# Understanding the use of the Adobe Cloud storage by CC



## Marc Fairorth

Hello Friends!

I've been a user of Lightroom for many years but not so much the past few, and now I'm trying to get back into it with CC. Most of my photos currently reside in Google Drive.

In order to import into CC, I created a local drive and sync'ed it up with Google drive, and then ran an import from CC on that local drive. It contains 18,500 images, and now my All Photos library indicates this many photos. I also got a warning banner across the top of CC saying "cloud storage is almost full. Upgrade to keep things running smoothly". This has me a bit confused.

Is Adobe pushing a copy out to my cloud storage? I thought the library only contained a link to the actual file which still remained in place. If there are images getting pushed out to the Adobe cloud, does this mean I can now safely remove them from the Google cloud? I am not seeing any files when I click Assets from the Creative Cloud app, either on my folder or on the web. But it says 85 GB has been used.

Can someone please help me understand the Adobe cloud usage and CC.

Thanks in advance!

Marc


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## johnbeardy

LRCC uploads its own copy of the file to Adobe's cloud. So its link is to this file, not to a local file, and it uses up your space. The local Google files could be your backup, if you don't have another (Adobe's cloud has your originals,  it's not backup).


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## Jim Wilde

Marc Fairorth said:


> I am not seeing any files when I click Assets from the Creative Cloud app, either on my folder or on the web. But it says 85 GB has been used.
> 
> Can someone please help me understand the Adobe cloud usage and CC.


There are two potential ways of using your Adobe cloud space allocation:

1. In a Dropbox/Google Drive type method whereby you can add files to the Creative Cloud Files folder on your local hard drive. These are then uploaded to the cloud and you can share access to them by creating and sending links to them. They would also download to a second computer if you installed and logged in to the same Adobe subscription account. These files are accessible via either the system's file browser, or the Assets>Files tab of the Creative Cloud desktop app. Obviously, any files added to the Creative Cloud Files folder will eat into your Adobe cloud space allocation. In this scenario, the data is held both locally and in the cloud.

2. The other method is by using the LRCC "ecosystem". When you add (import) images into any of the LRCC apps (desktop, web, phone, tablet) they are automatically uploaded to the cloud, from where they can be accessed by any of the other LRCC apps on your other devices. All changes sync across this ecosystem, and of course all such images count against the same Adobe cloud space allocation. In this scenario, images are held in the cloud, but can optionally be stored locally as well.

Thus the overall cloud space utilisation would be the total of all the images stored in the LRCC "ecosystem" plus any other data stored in the Creative Cloud Files folder.


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## Marc Fairorth

Thank you Jim and John, I appreciate the reply!

Jim, why am I not seeing any file when I go to Create Cloud/Assets on either the open in Folder or View on Web. There are no files to be seen, but yet there are 18,500 files in my library in LLRC. 

I wish I could confirm that my (primary) copy of the file is located in the Adobe Cloud.

Marc


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## johnbeardy

"why am I not seeing any file when I go to Create Cloud/Assets on either the open in Folder or View on Web. There are no files to be seen, but yet there are 18,500 files in my library in LLRC. "

Lack of joined-up thinking on Adobe's part!


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## Marc Fairorth

lol! wait ... is this for real? Are the images that get copied up to the cloud (during the LRCC import process) actually hidden when I look at the Adobe cloud files, either as a local folder or on the web? Holy smokes!


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## Victoria Bampton

They show up in Photo Editor | Online Photoshop Lightroom  I suspect they were worried that people might delete the files from the main CC Assets interface.


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## Marc Fairorth

Is there any location (lightroom.adobe.com, or the asset views from Creative Cloud app), where we can see a file List, i.e. the actual file names, sizes, date created, etc., or are all of these "details" hidden by Adobe?


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## johnbeardy

No, nothing at all, Marc.  The Dropbox-like space can be reviewed online, or in Finder/Explorer, but the space used for files synced from LRCC is completely hidden to the user.

In LRCC Mac/PC I think you can filter by Sync Status, but you have no way to verify that it is correct.


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## Marc Fairorth

Thank you John and Victoria,

To my way of thinking, this is a significant weakness in the LRCC "ecosystem" and how LRCC utilizes the Adobe Create Cloud.

Essentially, Adobe has a cloud storage that you can use for files/folders like a normal cloud storage. I can sync with my local desktop Creative Cloud folder and see those files if I look at them from the assets.adobe.comm website. I can create folders, move files around, rename them, everything I expect from a file system. Adobe uses this same cloud file system for the LRCC image files, but hides the files there from our view.

Adobe wants to be entrusted with the cloud storage of our images. They have an excellent set of tools to work with them out there (LRCC, the iPhone APP,  the website interface), but a very disconcerting lack of transparency and instrumentation around the storage itself. It is not enough to simply tell me that I have used up 85% of my storage and provide no details on the contents.

The black box that is the Adobe cloud storage for LRCC image files has given me serious concerns and reservations about using this for my image management system.


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## Victoria Bampton

Marc Fairorth said:


> The black box that is the Adobe cloud storage for LRCC image files has given me serious concerns and reservations about using this for my image management system.



Most of CC's audience are nowhere near as computer literate as you, so a black box is probably safer for most. An Advanced view for more advanced users would be good though.


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## johnbeardy

I have similar reservations. For example, especially because of LRCC's target audience, I am really surprised that it was released without a trash feature and even more surprised that there still isn't one.  Too bad if you accidentally delete a photo or change your mind afterwards!


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## Victoria Bampton

johnbeardy said:


> even more surprised that there still isn't one.


I suspect it was more complicated than they anticipated. I'm sure we will see it, but they'll want to make sure it's rock solid before release.


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## johnbeardy

Even at this time of year, my suspicion is less charitable. It's as if they mislaid the DAM awareness that was so obvious when LR was introduced.


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## Roelof Moorlag

Marc Fairorth said:


> I've been a user of Lightroom for many years but not so much the past few, and now I'm trying to get back into it with CC





Marc Fairorth said:


> Is Adobe pushing a copy out to my cloud storage? I thought the library only contained a link to the actual file which still remained in place.



Lightroom Classic CC is the successor of the Lightroom version You used to use. It referes (link) to local files and does not pushes them to the cloud.
Have you considered using that version of Lightroom or is the cloud oriented CC version a deliberate choice?


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## jmj2001

I have what I think is a related question.  Up till now I have used the Creative Cloud Photography Plan with 20 GB storage.   My main catalog in Lightroom Classic covers about 500 GB of files (going back years, etc) on my home desktop PC.    It would be tempting to upgrade to the 1 TB plan if I could upload all my original photo files to it and so have a robust backup.   But,  since Classic only uploads Smart Previews,  there seems to be no way to do that without abandoning the full-featured Classic catalog.       Sometimes (eg, when travelling) I import RAW files from cameras to LR CC on my laptop or Android devices.  Together with photos taken by the Android devices, these can quite easily use up the 20 GB so I have to fiddle around in Classic to recover it (which I know how to do).  Upgrading would hardly be worth it just to avoid that.      Does anyone see a way around this?


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## Johan Elzenga

If you mainly want to use it as online backup, then you can do that by placing your originals in the ‘Creative Cloud Files’ folder. As discussed here, that is a synced folder similar to Dropbox. It creates an online copy of those files, but you do not see that in your Lightroom CC apps. It’s just an online backup. Of course you would have to get more storage, so that could be the reason to upgrade your current 20GB to 1TB.


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## jmj2001

JohanElzenga said:


> If you mainly want to use it as online backup, then you can do that by placing your originals in the ‘Creative Cloud Files’ folder. As discussed here, that is a synced folder similar to Dropbox. It creates an online copy of those files, but you do not see that in your Lightroom CC apps. It’s just an online backup. Of course you would have to get more storage, so that could be the reason to upgrade your current 20GB to 1TB.



Thanks, I think I understand now and this implies that, in the case of a RAW file imported into LR CC on Android (for example), there will be eventually be two copies in the Adobe cloud.   The first one would be in the LR CC part of the cloud (where I could only see it via the CC apps).  However, once I ran LR Classic, a copy would download to my folder structure inside the local Creative Cloud folder on my desktop PC.    That would then upload again to the "visible" part of the Creative Cloud.      With 1 TB, I suppose I would have enough margin not to worry about this for a while ...


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## Johan Elzenga

jmj2001 said:


> Thanks, I think I understand now and this implies that, in the case of a RAW file imported into LR CC on Android (for example), there will be eventually be two copies in the Adobe cloud.   The first one would be in the LR CC part of the cloud (where I could only see it via the CC apps).  However, once I ran LR Classic, a copy would download to my folder structure inside the local Creative Cloud folder on my desktop PC.    That would then upload again to the "visible" part of the Creative Cloud.      With 1 TB, I suppose I would have enough margin not to worry about this for a while ...


Yes, that is correct. That is the consequence of using the cloud as backup for Lightroom Classic as well.


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## Victoria Bampton

jmj2001 said:


> It would be tempting to upgrade to the 1 TB plan if I could upload all my original photo files to it and so have a robust backup.



If it's purely for online backup, there are probably cheaper options like Backblaze or Crashplan. However if you wanted the benefits of being able to use the CC apps with originals, there are unofficial ways of getting the originals to the main CC cloud. For example, if you let Classic sync smart previews up to the cloud, and then add the same photos to the CC desktop app, it'll recognize that they're originals of existing photos. It's a bit messy, but possible.


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## quantum

I am completely befuddled. Not as computer literate as you guys. 
Victoria please help by publishing an article on the subject!
Regards John


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## Victoria Bampton

It's on my to do list John! I think it's going to need more than a single article, but all this sync stuff is on my agenda.


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## quantum

Thanks. One of the main reasons to move up to classic cc is to actually do this. And so far I've failed to grasp the best way.


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## criscokkat

This is the one thing that aggravates me the most about the ecosystem and makes me seriously look at alternatives. I just want one of the following options:

a) Give me a setting in LR CC Classic that says "Sync the raw file to my LR CC cloud catalog too"
b) Have a LR CC import tool that allows you to import files from a catalog without importing the whole thing. 

Throw up warning that some settings won't transfer, some edits won't be exactly the same, etc etc. But let us manage it and leverage both. I'll throw money at them for storage if so.


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## Victoria Bampton

criscokkat said:


> Throw up warning that some settings won't transfer, some edits won't be exactly the same, etc etc. But let us manage it and leverage both.


Edits do transfer completely. The camera raw engine that drives them both is identical, but a few tools just don't have a UI in CC yet. It's just some metadata (keywords, people, etc.) that doesn't so far.

The issue is that Classic is built around a local storage paradigm. When you start syncing photos to the cloud, both the cloud and the local hard drive want to be in charge of the originals. You get a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation, and a whole bunch of conflicts resulting.

They started out trying to build it into Classic but there were just too many complications, which is why they're building CC. It's not as feature rich as Classic yet, but it's getting there. Since you do want your photos in the cloud, which features are you still missing that's stopping you moving over?


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## Marc Fairorth

Hello Friends!

I've been a user of Lightroom for many years but not so much the past few, and now I'm trying to get back into it with CC. Most of my photos currently reside in Google Drive.

In order to import into CC, I created a local drive and sync'ed it up with Google drive, and then ran an import from CC on that local drive. It contains 18,500 images, and now my All Photos library indicates this many photos. I also got a warning banner across the top of CC saying "cloud storage is almost full. Upgrade to keep things running smoothly". This has me a bit confused.

Is Adobe pushing a copy out to my cloud storage? I thought the library only contained a link to the actual file which still remained in place. If there are images getting pushed out to the Adobe cloud, does this mean I can now safely remove them from the Google cloud? I am not seeing any files when I click Assets from the Creative Cloud app, either on my folder or on the web. But it says 85 GB has been used.

Can someone please help me understand the Adobe cloud usage and CC.

Thanks in advance!

Marc


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## Dale Strumpell

I have a single LR library for my personal and professional work. I do not use LR CC on the desktop. I do not want all photos imported or added to my LR library to use up space in the Adobe cloud; I want to choose which photos will be in the cloud. Is there any way to accomplish this? I create shared collections with my chosen photos. But I don't know how to stop from syncing or delete photos I don't want in the cloud, which is the majority of my photos.


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## johnbeardy

Yes, just keep using Lightroom Classic, not LRCC, and choose which photos you put in those shared collections. Only those photos will be synced to the cloud, and those photos won't use any of your cloud space.


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## Dale Strumpell

johnbeardy said:


> Yes, just keep using Lightroom Classic, not LRCC, and choose which photos you put in those shared collections. Only those photos will be synced to the cloud, and those photos won't use any of your cloud space.


Thanks for the reply.


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## camner

What Adobe's cloud + LRCC implementation feels like is a rushed effort to get into the "cloud space" to compete with other services that were much earlier to the table with their own cloud stuff.  As a result, it is kludgy, because it wasn't designed at the same time as their desktop application.  

This isn't to criticize, just to observe.

If I could make a timely (and quite tragic) analogy, it would be to what it appears Boeing did with the 737MAX.  They wanted to get the plane into the air as quickly as possible in order not to lose market share to AirBus, who was quicker to market with a "modern" single-aisle aircraft.  So they decided to modify an existing airframe (the 737) rather than design from scratch.  New heavier engines to increase range.  The new engines couldn't be mounted at the same place as the earlier-model engines.  Whoops!  That resulted in a tendency to have the nose go up, risking a stall.  The fix? Create a new indicator (angle of attack) and some new software that would automatically push the nose down when it detected the possibility of a stall.


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## johnbeardy

The 737Max is obviously a terrible series of events, and I'm not sure I would ever accept comparing it with Adobe's approach to cloud storage  in any way - no more than I would compare their approach to Brexit  

But I accept there are kludges and rough edges. One can also spin those as Adobe pivoting to meet customers' needs and changing technology though, and just like Apple and Google make bad moves and have weaknesses in their cloud/media offerings, so does Adobe. I wouldn't deny that there is self-inflicted damage too - eg subscription-only, confusing product naming, and premature release of the cloud-dependent "Lightroom CC".


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## WasOz

Victoria Bampton said:


> It's on my to do list John! I think it's going to need more than a single article, but all this sync stuff is on my agenda.


Victoria have you done an article on syncing as I have made a problem for myself which it might solve?

I have always used classic but recently installed CC version on the same laptop. As part of the installation it copied all the photos on my laptop to the cloud and almost filled the cloud storage. I would rather only use the cloud for selective storage but if I delete the cloud stored files will it delete the files in the classic catalog?

Thanks

Warren


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## Jim Wilde

WasOz said:


> I have always used classic but recently installed CC version on the same laptop. As part of the installation it copied all the photos on my laptop to the cloud and almost filled the cloud storage. I would rather only use the cloud for selective storage but if I delete the cloud stored files will it delete the files in the classic catalog?


It depends on what you actually did. LRCC will not automatically "copy all the photos on the laptop to the cloud" as part of the installation, so either you used the "Add Photos" option in LRCC to import some or all of your laptop photos, or you synced some or all of them from within the Classic catalog. However, the second option seems unlikely as that would only upload smart previews which do not count against your cloud storage allowance. 

In either case, yes you can delete the cloud files (but that must be done from within one of the LRCC apps).....that will not delete them from the classic catalog (though it will "unsync" them).


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## Johan Elzenga

WasOz said:


> Victoria have you done an article on syncing as I have made a problem for myself which it might solve?
> 
> I have always used classic but recently installed CC version on the same laptop. As part of the installation it copied all the photos on my laptop to the cloud and almost filled the cloud storage. I would rather only use the cloud for selective storage but if I delete the cloud stored files will it delete the files in the classic catalog?


Sounds like you *migrated* the Lightroom Classic catalog to Lightroom CC. That is not part of the installation, however.


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## Victoria Bampton

WasOz said:


> Victoria have you done an article on syncing as I have made a problem for myself which it might solve?


Still making its way up my priority list, sorry. 



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## WasOz

Johan Elzenga said:


> Sounds like you *migrated* the Lightroom Classic catalog to Lightroom CC. That is not part of the installation, however.


John I think you are correct - I am still using the Classic Catalog. Can I delete the CC files and create just a CC catalog for when i want to use CC without deleting the Classic catalog.


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## WasOz

Jim Wilde said:


> It depends on what you actually did. LRCC will not automatically "copy all the photos on the laptop to the cloud" as part of the installation, so either you used the "Add Photos" option in LRCC to import some or all of your laptop photos, or you synced some or all of them from within the Classic catalog. However, the second option seems unlikely as that would only upload smart previews which do not count against your cloud storage allowance.
> 
> In either case, yes you can delete the cloud files (but that must be done from within one of the LRCC apps).....that will not delete them from the classic catalog (though it will "unsync" them).


Thank you


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## Johan Elzenga

WasOz said:


> John I think you are correct - I am still using the Classic Catalog. Can I delete the CC files and create just a CC catalog for when i want to use CC without deleting the Classic catalog.


Yes, you can. The Lightroom Classic catalog is separate from your Lightroom CC cloud library, and deleting images in Lightroom CC does not delete them from Lightroom Classic.

You can *migrate* the Lightroom Classic catalog to Lightroom CC, which means your entire catalog will be copied to the cloud. Or you can *sync* the catalog, which means that only certain collections are synced (but everything uploaded by Lightroom CC will sync down to Lightroom Classic). Or you can keep the two entirely separated and not sync anything from Lightroom Classic to the cloud. That choice is yours.


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## criscokkat

Victoria Bampton said:


> Edits do transfer completely. The camera raw engine that drives them both is identical, but a few tools just don't have a UI in CC yet. It's just some metadata (keywords, people, etc.) that doesn't so far.
> 
> The issue is that Classic is built around a local storage paradigm. When you start syncing photos to the cloud, both the cloud and the local hard drive want to be in charge of the originals. You get a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation, and a whole bunch of conflicts resulting.
> 
> They started out trying to build it into Classic but there were just too many complications, which is why they're building CC. It's not as feature rich as Classic yet, but it's getting there. Since you do want your photos in the cloud, which features are you still missing that's stopping you moving over?


Printing, that's the #1 reason. I print to my Canon Pro 100 printer all the time.
#2 is the sheer number of prints I cull through. I shoot BMX and Mountain Bike races and it's not uncommon for me to bring 1000+ photos back. My flow right now is to bring them into classic and let them auto adjust to get a somewhat useable set to cull from (I tend to underexpose some on my 80d as I can recover dark but not highlights)  and then let the smart previews synch to the cloud so I can cull from my iPad if I am not in internet range by downloading them. So I'm worried about the time it would take to upload all of those. 

If I could keep them local until I did the first cull it would be awesome. I'd happily pay for photomechanic but that's not available on an ipad.


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