# Totally basic question, but not for me



## mbernhardt (Nov 20, 2018)

My household is on Macs. I want to move from Apple Photos to Lightroom CC, because my wife and I both want to access the same library from different computers. Doesn't have to be at the same time, but I don't want to be swapping around a portable hard drive.  iPhoto used to work reasonably well with the photo library (actually, multiple libraries) on a networked drive but since High Sierra, disk permission changes have made this too unreliable. I tried moving to Photos but other than much better editing options, it's even worse for library management.

At the moment I have 4 days left on the Lightroom CC trial and I'm still struggling with:
A. How to get my photos from Apple Photos moved to Lightroom. The migration tool mostly worked in a test but it only pulled from (I Assume) the system photo library. Is that correct? How do I get other Photos libraries migrated?
B. We shoot in RAW, and it seems like only the unmodified files are migrated. As we've done some significant editing in Photos and even iPhoto, I don't want to lose all of that work! Is there any workaround?
C. We have many GB of photos like you all probably do. When I attempted migration, my hard drive was unexpectedly filling up, but I thought the photos were supposed to go to the cloud! What gives! I was using the default settings.

If I can get these questions answered, I'll be a happy man.

Thanks in advance!

Mike


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## Jim Wilde (Nov 20, 2018)

I can't help with the first two questions, as I've never been an Apple Photos user (I'm sure someone here should be able to help). Regarding the last question, the way that the LRCC desktop app works when you import photos is that it first copies them into it's own library "space". It does this so that it can ensure that all the photos can be uploaded to the cloud without any unintended interference from the user. Once they are all safely uploaded, the local copies become eligible for deletion from the local library, unless you have elected to store a local copy of the originals (Preferences>Local Storage tab) in which case they would be used for seeding that local store. The deletion of the local copies is intelligently managed in accordance with various parameters (though you can manually delete them yourself if required), so it may take a while before they disappear. Note, however, that you can specify an alternative location for the local originals, such as on an external drive.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 20, 2018)

I see, so I need available disk space initially, then I can delete if I want to. I can deal with that! Now if I can get answers to the other questions I'll be good to go.


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## Colin Grant (Nov 20, 2018)

If you  bring the raw images across from Photos then I am reasonably certain that LR will not be able to read the Photos edits. Thus you will get the original raw and have to start again. This is common across all editors as one editor cannot read another editors edits - not reliably anyway; a problem that seems to have hit ON1 PhotoRaw and the LR migration tool.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 21, 2018)

mbernhardt said:


> A. How to get my photos from Apple Photos moved to Lightroom. The migration tool mostly worked in a test but it only pulled from (I Assume) the system photo library. Is that correct? How do I get other Photos libraries migrated?


You can migrate the system library, then open another library in Photos and set that to be the system library and migrate, then open the next library and set that to be the system library etc. etc.

Metadata edits like captions etc. come over, but for photo edits, you'd need to export a copy of the photo and add that to Lightroom if you wanted to keep the edited version as well as the original.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 21, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> You can migrate the system library, then open another library in Photos and set that to be the system library and migrate, then open the next library and set that to be the system library etc. etc.
> 
> Metadata edits like captions etc. come over, but for photo edits, you'd need to export a copy of the photo and add that to Lightroom if you wanted to keep the edited version as well as the original.


That's pretty much what I've determined I need to do.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 21, 2018)

OK, this might need to be on another thread but I've now discovered that contrary to what someone told me, Lightroom CC does NOT support plugins. I really need 2 or 3 to do what I want to do. So, once I've done the migration to cloud, might we need to buy Lightroom Classic instead of CC? What are my options for sharing the library between computers in that case? Can the catalog be saved on dropbox or something so that it appears local? I understand that we would not be able to use it at the same time.


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## tspear (Nov 21, 2018)

It has been a couple of years since I did a multi computer setup with Lr. I have changed my workflow and requirements....
Anyway, I kept the Lr catalog, images, everything in a series of cloud drives that had local copies. I started with DropBox, got tired of the cost, switched to OwnCloud (running my own file service on a spare server I had), got tired of maintaining it, switched to Google Drive. Microsoft offered a better deal, so switched to OneDrive.
The key for this to work was a few things:
1. Have a single master folder, in  which I created  separate sub directories for, Lr Plugins, Images, and Catalog.
2. Enable keep preferences with the catalog, before you make changes to config. If you have already made changes, easier to delete preferences, change to store with catalog and reset everything.
3. Make sure sync finishes between the machines. DropBox was the fastest, but had the largest local performance hit. OneDrive is the slowest to replicate, but also had the lightest hit locally when using LightRoom.
4. You need a fast internet pipe; you are going to be pushing a lot of data back and forth. So look beyond the advertisement which usually talks about download and skips upload speeds. You need both.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 22, 2018)

So it sounds, basically, like I could use a networked drive and put that master folder on it? The only trick would be to make sure the 2nd machine uses the preferences created by the first machine.



tspear said:


> It has been a couple of years since I did a multi computer setup with Lr. I have changed my workflow and requirements....
> Anyway, I kept the Lr catalog, images, everything in a series of cloud drives that had local copies. I started with DropBox, got tired of the cost, switched to OwnCloud (running my own file service on a spare server I had), got tired of maintaining it, switched to Google Drive. Microsoft offered a better deal, so switched to OneDrive.
> The key for this to work was a few things:
> 1. Have a single master folder, in  which I created  separate sub directories for, Lr Plugins, Images, and Catalog.
> ...


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 22, 2018)

Multi-machine use with Classic is definitely a little more tricky than CC. Either putting the catalog in Dropbox or on an external drive is the simplest solution. Not that the catalog can't be on a network drive, although the photos can.

Which plug-ins will you be missing if you go with CC?


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## mbernhardt (Nov 22, 2018)

I use Skylum's Luminar and Aurora for editing and HDR respectively, and they include plug-ins to Lightroom and Photoshop. Also a duplicate-finder plug-in, because Lightroom has been importing the same shared albums from Photos several times and automating the search for all of the duplicates will be a huge timesaver.

So far I've had good luck importing Photos libraries (6 of them) into Lightroom CC, syncing them to the cloud, and also syncing Lightroom Classic to the cloud. The catalog is in a Dropbox folder, the photos are synced to a network drive. So theoretically, I should be able to access it from a 2nd computer with Lightroom Classic as long as I shut down the 1st Lightroom first and let the catalog sync to Dropbox.



Victoria Bampton said:


> Multi-machine use with Classic is definitely a little more tricky than CC. Either putting the catalog in Dropbox or on an external drive is the simplest solution. Not that the catalog can't be on a network drive, although the photos can.
> 
> Which plug-ins will you be missing if you go with CC?


I can't put the catalog on a networked drive



mbernhardt said:


> So it sounds, basically, like I could use a networked drive and put that master folder on it? The only trick would be to make sure the 2nd machine uses the preferences created by the first machine.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 22, 2018)

mbernhardt said:


> So theoretically, I should be able to access it from a 2nd computer with Lightroom Classic as long as I shut down the 1st Lightroom first and let the catalog sync to Dropbox.



Yep, that's the way I worked for years.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 22, 2018)

Great! I'm waiting for over 18,000 photos to finish syncing...have you experienced issues with that many photos in a single catalog?


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 22, 2018)

Nooooo, 18,000 is small. Biggest I know of is over 7 million. Many of us are way over 100k.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 22, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Nooooo, 18,000 is small. Biggest I know of is over 7 million. Many of us are way over 100k.


Wow! Also... do I even need Adobe cloud to do use both copies? Right now it's helpful because CC has a Photos migration tool. But afterward, I ought to be able to pull full-size images down to my networked drive and point both copies of Lightroom Classic it, right?


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 23, 2018)

You've understood correctly. If you're using Classic and copying your catalog between computers, you won't need the CC cloud sync. You might still choose to sync smart previews to the cloud to access on your mobile devices, but it's essentially a different tool.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 23, 2018)

Thanks! Last question: Lightroom Classic is currently syncing with the cloud, but is currently only keeping previews on the networked drive. How do I tell it to download all of the full-size images?


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## mbernhardt (Nov 24, 2018)

mbernhardt said:


> Thanks! Last question: Lightroom Classic is currently syncing with the cloud, but is currently only keeping previews on the networked drive. How do I tell it to download all of the full-size images?


I think I should clarify my situation: I started with Lightroom CC and imported 200G of photos into it using the Apple Photos migration tool. I synced it with my Adobe CC account. I see 200G of storage used at the location I specified.

Then, I discovered that CC will not do everything I want, so I picked up a trial of Classic. I set it to sync with Adobe CC and it is still doing so. However, not everything appears to be there that should be by now. For example when I look in the local images folder there are several years missing, and those years had way more photos than the number that supposedly remain to be synced. So I'm not convinced that Classic will have a proper library of photos.

What I need is a way to ensure that all of the photos that are in CC and the cloud are downloaded as originals into Classic. How do I do that? BTW I am on a Mac, but I know the process should be more or less identical to PC.


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## Jim Wilde (Nov 24, 2018)

Everything that was in LRCC should sync down into Classic. So what are the respective totals (numbers of images, not size of image library)? Specifically, what is the total of All Photos in LRCC, and what is the total of All Synced Photographs in the Catalog panel of LR Classic? Videos apart, they should be identical if syncing has stopped.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 24, 2018)

Syncing has stopped, though it seems to be stuck at 170 photos. LRCC shows 19, 028 photos. Classic has 14, 815.

Now, it is possible that I messed something up. At one point in LRCC, before Iinstalled Classic, I discovered that I needed a lot of disk to support the upload process. I ended up in the process of experimenting with different locations, I ended up mis-pointing my originals directory and ended up with this:
Lightroom CC
    >95fd01ccbe3e4c08bac471b8e044c917
        >Originals (107.24 GB, 14,873 items)
    >Lightroom CC
        >95fd01ccbe3e4c08bac471b8e044c917
            >Originals (92.89 GB, 7,045 items)

So the problem may be that the inner "Originals" is not synced? Any idea how to merge those 2 groups of originals? I could copy them all in but imagine that Lightroom CC would have no idea what's going on.

I'm wondering if I ought to just start over completely.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 24, 2018)

Also in Classic, just above the "Collections" lists, there's a "? Imported Photos 5,364"

Given that LRCC seems to have all of the photos, would it make sense to just "Delete all synced data" in classic and start over with that process? Then at least I wouldn't have to re-import everything. It doesn't appear that LRCC cares which folders the photos are in?


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## mbernhardt (Nov 24, 2018)

OK, here's where I am now: I pointed LRCC back to the original location--the folder with 14,873 items. Eventually, the number began to increase and it's now over 23K items. So it would appear they are merging. When that's all done, I thought I'd try deleting synced data in classic and letting it resync. Does that seem like a reasonable plan?


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## Jim Wilde (Nov 24, 2018)

To be honest, I'm not really sure what it is you're trying to achieve going forward, i.e. what's the end objective of all this work? Are you planning on using LRCC and LR Classic in a combined workflow, or are you simply trying to move from LRCC to LR Classic? If the latter, wouldn't it have been a lot easier to simply forget about LRCC and import your Apple Photos stuff directly into a new LR Classic catalog? It feels like I'm missing something here.

Also, what do you mean when you say that you "pointed LRCC back to the original location"? You can't point LRCC to anything other than where you import from....the location for storing the local copy of the originals isn't really relevant, all that matters is the images in the cloud and any new ones to be added. So I'm not sure what you mean by this.


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## mbernhardt (Nov 24, 2018)

I started out with LRCC, then discovered that it doesn't support plugins, which I need. What it DOES have, however, is a tool for importing directly from Apple Photos without having to export first. So I used that, with mixed results. Now I'm just trying to get everything synced to LR Classic, after which I will eventually stop paying for Adobe Cloud.

By "pointing back" I meant in LRCC preferences where you tell it at which location you want the originals stored locally. Midway through, I accidentally changed that location. Classic only synced what was in one of the locations. That seems to have resolved itself now that I pointed back to the first Originals location, and all of the originals are in the same directory structure.

So now I need to let Classic resync and hopefully it will all be right.


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## Jim Wilde (Nov 24, 2018)

mbernhardt said:


> By "pointing back" I meant in LRCC preferences where you tell it at which location you want the originals stored locally. Midway through, I accidentally changed that location. Classic only synced what was in one of the locations.



I think there's a misunderstanding here....Classic has no knowledge of, or access to, the copy of the LRCC originals which you've asked to be stored locally. Classic only syncs with the cloud, and downloads the LRCC originals from the cloud. The local LRCC copy, as I said earlier, really isn't relevant to the issue.

Similarly, changing the location for the local copy should have zero effect on the number of images in the cloud.....the only way you can change (increase) the number of cloud-stored images is either by adding new images to any of the LRCC apps, or by syncing new images from LR Classic (in this case, they would be smart previews). So the number of images in the local copy directory isn't of much importance here, the numbers that matter are the All Photos total in LRCC and the All Synced Photographs in LR Classic, when syncing has finished those totals should be the same (except for any synced videos which would be in the All Photos number but not in the ASP number).


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