seems to me that « saving my RAWs onto Adobe Cloud » means « new LR » has to become the master.

So here are my questions, on the 2 scenarios/workflow i have identified (if any recommendation for a 3rd workflow that would cover by A-B-C-D-E-F needs better, i am all ears ):
1/ if opt for Adobe’s 1 TB plan, does it mean the « new LR » applications have to be the « master », and LR Classic will be « slave », i.e. taking control on a temporary basis while i do my heavier editing? This looks inconsistent with the fact that i still plan most of my editing to be done on a home computer, is with LR Classic (due to the export/watermarks).

2/ If the above doesn’t work, should i keep LR Classic as the « master » of all my photos, synchronize ALL my photographs onto the « new LR » (as opposed to just some collections) so that i can still do culling on-the-go for recent photos and… for the big backlog i have got. In this scenario i guess i have to pick another provider for the online storage of all photos (such as Microsoft OneDrive). Here my doubts are for the ability to sync all my photos (i suppose you do this on a per-collection basis for a reason…) and i am wondering if i would miss-out on Adobe Portfolio (would it still work if my photos backup isn’t with Adobe).

thanks all!
Nicolas

 

[SaraLH]

First let me try to address your two questions:
1) No, with the 1TB plan LR "Cloudy" does not have to be the master and indeed for your foreseen workflow I personally would not recommend it.
2) You might consider starting with the 20GB Photography plan and only syncing the collections you need from Classic to Cloudy. For example your edited photos that you're presenting in your Portfolio gallery or the newer photos that you want to cull on the road.

It's been mentioned in many other posts, and I'll say it here again: The Lightroom cloud is not intended to replace a normal local backup procedure. There are many inexpensive harddrive options available for home backup, especially if you only have 1 TB of files. Another option, and one that I use (in addition to a local backup) Amazon Photos. If you're an Amazon Prime member you have unlimited photo (not video!) storage. Once a month I upload the newest (unedited) raw files and they just sit there should I somehow lose the a) mirrored drives containing the edited pictures in my catalog and b) the original uneditied raw files on my NAS.

I would strongly caution against letting OneDrive "touch" any photos that are actively in your Lightroom catalog as OneDrive will constantly be trying to upload photos when you've made changes in Lightroom and then Lightroom constantly sees the photos as "being changed by an extrenal program". Indeed, I would strongly recommend keeping the photos in your Lightroom Catalog in a folder structure completely unrelated to the "My Pictures" folder in Windows, e.g. on a different hard drive.

The one key thing that jumps out at me is that you say you want to handle keywording on the road. Keywords DO NOT SYNC from Cloudy to Classic. And indeed, once you have synced a photo from Classic to Cloudy, any keywords you add in Classic will not be synced to the cloud unless you delete the photo from the cloud and reload it. Any keywords you add in the cloud will not be synced back to Classic. Classic has a hierarchical keyword system and Cloudy a flat system and tey do not talk to each other. So underway, culling and rating will work but not keywording.

Personally I have given up using Lightroom as a tool when I travel because it is too dependent on a fast Internet collection.

There are a couple of posts in the forum that discuss using LR underway and switching from Classic to Cloudy. Perhaps you can find something helpful here:
What Am I Missing??
Any suggested workflow that I can use to help me switch from LR Classic over to CC
Keywords only randomly being synced from Classic to CC/Web

 

[Steve O.]

I would strongly caution against letting OneDrive "touch" any photos that are actively in your Lightroom catalog as OneDrive will constantly be trying to upload photos when you've made changes in Lightroom and then Lightroom constantly sees the photos as "being changed by an extrenal program". Indeed, I would strongly recommend keeping the photos in your Lightroom Catalog in a folder structure completely unrelated to the "My Pictures" folder in Windows, e.g. on a different hard drive.

What Am I Missing??
Any suggested workflow that I can use to help me switch from LR Classic over to CC
Keywords only randomly being synced from Classic to CC/Web

Thank you, I was about to setup light room on a Onedrive folder, as that is where the pictures folder points.
It will be entirely separate, on my secondary HD. I think Onedrive has already lost me some pics. I don't need to fight both at the same time.

Steve O.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I would strongly caution against letting OneDrive "touch" any photos that are actively in your Lightroom catalog as OneDrive will constantly be trying to upload photos when you've made changes in Lightroom and then Lightroom constantly sees the photos as "being changed by an extrenal program".

I don’t have OneDrive so I cannot guarantee from my own experience that this will not happen, but it should not happen. Lightroom never touches the originals when you make edits, so OneDrive should not see them as changed either. The only exception would be if you automatically write changes to XMP in Lightroom, and the originals are not proprietary raw files but DNG files or RGB files like TIFF or JPEG.

 

[johnbeardy]

I do have OneDrive and agree with Johan's points.

 

[SaraLH]

Uh oh, I don't want to disagree with you Gurus because I have tons of respect for you both! BUT, I have experienced this behaviour myself because I use DNG files and have a few tiff and jpgs.
The other big problem I have with putting photos on OneDrive is the following:
- OneDrive only allows you to point to one master folder structure for syncing files.
- I use OneDrive for syncing documents (Word, Excel, web sites structures, etc.). My documents are on a 500gb internal ssd and my pictures on a (synced) USB 3 external drive and I prefer to keep the two structures completely separate, therefore OneDrive is not an option I will be using for my photos.

Another issue inherent to Windows is using the "My Pictures" folder for your Lightroom library. The default storage location of the Windows "Pictures" folder (as well as Documents, Music, etc.) is in your user profile C:\Users\%USERNAME%\. This can have bad consesequences, the worst of which is a user profile getting corrupted and you can't sign on as yourself (although this is rare in Win10, it can still happen) or the least of the evils, logon takes a horribly long time because your user profile is so fat with all of those media files. There are many instructions in the Internet about how to redirect the standard user folders to a new location.

And also to be considered: when you use your default Pictures folder in your Lightroom catalog then you may want to consider removing the folder from the Windows Library (for instructions on how to do this Google "remove folder from Windows Library"). You see, Windows loves to index all of those files and when you open the files again in Lightroom you see that little exclamation point in the upper right corner saying "Metadata has been changed - update or overwrite?". While it's not exactly harmful it can be confusing. Personally, I've redirected my "My Pictures" folder to the NAS location where I store the developed and exported pictures that can be viewed from my husband's computer, our tablets or phones or on the TVs.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

don't want to disagree with you Gurus because I have tons of respect for you both! BUT, I have experienced this behaviour myself because I use DNG files and have a few tiff and jpgs.

Like I said before: using these kinds of images you can indeed cause that problem, but only if you turn on the option to write changes to XMP in the Lightroom preferences. There is no compelling reason to do that, so simply turn it off if you want to store Lightroom images in OneDrive (or any other similar cloud service).

 

[nremy1984]

First let me try to address your two questions:
1) No, with the 1TB plan LR "Cloudy" does not have to be the master and indeed for your foreseen workflow I personally would not recommend it.
2) You might consider starting with the 20GB Photography plan and only syncing the collections you need from Classic to Cloudy. For example your edited photos that you're presenting in your Portfolio gallery or the newer photos that you want to cull on the road.

It's been mentioned in many other posts, and I'll say it here again: The Lightroom cloud is not intended to replace a normal local backup procedure. There are many inexpensive harddrive options available for home backup, especially if you only have 1 TB of files. Another option, and one that I use (in addition to a local backup) Amazon Photos. If you're an Amazon Prime member you have unlimited photo (not video!) storage. Once a month I upload the newest (unedited) raw files and they just sit there should I somehow lose the a) mirrored drives containing the edited pictures in my catalog and b) the original uneditied raw files on my NAS.

I would strongly caution against letting OneDrive "touch" any photos that are actively in your Lightroom catalog as OneDrive will constantly be trying to upload photos when you've made changes in Lightroom and then Lightroom constantly sees the photos as "being changed by an extrenal program". Indeed, I would strongly recommend keeping the photos in your Lightroom Catalog in a folder structure completely unrelated to the "My Pictures" folder in Windows, e.g. on a different hard drive.

The one key thing that jumps out at me is that you say you want to handle keywording on the road. Keywords DO NOT SYNC from Cloudy to Classic. And indeed, once you have synced a photo from Classic to Cloudy, any keywords you add in Classic will not be synced to the cloud unless you delete the photo from the cloud and reload it. Any keywords you add in the cloud will not be synced back to Classic. Classic has a hierarchical keyword system and Cloudy a flat system and tey do not talk to each other. So underway, culling and rating will work but not keywording.

Personally I have given up using Lightroom as a tool when I travel because it is too dependent on a fast Internet collection.

There are a couple of posts in the forum that discuss using LR underway and switching from Classic to Cloudy. Perhaps you can find something helpful here:
What Am I Missing??
Any suggested workflow that I can use to help me switch from LR Classic over to CC
Keywords only randomly being synced from Classic to CC/Web

Thanks A LOT Sarah for this comprehensive, very helpful reply.
I have read also the 3 conversations you've recommended, the 1st one is gold, but without your suggestion i wouldn't have opened it by my own (title not so helpful ).

Now that i better understand how things work, i think indeed i am more leaning towards the 2nd workflow.
Thanks for raising the issue around keywording, thinking twice that won't be a problem i am happy to do my keywording before starting to cull photos on the go/on iPhone.
The only regret i have is the inability to use a 3rd party Cloud backup solution. Clearly OneDrive seems like a problem. Are others (Drobox, etc.) also an issue? You've recommended Amazon but that seems more like a system where i have to take action to "push" files onto their cloud, i.e. not automated, so bit less attractive to me (introduces a manual process).

Like I said before: using these kinds of images you can indeed cause that problem, but only if you turn on the option to write changes to XMP in the Lightroom preferences. There is no compelling reason to do that, so simply turn it off if you want to store Lightroom images in OneDrive (or any other similar cloud service).

I have had XMP files generated next to my original RAW files by LR6 for years. Can't remember why i enabled this originally, but looking at this post from Jim in another conversation, i see that having XMP files will help me ensure that metadata (keywords aside) will sync well between LR Classic and Cloudy, for my mobile culling/light editing:

A couple of important points to add to this:

1. Metadata needs to be written to XMP before a file is synced from Classic.
2. An existing smart preview cannot exist in the Classic catalog before syncing a file.....Classic will upload any such existing SP (which won't contain existing metadata), but if an SP does not exist it will be generated for the syncing process and will then include any metadata that has been written to XMP.

 

[johnbeardy]

Clearly OneDrive seems like a problem. Are others (Drobox, etc.) also an issue?

Note that two of us questioned this comment about OneDrive. The problem of repeated uploading happens if you have enabled automatic writing of XMP, and you are using formats like DNG, JPEG, TIF, PSD. So it happens with Dropbox too.

 

[clee01l]

Note that two of us questioned this comment about OneDrive. The problem of repeated uploading happens if you have enabled automatic writing of XMP, and you are using formats like DNG, JPEG, TIF, PSD. So it happens with Dropbox too.

I agree with John. It should be emphasized that OneDrive and Dropbox is NOT file backup. OneDrive does have a cloud backup of cloud stored imager but that is outside the realm of the user and for Microsofts own protection and user data retention. If you accidentally delete a file locally, it gets deleted everywhere. If you write over a file intentionally and want to later recover the original data it is gone locally and everywhere forever.

So then the question is why use one of these services with Lightroom? If you want to share images to other devices, then use the exported derivatives for this purpose. If you want to “work” on these file on mobile devices, use the cloudy version of Lightroom to access any classic files that you may want to sync.


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[Johan Elzenga]

I have had XMP files generated next to my original RAW files by LR6 for years. Can't remember why i enabled this originally, but looking at this post from Jim in another conversation, i see that having XMP files will help me ensure that metadata (keywords aside) will sync well between LR Classic and Cloudy, for my mobile culling/light editing

Keywords don’t sync, period. They will upload once this way, but after that there is no sync.

 

[prbimages]

RE: Dropbox and OneDrive

If you accidentally delete a file locally, it gets deleted everywhere. If you write over a file intentionally and want to later recover the original data it is gone locally and everywhere forever.

Not true, actually. Both Dropbox and OneDrive keep file change history for (at least) a month. You can restore to a previous version, or bring back deleted files, no problem whatsoever.

 

[clee01l]

RE: Dropbox and OneDrive

Not true, actually. Both Dropbox and OneDrive keep file change history for (at least) a month. You can restore to a previous version, or bring back deleted files, no problem whatsoever.

I mention that for OneDrive, but it does not help Lightroom. It is a manual process if you screw up. And as you say only one month. Needing to recover from 6 months back, this is useless. The point that I was making is that Dropbox or any other similar product is boot a backup solution period.


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