# Virtual copies and migrating to Lightroom (cloud-based)



## bibendum (May 21, 2021)

Hi guys,

Happy to have found this forum. My name is Jay, and I have been using Lightroom Classic on Windows 10 for many years now for private purposes. I have done a bit of research, and I think it's time for me to completely migrate to the product that is now called "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom" (cloud-based), previously Lightroom CC.

So far there is only one thing I do not understand, though, which I need to resolve before migrating my catalog of 100k+ pics to the cloud: it concerns the concept of virtual copies.

I understand that Lightroom (cloud-based) does not support virtual copies. So, when migrating my classic catalog, I understand that all virtual copies will become two identical copies (like separate pictures) in the new Lightroom. Is this correct?

However, my current classic catalog consists of really many virtual copies, I’d guess about close to 50 percent. (For example, I have a collection of a trip, say “Paris May 2020”, and some other collections based on that trip, for example for separate restaurant visits during that trip.) So is it correct that, when migrating to Lightroom, the collections with my separate restaurant visits will contain full identical copies of the pictures, even though they are already contained in the Paris album?

If all of the above is true, how is it possible then, that within Lightroom (cloud-based) I can put a picture into different albums, actually without it being duplicated? Isn’t this a virtual copy? Can't one use this for migration?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Cheers
Jay


----------



## Johan Elzenga (May 21, 2021)

Are you sure you have that many virtual copies? You say “_For example, I have a collection of a trip, say “Paris May 2020”, and some other collections based on that trip, for example for separate restaurant visits during that trip_“, but collection membership is not the same as a virtual copy. An image can be in multiple collections, but that doesn’t mean it has multiple virtual copies because of that fact.


----------



## bibendum (May 21, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Are you sure you have that many virtual copies? You say “_For example, I have a collection of a trip, say “Paris May 2020”, and some other collections based on that trip, for example for separate restaurant visits during that trip_“, but collection membership is not the same as a virtual copy. An image can be in multiple collections, but that doesn’t mean it has multiple virtual copies because of that fact.


You're right. Thanks for your swift reply. However, when creating my "restaurant collections" I always check "Also create virtual copies". The reason is that I heavily edit those restaurant pics (in order to export them for a blog) and intend to keep the other copy (in the "trip" collection) unchanged. (At least, this has been my workflow for many years until now ).

So, are you saying that "collection membership" will be migrated correctly, without duplicates? Yet, virtual copies will indeed duplicate?

Can you recommend anything in this regard before I start my migration?


----------



## Johan Elzenga (May 22, 2021)

bibendum said:


> So, are you saying that "collection membership" will be migrated correctly, without duplicates? Yet, virtual copies will indeed duplicate?



Yes, collections will migrate as albums, and an image can be in multiple albums. Album memberships won’t create copies.
AFAIK, a virtual copy will create a real copy.


----------



## bibendum (May 22, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Yes, collections will migrate as albums, and an image can be in multiple albums. Album memberships won’t create copies.
> AFAIK, a virtual copy will create a real copy.


Thanks! Highly appreciated. Last question in this regard: during the migration to Lightroom, the virtual copies will be created as a new picture with all its modifications (cropping, color etc.) though, correct?


----------



## Johan Elzenga (May 22, 2021)

bibendum said:


> Thanks! Highly appreciated. Last question in this regard: during the migration to Lightroom, the virtual copies will be created as a new picture with all its modifications (cropping, color etc.) though, correct?


Yes, they will be copies of the originals, with all non-destructive edits applied to them.


----------



## bibendum (May 23, 2021)

My catalog is migrating as I write this. It's been 12 hours now, and more than 60% are complete. I guess this going to take some more time. Two observations:

1. Sometimes, every few hours, the process halts and says that a file (on my external hard drive) can't be accessed. When I click "retry", everything works fine again. As I never know when this going to happen, this tremendously delays the migration. It's strange, more than 70k pictures were migrated flawlessly, and now these errors occur. Maybe my drive is getting tired ...

2. A little worrisome is that I can see in the background of the Lightroom desktop app on Windows, where the photos are slowly appearing, that in the albums view, only one album has been created to far (my former Lightroom Classic "Travels" collection). However, the former sub-collections, where all my seprate travels were oragnized, won't show up yet. Meaning, so far, about 80k+ pics have been migrated, but all appear in one single album. This is making me a little nervous. Will the album structure be created at the end of the whole process?


----------



## clee01l (May 23, 2021)

bibendum said:


> My catalog is migrating as I write this. It's been 12 hours now, and more than 60% are complete. I guess this going to take some more time. Two observations:
> 
> 1. Sometimes, every few hours, the process halts and says that a file (on my external hard drive) can't be accessed. When I click "retry", everything works fine again. As I never know when this going to happen, this tremendously delays the migration. It's strange, more than 70k pictures were migrated flawlessly, and now these errors occur. Maybe my drive is getting tired ...
> 
> 2. A little worrisome is that I can see in the background of the Lightroom desktop app on Windows, where the photos are slowly appearing, that in the albums view, only one album has been created to far (my former Lightroom Classic "Travels" collection). However, the former sub-collections, where all my seprate travels were oragnized, won't show up yet. Meaning, so far, about 80k+ pics have been migrated, but all appear in one single album. This is making me a little nervous. Will the album structure be created at the end of the whole process?



I’m guessing that the Album assignments will show up after all of the image files have been migrated 
If a local file can’t be accessed, it may be missing on the local disk. When you resume, Lightroom Migration may simply skip over the missing files. At the end of the Migration process there may ne a summary of the missing unmigrated files. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## bibendum (May 24, 2021)

Okay, quick feedback: it all worked out fine. Only two items were not migrated, which is not a problem. However, I forgot to check the migration log file. Is there any way to access it? (I'm on Windows 10.)

The folder structure was created in the end, although everything was put in another top folder ("Lightroom Catalog-v10 Migration"), so I have to move albums around a little. Not too problematic.


----------



## bibendum (May 24, 2021)

I was too quick, PLEASE HELP! While syncing all my pics to cloud, LR is now beginning to put thousands of files into the "Deleted" folder. How is this possible? I have not deleted anything. What I am supposed to do?


----------



## clee01l (May 24, 2021)

bibendum said:


> I was too quick, PLEASE HELP! While syncing all my pics to cloud, LR is now beginning to put thousands of files into the "Deleted" folder. How is this possible? I have not deleted anything. What I am supposed to do?



Not necessarily a reason to panic. Lightroom will only sync one catalog at a time If the catalog that you are syncing is not recognized as the catalog for the files already there, the Lightroom will move those existing files to the “deleted” album (even if the images are the same images. You have 60 days to sort things out before the images in the deleted album are removed from the cloud. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## bibendum (May 24, 2021)

So, I have LR back syncing again. 50k+ pics to go. Still, as I am writing, 10k pics have been moved to the Deleted folder and have been subtracted from the initial 112k.

Apparently, the deletion issue happened after I installed the LR iOS app and fiddled around with it a bit while LR Desktop was still syncing. Somehow this seems to have confused the process. I understand that I have 60 days to recover the deleted pics. However, will the pictures be recovered back into their respective albums? If not, where will I find them? We're still talking about 10k pictures that have been deleted by some sort of bug. 

Any advice on how to proceed (other that just wait for the whole syncing process to finish) would be highly appreciated. Thanks!


----------



## clee01l (May 25, 2021)

When you restore deleted images, the will be returned to the All Photos collection and and albums they were previously assigned. 

At this point, I would council patience and let the migration complete.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## bibendum (May 25, 2021)

clee01l said:


> When you restore deleted images, the will be returned to the All Photos collection and and albums they were previously assigned.


Thanks! This is great news. I will continue to wait ...

However, can you explain what this current sync process is doing in the first place? The initial "migration" has completed. Why weren't the pictures synced with the Lightroom app during this process? 

This is what my Lightroom app currently looks like, with about 13k pictures still "syncing", and the ominous 10k deleted.


----------



## bibendum (May 25, 2021)

Eventually, everything turned out fine. I was able to restore the 10,045 "deleted" pics into their former albums. Everything is in sync now.

However, I am now experiencing this: Browsing through albums is extremely slow. Maybe someone can help me over there . Thanks for your support!


----------

