If you’ve been around the Lightroom community over the last week, you’ve probably heard a lot of chatter and even more confusion about Lightroom’s new Local mode. It was all started by an email from Matt K entitled “Goodbye Lightroom Classic” (which was actually about selling his new Lightroom course… don’t worry, Lightroom Classic isn’t going anywhere).
Every photographer has different needs, workflows, and opinions, so in this post, we will give a comprehensive overview of the pros and cons of Lightroom’s new Local mode as it stands today to help you make the right decision for your personal Lightroom workflow. We’ll update this post as new features are added, so even if it’s not the right choice for you today, it may be in the future.
(TL;DR – I believe it’s too soon for most Classic users, but read on to learn why.)
What’s the difference between Lightroom and Lightroom Classic?
I’m sure you know that there are two different desktop versions of Lightroom, and yes, the naming is confusing. The traditional folder-based version of Lightroom has been around since 2006, first as a public beta, then just called Lightroom, and then renamed to Lightroom Classic in 2017. And there’s also the version that was first released in 2017, initially called Lightroom CC, and now just known as Lightroom (or more accurately, Lightroom Desktop, because it’s actually just one element of the cloud-based Lightroom ecosystem which has apps for Desktop, Mobile, and Web).
Until a couple of months ago, Lightroom Desktop was entirely cloud-based… your photos were stored in the cloud and could be accessed from any of your devices. When it was first released in 2017, it didn’t have all of the editing features, so some people considered it dumbed-down. It’s grown up since then, and almost all of Lightroom Classic’s editing controls are now available.
In the October release of Lightroom Desktop, a new Local feature was introduced, which allows you to work on files stored on your local hard drive rather than uploading them all to the cloud. We wrote about it here on release date, and at the same time, we released our Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go book, which has been completely rewritten to incorporate this new feature.
Lightroom Desktop’s Local mode is a bit of a mouthful, so let’s call it Lightroom Local for simplicity…
What’s the advantage of Lightroom Local?
It’s a lightweight file browser that allows you to browse and edit the photos stored in folders on your hard drive. That means there’s no import process (if the photos have already been copied to your hard drive) and no catalog, so there are no more “missing files.” It’s also much newer software, so it has fewer bugs, and it’s much simpler to learn. It has the same sliders as Lightroom Classic. They’re arranged into slightly different groupings, but personally, I prefer Lightroom Desktop’s interface with its collapsible sub-panels for more advanced features.
It sounds great, so what’s the downside?
Remember back in 2005, before Lightroom was around, you had to hunt through all your folders to find a specific photo, and if it fell into multiple categories, you had to duplicate the file? Lightroom Local is currently at that stage. It has all the desired editing features, but the Local mode lacks important organizational tools. It’s just early days! You can rate your photos and add keywords, but you can’t currently search across multiple folders, so to find a photo, you have to know exactly where you stored it. When that changes, I will wholeheartedly recommend Lightroom Local to anyone who wants to store their photos locally and doesn’t need Classic’s other features. But, as of today, it’s just too soon for me to recommend it to Classic users who need to search their photos.
There are also some other features that some people will miss more than others. You might not need any of these features in your workflow, but these are the main ones that have come up in discussions over the last few days:
- File Management
- You can’t rename files, except when exporting. That doesn’t really matter in the cloud ecosystem, but it is more important in local storage. And if you rename raw files using the operating system, you must rename the sidecar XMP file at the same time, or you’ll lose your edits.
- There’s no way of creating collections/albums or grouping photos from different folders without actually moving them on the hard drive. (Albums and stacks are available for Cloud photos.)
- If you sync photo to the cloud, it syncs the originals rather than smart previews. That may be a good thing for your workflow, but it requires extra cloud storage, so you’ll probably either need to switch to the LR 1TB plan (which doesn’t include Photoshop) or buy extra storage (doubling the cost).
- No tethered capture (although that’s not an issue for most people).
- You can’t browse offline photos (e.g., if your main photo archive is on a hard drive at home).
- Metadata
- Metadata options are limited to stars, flags, title, caption, copyright, capture date, location fields, and non-hierarchical keywords. (Cloud also has AI-search and People tagging)
- There are no color labels.
- There’s no Map module to assign GPS data (although a small thumbnail map shows on photos that already have GPS).
- There’s no saved search or smart collections.
- You can only search the current folder. (Cloud can search all cloud photos.)
- Editing
- There are no local adjustment presets at the top of the Masking sliders (often known as Brush Presets).
- There’s no Previous or Sync button, but there is Copy/Paste.
- There’s no History of edits (although Auto Versions are available for Cloud photos).
- There are no snapshots or virtual copies (Versions are only available for Cloud photos).
- There are no external editors apart from Photoshop. You can send photos to Photoshop (if you have Photoshop) and use your third-party editors in there, or you can right-click > Show in Explorer/Finder and open into the external app from there.
- There’s no secondary display.
- Export
- While you can Edit in Photoshop, it doesn’t have the advanced options such as Open as Layers or Open as Smart Object.
- You can’t create export presets.
- There are no plug-ins for metadata, export, or devices like LoupeDeck.
- There are no Publish Services (Some third-party connections such as Blurb and SmugMug are available for Cloud photos.)
- There are no Book, Slideshow, Print or Web modules. (Although Print is the only one that people use regularly.)
So, who is Lightroom Local good for today?
Even at this early stage, I would suggest that Lightroom Local is a great choice for:
- Lightroom Classic users who purely use folders to organize their photos and just want to use Lightroom for editing.
- Bridge/Camera Raw users who would prefer to edit their photos without having to open into a separate window.
- Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem users who want to keep some of their photos in the cloud and others offline. Cloud users have been asking for selective sync for years! For example, you might only keep the best and current working photos in cloud storage and the rest on your desktop hard drive.
- Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem users who want to browse and cull their latest photos before adding the keepers to the cloud rather than uploading everything.
Should Lightroom Classic users switch to Lightroom Local?
For some Lightroom Classic users who have just been importing their files, editing them, exporting them, then deleting them from the catalog, Lightroom Local is perfect! It’s also great for those who have another way of organizing their files, for example, working photographers who organize by job and never want to search any other way.
Once some kind of multi-folder search becomes available, it’ll become a good option for many more Lightroom Classic users who don’t want the complexity of catalogs. But right now, it’s just too soon for me to recommend it to people who use Lightroom Classic for organizing their photos (although you might still consider Lightroom Cloud, which does have more organizing features).
If I want to move from Classic to Lightroom Local, what do I need to know?
If, having read all that, you still want to try it out, try it with a fresh shoot… you can always import that shoot into Classic later if there are some features you can’t live without.
Obviously the interface is a little different, and some features are hidden by default to keep the interface simple. Don’t worry, it’s covered in detail in our Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go book. If you just want to get a quick overview, feel free to register as a free member (if you’re not already) and download our free Quick Start eBook.
You also need to understand that Lightroom Local stores the edits in XMP. That’s a section of the file header for most file types (so watch out, your backup software may want to back up the entire file every time you edit it) or a sidecar file for proprietary raw files. If you move or rename a proprietary raw file using the operating system, always move or rename the XMP file at the same time, or you’ll lose your edits.
Lightroom Local doesn’t read your Lightroom Classic catalog, so if you want Lightroom Local to be able to see your edits for existing photos, you’ll need to write the edits to XMP. To do so, select all the photos in Lightroom Classic’s Grid view and go to Metadata menu > Write Metadata to Files. Remember, not everything gets transferred, so don’t throw away your Lightroom Classic catalog. Most notably, Lightroom Classic doesn’t write flags into XMP at the moment. Also, don’t move files or folders using Lightroom Local because then Lightroom Classic will consider them missing, so you could create a mess. If you need to move or rename photos, do it in Lightroom Classic until you’re absolutely sure that Lightroom Local will do everything you need.
To help you decide which system suits you best, check out our fully updated comparison of Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Ecosystem (cloud) Lightroom cloud ecosystem vs. Lightroom Classic – which do I need?
G’day Victoria. Another great post, thank you.
I have a LR Classic catalog which references local dedicated external storage, which backs up automatically to paid Google Drive. We also have LR on iPhone and iPad and use that when travelling.
We are considering ditching Google Drive and flipping to Adobe Cloud storage. I don’t want, though, to put all my images into Adobe Cloud, so the option of using LR Local with local storage is conceptually appealing.
I read in your post that, at the time of writing, you can’t import an LR Classic catalog and you can’t search across folders.
Now that we are six months on from when you wrote this post, would you recommend now to make the switch from LR Classic to LR Local?
Thanks heaps!
John
There haven’t been any significant changes since I wrote this, so the same issues still stand. Not being able to search across folders remains my biggest downside, but whether that will matter to you, I don’t know.
What’s the purpose of putting your photos in the cloud? To be able to access them from other devices or just as a backup?
Thanks Victoria.
We primarily want our photos in the cloud as a backup. The secondary purpose is so when we are travelling, we can upload shots as we go, so essentially as a backup for them as well.
Cheers,
John
Hmmm, tough one.
If all your good photos are going to Adobe’s cloud, then yes, splitting between Cloud/Local works because you’d unlikely want to search through the bad ones that are held locally or group them in collections/albums. In which case, I might use the migration tool to migrate the catalog to the cloud side (so you retain your collections, etc) and then archive the bad photos into local storage. Or remove all the stuff you’re keeping locally from a copy of the Classic catalog, then use the migration tool for everything that’s left perhaps.
But if any of your good photos that you still might want to search or work on won’t be in the cloud, then I’d be more inclined to stick with Classic as your primary archive, even if you upload the originals to the Adobe cloud as your backup.
As usual, Victoria, your blog on this gives the best information and comparison of what you get or loose with each of the LR programs. I’m retired now after 40 years running a commercial studio where my catalog was a hand written ledger book and several big file cabinets of negatives and transparencies! I enjoy Matt K’s videos and have a few of his courses, first saw him at a Scott Kelby Photoshop tour many years ago. I’m happy for him and that he’s enjoying the new features of LR. But for me, there are too many missing tools and functions and I tend to be an obsessive organizer when it comes to images. If it works for others, that’s great but for now I am happy with LR Classic. Thanks again and Happy Holidays!
I guess my workflow is Neanderthal. I really like Photoshop Elements Organizer. I would import into Elements, then cull and organize into albums. I might do an initial Raw modification but not save it. Then I would export the original file to a To Lightroom folder and then edit in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop or Luminar. I love the organization of Elements but the editing of Lightroom, etc.. Many photos are happy just in Elements.
I wish Elements and the other editing programs would talk to each other.
Well, I’ve been working with LR/Local for a couple of days, I’m about 2/3 of the way through Matt’s course, and I just re-read this article. I’m ready to agree that Lightroom is certainly a very capable editor, and I will be using it at least for some things. But… thinking back to what originally appealed to me about Lightroom (now Classic) was three things (in addition to the powerful editing tools, of course): 1. the catalog containing all my editing information (including AUTOMATED catalog backups to a second drive), 2. history (close the program, come back later, and have access to all my editing steps), and 3. virtual copies allowing infinite editing variations, all separate and independent from the others. As they say, YMMV, but those are still important to me.
I also think LR/Local is much weaker with regard to backups. It appears that unless I manually export everything to my automatically backed up photos folder after each session, I’m at risk of losing those edits in the event of a drive failure. Try this: edit a JPG file, but don’t export. Close the program. Now, tell me where that edit information is stored so that I can back it up. It certainly hasn’t been written to the original file or to an XMP file. Google searches can’t tell me and even Adobe Helpx won’t reveal the secret. Even Adobe tries to tell me “it’s in the catalog”! (Online resources definitely haven’t caught up yet.)
Just my thoughts this morning. Full disclosure: I’m just a simple hobbyist, and I don’t take nearly as many photos as I used to, but I’ve been studying photography for a long time. My first “serious” outfit was a borrowed Perfex 55 (look that one up!) and set of Wratten filters, a Kodak Master Photoguide (remember those?), and a roll of Kodak Plus-X!
When you edit a jpg file in Lr, these edits are written to the metadata of the jgp file (jpgs don’t get sidecar files). You can see that the date of the jpg file is changed, and if you make a copy of it (somewhere on your hard disk), the changes are also included in that copy. BUT if you open the image in software other than Lr or LrC, you will not see these changes.
If it were otherwise, the changes would have to be “baked” into the pixels of the jpg and then it would no longer be non-destructive.
Wow! Thomas, thank you for that information. I did not realize that it was possible to do this with JPG files. Yes, I had that exact experience — for a test I converted a JPG to black and white, then opened it in another program, but it was still in color. From that I assumed that LR must be keeping its own record of the edits somewhere (perhaps a secret “catalog” file?!) But as you’ve explained, the edits do indeed stay with the parent JPG file, so backing up the JPG takes care of backing up the edits. I’m very grateful for your explanation, this goes a long way to putting me at ease with regard to backing up edited image files from LR.
I just need to make a slight adjustment to the workflow on my laptop and all will be well!
You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.
I use Bridge for culling and even often do some basic editing before importing into LrC. But since it bothers me that the development module isn’t built in, I thought I’d give “Lr Local” a try.
But I quickly realized that I was jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Although I have now installed the Develop Module, I would now have to use Bridge for some things that Lr does not (yet) offer. I don’t talk about advanced stuff like (smart) collections or plugin support (e.g. for Loupedeck).
I am partly talking about basic features of a file browser (because Lr Local is supposed to be a “filebrowser on steroids”)
– rename images
– open several images via drag and drop, e.g. in Helicon Focus
– filter by criteria such as file type, ISO etc.
Here is something that goes beyond filebrowser features, but should still be one of the basic features of Lr:
– rate/pick several selected images at the same time or assign keywords to them
– edit several images synchronously
etc.etc.
I understand Matt’s point that you can’t expect everything from LrC to be implemented in “Lr Local”. I completely agree with that. But some of these missing features are basic features of a file manager, so I’m a little disappointed that they don’t work. Because at this state it is not a “filebrowser on steroids”.
But I have deliberately written “not yet” more often, because I hope that this will change.
At the moment it is therefore not an alternative to LrC for me and not even a really good alternative to Bridge. Unfortunately, unfortunately…
You can filter by that criteria (click the search field at the top), and you can rate several images at the same time (in Grid view), but the other bits you mention are indeed missing. I wouldn’t describe it as a file browser on steroids either (yet?). It’s a solid 1.0 release, and I’d expect it to gain essential file browser functionality in future updates. Sounds like it could have great potential for your workflow once it’s grown up a bit.
I didn’t realize that rating/picking/keywording works in grid mode. Thanks for that. Maybe they will make it work in detail mode with the filmstrip, too.
Feels a bit counterintuitive that it won’t work with multiple images selected in the film strip. as well as the fact that CTRL-A only works in grid mode. That makes it a little awkward…
The filter option you mentioned will work (like a lot of features I miss) in cloud, but not in local mode. I guess it’s because there’s no catalog (i.e. no database of the images) so it’s not that trivial to make it work in local mode.
I understand that, but it makes it a dealbreaker for me. Especially to not being able to do multi-folder search and filter by date (intervals). On the other hand Bridge can do this…
By default, Lightroom Classic works the same way with the distinction between applying to all in Grid vs. only selected photos in other views, but there are more overrides in there (like turning off Target Photo or enabled Auto Sync). In Desktop, you can do multiple photos in the Filmstrip, but only by right-clicking on the thumbnails, not using the shortcuts.
You’re quite right about metadata filters, I’d forgotten that the search bar’s more limited in Local mode. That is a pain.
I watched MattK’s promo – I generally find him be a good instructor. Some bits I didn’t really get until the third version of his promo but, as someone who is still going through the torment of a failed Crucial SSD that gave up the ghost just as I was transferring files through LrC at the time, the idea of Cloud storage became more appealing.
I did a subsequent shoot in a location and light conditions that I hadn’t previously tried and then used the Lightroom Local import to one location and Lightroom Classic normally to the preferred location. Yes, the actual import via LL was easier but file organisation isn’t as detailed in my mind so I’ll stay with LrC as you recommend for a while longer. Editing the images with LL wasn’t as successful as doing so in LrC with added presets.
In conclusion, I bought Matt’s basic course (without the bells and whistles) and it’s ok but perhaps the LL software needs to evolve before I adopt it. Thanks for your clarification that suited my thought patterns Victoria.
Great feedback, thanks Tony
Excellent article, Victoria, thank you. And I just want to say that there are a lot of excellent instructors out there, but I consider MattK to be the best of the best. Now on with my comments… I’ve never understood the problem that people have with the Lightroom catalog, or the “I can’t find my photos!” comments. I realize, though, that not everyone’s brain works the same way! And frankly, I got really lucky. Even before I bought Lightroom (that was version 3), I won a Scott Kelby Lightroom book in a photo contest. I got a lot out of that book and probably the most important thing was how to set up Lightroom before ever starting to import files, so that I could avoid all those problems. Now, with regard to LR and LRC — I admit to referring to them as “Fake Lightroom” and “Real Lightroom”. 😉 But lately I’ve been trying to get more into “fone fotography” now that I have a mobile device that can shoot in RAW. And as much as I enjoy my 32 inch desktop monitor, I’ve also been trying to do more laptop editing. (I still don’t enjoy editing on a six inch mobile screen, though.) Since my catalog is on the desktop, this has involved a lot of downloading, importing, and syncing to get the photos where I want them. Using “LR” (not “LRC”) on my laptop with the mobile photos cuts out a couple of steps and a bit of running back and forth between devices, so I’m starting to give it a try. And yes, I purchased Matt’s course and it’s a big help. Having used “real” Lightroom for years, I’m afraid there’s still a lot of “now where the heck is…” associated with the new interface. (Today’s struggle was “Where’s the reset button?!?!”.) Again, thanks for the discussion. Onward and upward!
Glad to help William. I called it Lightroom Cloudy for a long time, but that doesn’t really work now it has a Local option!
Reset’s under the … menu on the right, just in case you haven’t found it yet!
Ah, thanks! I stumbled on it yesterday but then lost it again. I’m going through Matt’s videos this morning and I see there is a lot of stuff under those three dots! I just need more practice with this interface for sure.
Hi William
I do edit my smartphone photos on LrC and there is no need to download or import using my workflow. I use the Lr App on my phone to sync all my photos to the cloud and then they are accessible from LrC. All my smartphone images, including images shared to me on WhatsApp and similar, are uploaded to cloud – and then added in a automatically created folder structure in LrC. Extremely useful…
Thanks! Yes, the LR Camera does a good job and I enjoy using it. My complication right now is that I’m using a Pixel 8 Pro, which gives me six options: ultra-wide, wide, and telephoto, and 12 or 50 mp each, but the LR Camera only recognizes the wide/12. For all others I have to upload to Google Photos, then download the RAW files. I was downloading to my desktop, importing to LRC, syncing and uploading to the “cloud,” then picking them up in LR on my laptop for editing (mostly just because I wanted to try LR and laptop editing). But now that LR supports “local” I can just download directly to my laptop and open in LR/local for editing. I enjoy just trying things to see if they work and if they can be useful. Oh, one other thing, right now if I use the LR Camera then all I have available in LR is the Adobe color profiles, but if I use the Google camera then LR gives me all the camera profile options.
Interesting. Can’t the Pixel 8 store to internal storage rather than having to go to Google Photos? I’m not massively familiar with Android but that’s been the usual method on all the ones I’ve tried.
I actually bought this course. Matt always does a great job at explaining things, but the hype about this one was waaay over the top, even for Matt.
I do like the ability to browse photos without importing, BUT the major deal breaker for me is the lack of import/export presets. As a professional I rely on these to make my life easier when it comes to submitting my work to clients. There are also many different editing tools not available in LR, but are available via Photoshop. I don’t currently use Photoshop much to edit my photos, so it adds a few additional steps for me with LR. I’ll stick to LRC for now…
Hi. Don’t forget there is a 30 day money back guarantee. I would never want anyone to buy a course and not be happy with it so please email in for a refund request.
As for the “hype”. As I wrote when I sent out my emails to you, I’m genuinely excited about this. I’m not a professional photographer and never have been. I don’t sell photos or have clients. I just enjoy the process of taking photos and, for me, would like to get to the editing process as fast as possible. In my opinion, LRC puts roadblocks in front of that and it’s okay that our opinions and needs differ. That doesn’t mean what I shared is “hype”. It’s genuine excitement or I would never have shared it in the first place.
Lastly, LR’s editing tools are identical to LRC’s. Photoshop is a whole different beast.
Make sure you send in your refund request. Thx.
Nicely said, Matt. I’ve bought the course and am working through it now. Super, super helpful . . . and definitely not “hype”.
Hi Victoria, thanks for the explanation above. I’ve played with the new Local version but it isn’t for me … at this moment in time, but I make extensive use of Collections and external plug-ins (which I know I can access via PS but that’s an extra step I can do without). I’ve yet to try my Loupdeck+ editing console but as many of the keyboard shortcuts are different between lightroom Cloud and Classic I suspect there may be inconsistencies there too. I guess that there will be changes/improvements over the next few years so I will continue to review my decision as new versions are made available.
With regards to the flak that Matt K appears to be taking, I really don’t understand why. His comments and yours are pretty much aligned.
I don’t think our Loupedeck will work as there’s no plug-in support, but I’d love to hear otherwise.
Regarding Matt, I think it was mainly his choice of email subject line. It was effective in that it got people to click through, but it also worried a lot of people unnecessarily. The workflow he’s offering is a solid workflow for people who don’t need Classic’s more advanced features and who are happy to sync their keepers to the cloud for searching.
I have been wanting to find a way to reduce the storage of Albums in the Creative Cloud and move them to Lightroom Classic catalog/collection on my local hard drive. With the updates to Lightroom Local. Is there a way to move Albums saved in the Creative Cloud to be migrated to a Collection in Lightroom Classic?
If Lightroom Classic is syncing with the cloud, then any albums created in the cloud do sync down as Classic collections. They might be hiding under a “From Lightroom Sync” or similarly named collection set. Once you’ve checked that they’re definitely visible in Classic, you can remove the albums and/or the photos they contain from the cloud.
I’m confused, and will appreciate some additional clarification. I’m a LRC user for years but have always stored my files locally and have never used the cloud. Based on what I’ve read, I’ve been local for years. So what’s the difference and should I be doing something different? I use only the file system and don’t use collections. Could use some advice.
You’re probably familiar with Lightroom Classic’s catalog or database. That’s where all of the metadata is held, so it’s easily searchable even when the files are offline.
Lightroom Desktop’s new Local mode is more like Bridge or Windows Explorer/Finder. It’s a file browser, so there’s no catalog – which means you can’t end up with files marked as missing. But it’s also brand new, so it doesn’t have a lot of the other features that Classic does.
It’s a great option for people who don’t want Classic’s learning curve, or who just want to browse to their photos and edit them, without worrying too much about organization or searching.
Thanks Victoria. This is very helpful.
As I am very invested in my keywords color coding, I won’t be switching soon.
I played a bit with LR Local and was surprised that the first shortcut key I used “R” brought up the masking features not the crop. Crop is “C” in LR Local. I didn’t check out other shortcuts but found the change strange.
An earlier commenter mentioned that he wondered where the xmp files were stored without a catalogue. I found this web page via LR Local’s tips that explains where the xmp files are stored.
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/using/access-photos.html#local
It varies based on file type. Sometimes as a separate xmp file in the local folder, sometimes written into the image file.
Thank you so much Victoria for your clear and thoughtful overview. It confirmed my decision not to switch.
I also follow Matt K and find his tutorials very helpful. He suggested that we download and try Lightroom (Desktop) which I did, and found it wasn’t for me, so am thankful to him for suggesting that.
I heavily depend on collections, and benefit from my organisation of photos going way way back, and the ability to find one in minutes if I need to. So I’ll definitely be sticking with LRC.
Oh I’m glad you downloaded it and checked it out for yourself. It’ll be worth another look every so often as it continues to develop and add new features that will suit your workflow.
Up until MattK’s recent ‘blow-out’, I had followed him for years. (Not anymore).
I need all the organization and Publish, Print modules so LrC is certainly all I will use. etc etc Currently 225K images in my Catalog, keyworded (ummm mostly).
Question- If I am MattK- I have an updated Bridge and Camera Raw there as well as in PS. I can search in Bridge on Local drives and edit happily in either Camera Raw or Photoshop. If I am MattK, WHY do I need Lr at all (except to sell random courses…)
The workflow that Matt’s recommending isn’t actually far off what I’d recommend to newer photographers, so I wouldn’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” as it were. Personally I’d wait for multi-folder search before I would recommend it, but the bones of his workflow do have merit, IMHO. However in my opinion it’s too soon for those who have been using Classic for years and have a more advanced workflow.
Compared to Bridge/Camera Raw workflow:
Lightroom’s advantage is you don’t have to open a second window, and it’s designed specifically for photographers, so it feels more streamlined. It also has direct access to cloud sync, which is important for some photographers.
Bridge’s advantage is that Bridge itself is more mature, so it already has more advanced metadata features like multi-folder search, color labels, collections, etc.
@Allen – That’s a shame. All I did last week was show you a different way to look at your photos, and one I am fond of. It doesn’t change anything about 99% of what I teach which is editing right?
As for your question…
I’ve loved Bridge and Camera Raw and it’s been the majority of my workflow for the last couple of years since Bridge got faster (and I shared that this year). I just want to look at photos as fast as possible and Bridge delivers that to me. In my Bridge videos I often say “I wish there was a camera raw panel on the right hand side, so I don’t have to leave Bridge to edit a photo”. For me, LR is exactly that. Now I have a great, fast, local photo browser with more organizing tools than I’ll ever use. And then I have the editing tools immediately to the right without having to open and close ACR. It’s a clunky process to go between two programs and this fixes it. Thx.
Great to see you here Matt. There’s plenty of space in the world for different workflows and preferences. I’m a bit weird, I enjoy the organizing!
I agree that being able to edit without switching to a different window is a great improvement over the Bridge/Camera Raw combo… that was one of the things that drew me to LR way back in 2006.
Here’s what I’ve learned regarding Collections (Albums) in the last week or so, trying out Lr:
I, too, have many collections in LrC. Some are just working folders that get deleted after I finish a project and don’t usually get synced. But others contain finished client photos or my favorite photos, organized “my way.” I have always synced those favorite and client collections, so the photos are available on my phone, on the web, etc. Not usually for editing, but for bragging to my friends about my latest trip or sharing with clients or potential clients.
I found, when I tried out Lr, that all my LrC synced collections are automatically there in the Lr Cloud tab. Since they were synced from LrC, they are smart previews and do not count against my cloud storage total.
Creating a collection in Lr, (Album), is basically the same thing except that photos sent to Albums from Lr Local DO count against my cloud storage. I have the 1TB, so it should not be a problem.
I don’t typically continue to edit photos after I’ve put them into a LrC synced collection, so the fact that edits made to Album photos aren’t synced with the Lr Local version of the photo isn’t a concern for me.
For those “project” collections that I DO plan to edit, one potential Lr workflow might be to save them to an Album, do all my edits on the cloud within that Album, export the finished images to a folder on my drive (so they’re automatically available in Lr Local), and create a new Album with only the final photos (if I want to share them). Then I would delete the working copies of photos and their albums, thereby reducing my cloud storage count.
Obviously, I’m just figuring out potential Lr workflows. I’ll give it a try and see if I run into any unsurmountable obstacles. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to avoiding the whole import process.
I use a plug-in (Backlight 5 ) to allow me to publish and edit photos directly from LrC to my website using Publish Services so at the moment Lightroom Local would not work for me
I am a big fan of the Lightroom Queen, and I am also a big fan of MattK. While I completely understand that Lr is not a good fit for many LrC users, I fail to understand the unkind allusions to MattK’s latest video being merely click-bait, geared toward profit only, or otherwise inappropriate. Both the Lightroom Queen and MattK are excellent teachers and both sell some of their educational pieces. Nothing wrong with that, and we all benefit from it. Both also offer a huge amount of free information, support, and tutorials, for which I am very grateful.
Whether or not I agree with every topic, suggestion, or method taught by either, I see no reason to bash either. I would think it is enough to just discuss the topic and your POV on it.
Just my 2 cents.
Thank you Susan, well said. The aim of this post is to clear up the confusion, not to knock Matt. He’s a good guy and an excellent teacher.
I agree, there is enough unpleasantness in the world without creating more division. Both are just are good teachers and earning a living . They have different styles, one isn’t better or worse than another. Some individuals may prefer on over the other.
How right you are Susan. I am also a big fan of MattK. I have lots of his great courses. And I also follow Lightroom Queen. Bob DiNatale was way off base in bad-mouthing MattK. Very unprofessional on his part. Bob D – you get the BIG DELETE KEY from me.
Thank you for clarifying the differences between Classic and Lightroom. I’ve been using Lightroom since 3 and have found that I depend on the Print module in the current version of Classic for printing my images. I really like the Map module for locating where I make my photos. I believe I’ll be sticking with Classic for the time being.
Print and Map would definitely be great additions to Lightroom Desktop. Although my personal workflow is almost entirely cloud-based, Map is the main thing I continue to need Classic for. I’ll carry on updating this post over the next few years as new features continue to be added.
What a relief to read a sensible summary!
Apart from not being able to search across folders, keywords, GPS and the change to interface (muscle memory!), the storage of edits means that backups become a nightmare – instead of simply backing up the catalog, I’d need another piece of software to manage backups instead of my simple and successful manual method (this aged brain would much rather have to learn how to use improved LR Classic library management and editing features)
I read all of the email coming from Matt and I also purchased his course “Evolving with Lightroom”. I followed up with questions but didn’t get the answers until reading this post (thank you Victoria!). I will not be making the switch at this time despite some of the advantages. The downsides of transitioning from Classic to Local for me would be too great, particularly not being able to search my photos of the last decade. I’ve spent way too much time keywording every image!
I’m glad I could help Dave. It’s such early days for this new workflow, that everyone’s still figuring out which information is essential to make it work well. That will continue to change as new features become available, so it would be worth reassessing your decision from time to time, and possibly even watching his course again as some of those barriers fall.
After Matt’s first email I decided to give Lightroom (not Classic) a try and found many small things but two big ones that meant it won’t work for me. One was the lack of dual monitor support which you mentioned. The other was the most bizarre handling of Edit in Photoshop (and I tried it a second time as I wanted to double check what happened carefully).
I opened an iPhone ProRAW DNG file in LR-not-Classic and made some edits; I selected edit in Photoshop and (1) it opened as a TIF file, not a PSD; (2) when I selected Save As and chose a different drive, directory and name for the PSD file after edits, Photoshop appeared to do as asked, but the file was in the same drive/directory as the DNG raw file.
I uninstalled LR-not-Classic 🙂
Interesting, the last one might be a bug. On the cloud side, that behavior’s a bit more expected, as you want the file to end up back in your cloud repository however you save it. On local, I’d expect to go wherever and however you saved it.
Thank you for clearing this up. I thought this was going to be for me but now realise currently it isn’t. I do though get confused when you talk about LR cloud?
Lightroom Desktop has two modes – the Local mode, which browses your local folders, and the original Cloud mode, which stores the photos in the cloud. I’m just using LR Local and LR Cloud to differentiate those two modes, as the Cloud mode has additional features that aren’t currently available when just browsing Local files. Does that make a bit more sense? I know it’s confusing!
Super helpful, Victoria, thank you!
Thanks for posting this.
Very useful info ????
What I will say about Matt’s email is that after I installed LR desktop it prompted me to finally fix my sync issues with LRC and LR Mobile, lol
The hand clap emoji translates to ???? Oh my! Oops
Ooooops I’ll add that to my list of website glitches to figure out.
Oh that’s great Christopher! I do find Sync more reliable in LR Desktop than LR Classic, and it does have some handy tools to answer sync mysteries, like the filter to identify which photos have smart previews vs. originals in the cloud.
Victoria, are you talking about the filter in Lr Cloud called “Sync Status”? The options are (IMHO) labeled oddly. Instead of using the terms “Smart Previews” and “Full Size Images,” it uses “Synced from Lightroom Classic” and “Synced and Backed Up.” Still great to know it’s there and I’m so glad you mentioned it. There’s also a Sync Status section under the i (information) panel that tells you if an image falls into one of those two categories.
Christopher.leason, above, mentioned having had sync issues with LrC. I didn’t have any (that I was aware of) until I began using Lr. The issue I’m having is if I create a new Album in Lr Cloud, then go to Lr Local and add photos to that album, they are supposed to (according to Adobe) appear in LrC in an auto-created collection called “From Lightroom.” Instead, no such collection is created AND (worse) the Album-now-Collection appears inside a collection set I already have in LrC. Not just any one, but the same one each time I do it.
I did chat with Adobe and allowed the chat agent to share my PC and try to figure it out. He confirmed the problem was as I described, but had no idea how to solve it. Has anybody else reported a similar problem that you’re aware of?
Thanks,
Susan
Yes, that’s the one Susan. Syncing from Classic is the only way to get smart previews in the cloud, which I suspect is why they named it that way.
I’d bet that the collection set that new cloud albums are ending up in has been renamed at some point, and that it was originally named From Lightroom. What happens if you create a new collection set to house the collections that are currently in that set, and rename that set back to From Lightroom? I suspect it might solve it.
Bingo! Thank you so much!!! You know (waaay) more than Adobe’s chat agent. I’m guessing their training on Lr Local is behind the release of the feature.
Happy to help. I’ve found the chat guys great for stuff they’re doing all the time, like installation or account issues, but they don’t tend to learn about these more obscure issues.
Thank you so much! I had decided to ignore what Matt wrote. Now I know why. It sounds like Lightroom not-Classic is not a catalog. It’s too bad that people don’t seem to know, for example, why they want a catalog, or why they want collections. Sounds like you are right that it is for people who use Bridge instead of LR. I search across my entire catalog very frequently. And use many more metadata fields than in the not-Classic version supports. And yes, I was/am worried that Classic might go away! It would not be the first time we could lose features in software with “upgrades”.
Adobe is good at confusing names. Photoshop on Windows… What is 2023. On Windows I get things like 24.7, 25.3.
That concern is understandable. I’m sure they would like LR to be a replacement someday, as it would make more sense for them to have one program built on new code rather than maintaining two programs. However, Classic has a huge user base with very diverse needs. It may someday reach a tipping point when they’ve added enough of the missing features that the majority of people have chosen to move their workflow over, but there’s a fair bit of work to do first. They’ve done great moving most of the editing features over, so now they’re able to start looking at other areas.
LR Desktop does have huge potential, and I’ve already moved most of my workflow over to the cloud. I still keep a foot in both camps at the moment though, because Classic has some features that aren’t available in Desktop yet. I’ll carry on updating this post as the landscape changes.
DAM is important to me, plenty of editing software options. Not having hierarchical keywording is big for me.
I’ve far too many images to keep in the cloud considering the cost. Also I would keep a backup locally as just because they are in the cloud it doesn’t mean you don’t need a backup.
My understanding if you want an image that is “local” in the cloud so accessible on multiple devices you COPY it (with edits) to the cloud this means you now have two copies of the image. If you change one then you have two version, can imagine what a muddle you can end up with. If you deleted the image that is local then you have parts of a shoot in two places. If you transfer the whole shoot in the cloud you have loads of storage used by images that probably will never be looked at again.
Classic works well for me holds all images (either directly imported or synced from the cloud) then ones I want available to all devices synced to the cloud. This means a) no cloud storage used and b) edit an image anywhere and you still have one version.
In my opinion what should have been done was instead of producing LR Desktop was to develop Classic to properly sync with the cloud, a local browser option and mobile with all the same structure and modernised the GUI.
It does appear at some point Classic will stop being developed, at that point I will review all software available to see if other options are more suitable then staying with Adobe.
Thank you Victoria for keeping to the facts and making unbiased comparisons.
How Local mode interacts with the cloud is still a bit muddy as it’s such early days. When Local mode uploads the photo to the cloud, it remembers it did so, and if you edit the photo locally, it has a button to upload those new edits to the cloud. It’s not quite so clean in the other direction yet.
Even at this early stage, it works well for doing an initial cull and edit in Local mode and then only uploading the best photos to the cloud side, which is what Matt’s so excited about. The cloud repository then becomes the searchable archive, and if Desktop can already do everything you need, it’s a great lightweight option that allows you to focus on photography rather than management.
However, as you note, Local mode doesn’t yet have the flexibility to handle everyone’s varied workflows. It’s just early days. I’ll carry on updating the post as things change.
Among all the comments on this thread, I think that this response hits the nail on the head. I also read Matt K’s initial posts and watched his freebie videos. I read your initial read on this whole topic. Then I tried out LR Local — and came to the conclusion you mentioned above.
LR-Local is a GREAT tool for initially culling your photos from a large shoot — for me, that’d mean Sports or Wildlife. You have a LOT of pics that you just want to isolate the dozen or so for more development. I have found LrC to be painfully slow if I want to check composition, focus (at 100%), and for blown highlights/shadows. I tried Bridge, but it was a whole new learning curve and the check on Exposure is painful with having to go to Camera-Raw. LR-Local allows me to easily check all 3 attributes and mark with Flags and/or Stars. I delete all the rejects, and THEN import the rest into LrC. The Flags/Stars are then converted to how I usually use Metadata.
I will keep my Catalog-based workflow forever — I want Map, Color Labels, Collections, Virtual Copies, hierarchical keywords, etc, and I do whole-catalog searches regularly (including offline storage). But your mention of using LR-Local for Initial Culling and Editing is Spot-on. As so many others have done, I thank you for your thoughtful approach to these new features.
I’m glad you tried it out John. Yes, even for people who aren’t ready to jump in with both feet, it’s a worthwhile tool to have in your toolbox.
Another similar scenario is people who use Classic at home, but travel with a laptop, but don’t want to have to deal with importing and exporting catalogs when they return.
Analogue photographer here, entirely dependent on the Negative Lab Pro plugin, so stuck with Classic.
I don’t see an obvious indicator in LR local that tells me I’ve edited a photo. The badge system in LrC is that obvious indicator.
Hi, dave farmer, In Local, in Grid View, there is a little “edit” symbol at the bottom right corner just below the thumbnail. It is like the edit button along the far right side of the Local panel, except the edit button has 3 lines with little circles representing edit sliders, and the indicator under an edited photo has only 2 lines with the little circles.
Thanks. Good to know.
I never work in grid mode and I can’t see a similar symbol in detail mode.
In Detail view, look for the dots to the right of the Edit/Crop/Masking etc. buttons. They only have a dot when that tool has edits. It’s like the dots under the Toolstrip in Classic’s Develop module.
Do you mean the edit symbol which has 3 lines with dots on them in different positions which is an attempt to mimic 3 sliders. If so, I can barely see a dot to the right of that symbol because the edge of the LR workspace cuts it in half. Hardly noticeable.
When I’m working with the images themselves why do I want to be scanning other parts of the screen ?
Why can’t the double slider icon be carried over from grid view into detail view under the thumbnails in the filmstrip? Even in grid view it could be made more obvious from a size and colour point of view.
The dots show down the side, and also the eyeballs on the panels only show up when that panel has been used. You could certainly put in a feature request for additional options like the thumbnail icon.
Thank you very much for this comparison! I read Matt’s “Goodbye to LR Classic” stuff and while reading I was already thinking that this cannot be for me. Your article made it quite clear for me that LR Desktop is no alternative for me. Over the years, I have developed a hierarchical keyword system and I am happy when I find a specific photo I made years ago without having to search for more than a minute. Matt himself says he doesn’t care about file organization… well, I do care, so let everyone be happy with the solution he or she likes.
That’s a good way of looking at it Achim. I don’t want to sway anyone in either direction, as both programs have pros and cons, and those will continue to change. It’ll be worth revisiting your decision every so often, as it may change as LR Desktop continues to grow.
I’ve been using Lightroom since 2009 and consider myself to be a pretty savvy user. I too was confused by Matt K’s video about Lightroom Local. I was concerned about not having a catalog. Matt couldn’t tell me where the edits and metadata were stored. After reading Victoria’s post, I realized that every photo had to have an xmp file and that essentially replaces the catalog. I have had issues from time to time with the catalog but each time I learned a bit more about how the catalog works. Now I back up the catalog after each Lightroom session. Replacing the catalog with multiple xmp files is not a good solution in my opinion. Also, there are too many things missing from Lightroom Local that would make the switch a deal breaker like no smart collections, no export presets and no plugin capability. By the way, I DO NOT organize my photos by folder like Matt K does and I’m not sure why anyone would. I keep all my finished photos in one folder. I use extensive keywording and captioning and with Lightroom’s search capability, I can find any photo(s) in seconds.
Catalogs do add a layer of complexity to learning Lightroom and using it on multiple computers. Missing files remains the most frequent problem I hear, and moving to a file browser-type system would reduce a lot of those issues. I’m sure Matt hears as many of those issues as I do, so I understand why he’s so excited about his new workflow. Once Lightroom Desktop has the features that you can’t live without, you might want to consider giving it another look.
So glad I became a member on here! Your explanation made way more sense than Matt’s did. Thank you Victoria! I’ve very happy with classic so I’ll stick with it!
Glad to have you here too Chip. I respect Matt’s teaching skills. It’s just tricky to find the right balance when promoting a course, so I’m glad I was able to help fill in any gaps.
Thank you, Victoria.
Excellent overview that truly highlights the differences and disadvantages/advantages of the two programs.
I was very disappointed with Matt K when I went through his video and read how he praised Lightroom.
Grateful that you don’t present this as something to be sold – but maintain a professional agenda.
I was very confused about Matt’s standpoint – and quickly realized that this wasn’t for me. But I couldn’t really find anyone who wanted to support my own opinions – until your letter arrived and you validated my thinking.
I’ve been using Lightroom since the first beta version, after listening to Scott Kelby in Stockholm. The strength of Lightroom is being able to avoid dealing with folders and being able to get an overview of all the photos taken on a certain day/month/year. Also, not being able to open a photo in Photoshop as a Smart Object or multiple photos as layers is a show-stopper for me.
Again, thanks for a great and educational overview.
Choke
I’m glad you found the information useful Lars-Ake.
I don’t want to knock Matt – he’s clearly excited about his course, and I do believe it’s going to be very good for some people. He’d say himself that it’s not the right choice for everyone.
There’s just been a lot of confusion doing the rounds this week, and my aim is simply to cut through the confusion. It’ll continue to change as time goes by, so I’ll keep updating this post. Feel free to check back every so often.
Thanks so much as always Victoria, for the calm AND thorough clarifications, especially on this topic.
Another feature missing from LR (cloud or local) is Survey mode in Classic. I use this all the time, both when choosing among similar images and when culling a variety of pictures down to what would fit in a 12 month calendar, for example. It seems weird to me that Adobe would include Compare mode but not Survey.
Excellent point Kathy! Yes, trying to use big thumbnails isn’t quite the same as Survey mode. The Compare does double duty, as it also works like Classic’s Reference View in Develop.
Thank you for refraining from sensational headlines and hype, you described Matt’s post well. That click-bait caused a lot of unnecessary concerns.
It would be nice if Lightroom Classic gained that local storage option, in addition to still having the catalog for searches and all else. The import step and dialog is cumbersome to say the least.
And perhaps, when we get there, we can do away with the “Desktop” version entirely and keep using the application that actually lives on the desktop? Adding a cloud synch feature to that should be easy. It’s confusing to maintain two versions with contradictory names, and entirely unnecessary.
I’m not trying to knock Matt, or his sales style. His style is naturally much more effervescent than mine, and he’s genuinely excited about sharing his new workflow. It’s hard to write subject lines that are intriguing enough to click without tipping over the line, but I agree that many of the concerns could have been avoided. However, we all write stuff and later think we should have phrased it differently… I may tweak that intro, because I don’t think it came over in quite the way I intended.
There’s a lot of legacy code in Lightroom Classic, so adding important features to Lightroom Desktop is probably the best way forward. The workflow he’s teaching in his course will be well suited to a wider audience once Lightroom has those missing features. There’s just been a lot of confusion surrounding it all.
Great review. THANKS!!! I love my LRC and will NEVER move to any cloud program (Adobe or otherwise), not just because its lack of features, but the time lag over the internet is intolerable for large files (I usually shoot in RAW). I also don’t trust cloud storage, having heard too many horror stories of lost and/or hi-jacked cloud storage. LRC + PS for me! I want to be the master of my own ship! And yes, I do multiple backups to switched USB devices, so I’m not at the mercy of ransom-ware (or accidents and natural disasters.)
I can understand your concerns about cloud storage. I have switched my personal workflow to the cloud, and I’m very impressed with it, but like you, I like to keep solid offline backups, too.
If the Local mode continues to grow, you wouldn’t necessarily need to sync photos to the cloud, so it could be worth another look in a year or so to see whether LrC is still the best tool for your workflow.
Thanks for the awesome overview. Just yesterday I received Matt K’s “Final Hours to Save 50%” email and reviewed his video. For several reasons I concluded that I would stick with LRC for now – not the least of which was my heavy use of the Lightroom-to-SmugMug plug-in. Your article here cleared a lot up for me and confirmed my decision. THANKS!
Hi Ralph,
I too use lightroom to smugmug heavily and thus will stick with classic. I use it to upload my edited raw files which gives me much peace of mind. Then when someone wants to buy a photo, Smugmug uses the full jpg version–or at least that’s what Smugmug told me. Have you tried this route?
Glad to help. One detail that might be of interest… SmugMug does have a Connector for Lightroom Desktop, which is a similar idea to Lightroom Classic’s Publish Service. That Connector does rely on the photos being synced to LR Cloud rather than browsed in LR Local, but that may not be a deal-breaker.
These days, I shoot a lot of raw images on my iPhone, using the LR Mobile camera. In LRC, I’m able to sync those into LRC so that all my originals are local, yet I can still access them in the cloud. Although LRC’s syncing function is frustratingly bug-ridden, and I hate it, I’m not seeing any simple way to replicate that local/cloud setup in LR, where it seems that each mobile photo lives only in the cloud, unless you go to the bother of exporting it into a local folder. If that’s truly the case, it looks like I, too, will be sticking with LRC for now.
You’re right, exporting to a local folder would be the way to go at the moment. It’s only the first release of LR’s Local mode, so I’d expect workflows like that to get fine-tuned over time.
Well done Victoria!
If i switch to using Lightroom Local, I assume that I will have two places to look for my photos?
e.g. All my photos since the beginning of time in LR Classic and all my new ones in Local.
This sounds messy to me and I like to keep things in one place.
Or would you be able to move all the old photos into Local?
As Classic stores photos as normal files in the OS, and Local browses normal files in the OS, they wouldn’t need to be duplicated. But Local wouldn’t know anything about any editing you’d done in Classic unless you wrote those edits to XMP, which is where the last big paragraph comes in. Do read it carefully to note the warnings, or you certainly could create a mess!
Does it now include printing, or is that still reserved for classic?
Printing is still Classic only.
thanks Victoria,
I understand this but going forward, if i changed my flow and used Local, and then I wanted to find a photo, it would necessitate me searching in Lightroom Classic for my photos upto say Nov 23 and then Local for photos from Dec 23. It would make it a whole lot easier of you could migrate all the Lightroom classic photos over to Local. (when the time comes to use Local).
Hey John. Yeah, personally I wouldn’t want to split my archives between current in Local and archives in Classic, but it’s not a bad way to get a feel for whether it’s workable temporarily.
The big barrier right now to being able to access all of your Classic archives in Local is the lack of multi-folder search. Once it has that, then writing metadata to xmp for your old LR Classic catalog so you could browse it through Local could be a viable option.
Once migrating everything to Local becomes a more viable option, I’ll write up more detailed instructions for getting everything over. It’s just too soon for me to recommend it yet.
I assumed if I used Local Mode, the image would stay local, but every image I edit gets uploaded to the cloud. Am I missing something. Of course that’s just going to chew up cloud storage at a very fast rate and Adobe would be happy to sell you more.
I should have added, LR Classic allows you to choose what you’d like to sync to the cloud. It only made sense to me to have the Local option behave the same way.
An easy conclusion to jump to, as that is how the Device mode on the mobile apps work. However, Local mode is entirely local – it doesn’t send anything to the cloud unless you hit the Copy to Cloud button. Edits are stored with the files, in the header for most file types or in XMP sidecar files for proprietary raw files. If you’ve ever used Adobe Bridge, it’s basically the same process.
Ahh.. Thank you. I assumed Device mode on the mobile app was the same a Local mode on my Mac. Guess there isn’t really a “Local” mode on the mobile apps.
Yep, I suspect they might be able to do something more local on Android, but iOS is pretty locked down, and they try to keep them in step as far as possible. Desktop is much more flexible in that regard.
I won’t switch to LR CC just yet. One feature missing in CC that has not mentioned is slider control for Curves. You still need to place points in Curves in CC which is something I hate. Curves in Classic using slider controls is something I always use for editing. This and lack of plug-in support and Exporting options make this a no-go for me.
Good point, the sliders themselves don’t exist. There is a parametric curve that just has 4 adjustments (like the 4 sliders in Classic’s one) but you adjust them by dragging the line rather than separate sliders. It’s much simpler than a point curve where you have to place points, so it might help a bit.
I’m with you and actually hope that they will let me collapse the curve image and let me use only the sliders, which is more intuitive and much more repeatable than dragging the curve. I miss the sliders in the masks.
Could be worth putting in a feature request for that! Feel free to post the link here when you’ve done so, so that other people can vote on it. https://www.lightroomqueen.com/send-bug-report-feature-request-adobe/
It looks like I have to try Local for my travel workflow when I need to cull out the rubbish before I import those thousand of photos into Classic. I have used Classic and Bridge but it takes too long time. Also tried XNViewMP and other applications without success.
Let us know how you get on with that! Which bit were you finding too slow – actually copying them to the hard drive, or it building previews, or something like that?
I would love to know how this goes for you! That would be my intended use as well.
Let us know how you get on with it too tiajjm. It’s a very good option for travel, and saves importing and exporting catalogs.
Great overview, thanks!
I’m in no hurry 🙂
This is a good argument for many of us to stay with Classic. Good work. I am a field scientist and also do landscapes and nature photography. Keywords, GPS, and plugins are integral parts of the workflow. I use the catalog as a timeline for all I do. Lightroom local has too few features to switch.
Yes, those must be really important features for you! We’ll include improvements in Lightroom Local in our regular What’s New posts, so you should hear if/when they do get added.
Thanks for this post! I’ve been using Lightroom Classic since v1.0 in 2006. At this point, I’m used to the catalog—its features and quirks—so I see no great benefit in clogging my 77 y.o. brain with yet another application that’s essentially a stripped-down version of LRC. If you want the file browsing feature, Bridge or ON1 Photo Raw 2024 work well.
You must know Lightroom Classic inside and out by now Craig! I would hope that Lightroom’s Local mode will eventually become a much better option for photographers than Bridge, but it’s early days.
And I am a 76 year old who’s also been using LRC since 2006 and I share your thoughts. I am particularly worried that there is no hierarchical keywording as I use that extensively. I don’t use any cloud storage and I am very happy with my LRC workflow and presets developed over many years.
Very strong argument! Last year, I finished a project where I consolidated some 3500 single keywords into 20 top level keyword categories. I did it because LR was/is limited to displaying only the first 1500 or so keywords on Windows. But it is much more accessible, repeatable and easier to use hierarchy. 🙂
Best argument I’ve seen so far on why making the switch is not for everyone, and especially not for me. Thanks for a very thoughtfully, well written article.
Glad we could help Nina. I’m suspect as Adobe adds new features, there will come a time when you will want to switch, but it’s just a bit too early for most people.
Thanks for this post. Folks in my camera club have been really confused by Matt K’s email, especially the ones who are less experienced with Lightroom. Thanks!
I know it’s a looooooong post, but I hope it clears things up a bit for them!
Thanks! my subscription to Lightroom Queen is one of my best digital investments
Thank you so much George, we appreciate your support!
And Matt’s attempt to clarify in a subsequent email just muddied the waters even further.
Thrilled that you researched this so thoroughly and published this. It’s been a nightmare since Matt’s click bait video was released. My clients were panicking that LRC was going away and a few who tried this work flow git themselves into such a mess.
Like you say it’s not ready for prime time for most users.
Glad to help Suzanne. Adobe’s under no illusion, they know this is a very simplified workflow that won’t suit most Classic users at this point, even if it might grow to fill those needs in a few years time. Even the over-zealous marketing department didn’t try to suggest that Classic users should switch!
The map function is important to me to locate exactly where the photo was taken and to easily add GPS to my pre-2013 photos and for those where I was late turning the GPS on in my Canon 7D II.
I’ll stay with Classic
Yes, although I’m primarily cloud-based, I still use Classic’s Map module for that purpose.