Using Adobe LR Classic for editing and LR CC for storage

[Royston Hunt]

Hello everyone,

I hope this may be a topic of interest to some of you. I would like to know if I am doing this right:



This is how I am planning to use continue to use LR Classic as a desktop application to import and edit my RAW files and then LR CC to upload full versions of them to the cloud for storage. I do not intend to do any editing in LRCC to avoid possible complications that it might introduce.



I have Adobe's 1TB storage plan as part of their photography subscription. I am planning to continue to use LR Classic to import and process my RAW files on my desktop, but I also want to get them into the cloud. I have already discovered that the best way to do this is via LRCC. If you try to do it with LR Classic it can be a very frustrating process that takes forever and often results in having loads of duplicate copies that you don’t want to be taking up space in your precious cloud storage allocation. Not so with LRCC which works very well in this respect. So this is what I have decided to do:



1. After selecting the ‘Keepers’ (the ones I have chosen for personal, client or library use) I will move them to the ‘Keepers’ folder on my external hard drive. At that point I will sync the ‘Keepers’ folder in LR Classic. This will sync any further editing changes I may introduce and also any new files that I add to the ‘Keepers’ folder in future but will not result in full versions of my RAW files to the cloud. That's OK because:



2. To achieve this I will add the contents of my ’Keepers’ folder into an album ( named ‘Keepers’ also) that I will create in LR CC. Then, as I understand it, if I sync this album, full versions of all my Keepers will be uploaded to the cloud. I will disable the option to make a local copy of each file offered by LRCC, but leave this option selected in LRCC. This will give me an additional set of full version RAW files stored in another folder on my external hard drive. This part is far from being essential for me, but I understand that there is no way around it and I won’t really mind because it only has to contain a relatively small number of files given my pre-selection process.



Comments please!



Thanks,

Roy Hunt

 

[snowbear]

I use LR Classic (part of CC) for all of it. It sounds like you are duplicating efforts, here.

If you are referring to the older stand-alone version of LR, it will eventually be outdated enough to not handle newer versions of raw files (like if you upgrade the camera in a few years). I have my Flickr photostream set as a target collection, send keepers to that, and publish. Everything else is in the LR Catalog, which is backed up. I use Zipped files containing the unedited raw files, straight from the camera, as an archive.

 

[Royston Hunt]

I am aware that Classic's days are probably numbered but in the meantime I still prefer the functionality of LR 'Classic' for desktop to that of LR CC (or LR Mobile as I think it may also be called). So I still want to know is there anything wrong with my workflow? Can I edit in Classic for preferred functionality and upload 'Keepers' to the cloud in LR CC (Mobile). I'm not really interested in sharing applications so much as keeping my 'Keepers' secure in the cloud with all my edits intact and synced.
Thanks for your advice.

 

[smoke665]

I've avoided the cloud like a plague, partly because of its dependency on an internet connection (Sometimes sketchy for me), and the distrust of their cloud. As above comment it seems as if your doing a lot of unnecessary duplication.

I use Bridge to initially scan and and delete the duds on the SD card. If you can't tell enough about the thumbnail as you scroll through, hitting the space bar quickly brings up a full size image. Once I've made the initial selections, I use the batch process feature to assign unique a sortable, recognizable name to each file and send a copy to the Raw File backup on an external NAS HD. That external file is broken down into broad sub folder categories. Then I use the batch process to move the files from the SD card to the appropriate folders on my internal HD. It is from there that I import into LR. Edited files as well as everything else on my HD gets backed up to a secondary external NAS.

If you're hung up on online storage I would look at one of the cloud storage options out there.

 

[Royston Hunt]

Thanks smoke, I guess everyone chooses a workflow to suit their own particular needs. In the meantime I did just manage to find this thread helpful: Sync - Disk Usage for Sync with Lightroom CC

especially this part where Jim Wilde says : "Going forward, if you definitely want to use both apps together, I would sync the images first from LR Classic, wait until the smart previews are uploaded, and only then import (add) the same photos into LRCC if your goal is simply to get full originals up into the cloud. LRCC will do that, and there then should be no changes within Classic, i.e. the cloud will let Classic know that there are now a copy of the originals uploaded, not just the SPs, but there should be no duplication of them in your Classic folder scheme." Hope it might help someone else who is trying to acheive the same as me.

 

[smoke665]

I guess everyone chooses a workflow to suit their own particular needs.

True, I also have a distrust of having all my eggs stored in one basket.

 

[HeyHeyUW]

I find the whole thing very confusing to be honest. I'm getting back into the hobby, and the last time that I bought photoshop it was CS4. So I understand a local storage workflow. However, I find myself typically only using LRCC as I rarely have to do anything but simple exposure and color correction, and it's really easy to use between desktop, my iphone, and my ipad. I'm paying for the one TB plan with photoshop, LR Classic, and LRCC.

I'm just very confused as to how LR classic and photoshop deal with the collection and albums that I set up in LRCC. Ultimately, I like only doing non-destructive edits to my original RAW files in the cloud, and then exporting them to my ipad for publication on various social media pages. I of course save all my keeper RAW files on my desktop backed up. For instance in Photoshop, I can access my "LR files", but I also have a few "CC files" (where are these stored?).

I'm assuming that they will at some point make the various LRCC apps all the same and lose classic?