# What are realistic limits on the use of Lightroom CC?



## Barry Pearson (Sep 15, 2018)

I recently spent two days shooting at an airshow. I shot nearly 5000 raw files, at a total size of over 200 GB. That is fairly typical of what I do at such events.

I've been using Lightroom Classic CC and its predecessors from the first release. It can handle such quantities, and I ruthlessly prune a shoot like that in desktop Lightroom.

I've simply "played" with Lightroom CC. My impression from this very limited experience is that I can't realistically use Lightroom CC for this purpose at the moment. I'm not sure whether I will be able to do so in the foreseeable future.

Views welcome! Thanks in advance.


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 15, 2018)

The limitation is mainly about your upload speed - but if you ruthlessly prune anyway, you could just as easily pause sync, prune away, delete the duds and then resume sync to just upload the keepers.


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## Barry Pearson (Sep 15, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> The limitation is mainly about your upload speed - but if you ruthlessly prune anyway, you could just as easily pause sync, prune away, delete the duds and then resume sync to just upload the keepers.



Thanks. That method is new to me.
My "ruthless pruning" might, (if I'm ruthless enough), reject 90% of them. So I'be be left with 500 raw files files totalling 20 GB.

So it is a choice between adding 5000 files to Lightroom CC, pruning them to 10%, then allowing synchronisation, compared with importing 5000 into Lightroom Class CC, pruning them there, and leaving them on my (dual recorded) discs.

(There is only one PC involved, and I don't possess a smart-phone or any other reason to view those files externally. Except that I currently upload a few of them to various forums, and I will soon be uploading some of them to SmugMug).


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## johnbeardy (Sep 15, 2018)

Barry Pearson said:


> I've simply "played" with Lightroom CC. My impression from this very limited experience is that I can't realistically use Lightroom CC for this purpose at the moment.



Why would you even want to? What advantage does uploading originals offer you? Why would you want to use its weaker features?


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## Barry Pearson (Sep 18, 2018)

johnbeardy said:


> Why would you even want to? What advantage does uploading originals offer you? Why would you want to use its weaker features?



I have Lightroom CC as a result of subscribing to the full CC. I've had various ideas about how I might use such a product. The Adobe promotional material tends (of course) to concentrate on its benefits for many people. It tends not to expose its weaker features! I'm having to learn what they are.

An example of the sort of thing I wondered about was working in a hotel room after a shoot, editing a few of the day's photos, posting them to a forum or two, then letting those edits be synchronised with Lightroom Classic CC when I get home.

(Contrary to what I said above, I _do  _use a separate PC, in that hotel room, but not for final edits because it isn't calibrated in the way my home PC is. So my thought was to have some partially edited photos when I got home ready for refinement. Perhaps a bit easier than exporting those photos plus part of the catalogue of those partial edits).

I've had other thoughts about Lightroom CC's potential benefits, but I'm realising that those are currently optimistic. I suspect my best use of Victoria's "Lightroom CC - Edit Like A Pro"  at the moment is to translate its advice to my use of Lightroom Classic CC. Then monitor developments to Lightroom CC for future features that I _can _use.


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## johnbeardy (Sep 18, 2018)

And I can see that limited use of LRCC to eliminate the need to manually move stuff around when one gets home.  I do a little of that myself, using it as "LR Mobile on the laptop". My internet connection is quick enough to transfer thousands of originals via Sync, so you would have to see if that would work for you. You'll also have to get used to different desktop shortcuts, which can be a pain.


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## MikeSeb (Oct 20, 2018)

Barry, I wonder if you wouldn't p better served by a program like Photo Mechanic. I don't' think there's anything better for quickly culling large numbers of images, applying metadata, ratings, etc. (I have no affiliation with their parent company except as satisfied customer.)

Not sure any version of Lightroom is really the best at doing what you need up-front.


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## Barry Pearson (Oct 21, 2018)

MikeSeb said:


> Barry, I wonder if you wouldn't p better served by a program like Photo Mechanic. I don't' think there's anything better for quickly culling large numbers of images, applying metadata, ratings, etc. (I have no affiliation with their parent company except as satisfied customer.)
> Not sure any version of Lightroom is really the best at doing what you need up-front.



Thanks. but I have been using Lightroom from the first version, 2007 I think. 
I have about 145,000 images catalogued. Lightroom Classic CC works for me.

My query here was about Lightroom CC, not about Lightroom Classic CC.


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## MikeSeb (Oct 21, 2018)

Barry Pearson said:


> Thanks. but I have been using Lightroom from the first version, 2007 I think.
> I have about 145,000 images catalogued. Lightroom Classic CC works for me.
> 
> My query here was about Lightroom CC, not about Lightroom Classic CC.



Certainly. I should have elaborated more. Am I correct that your issue is with the initial cull among thousands of images, your “ruthless prune” down to a number that could more easily be handled by LR CC? That was why I suggested Photo Mechanic. It’s not a cataloging app, but is designed for a fast, efficient initial cull and metadata application before the editing begins in another program. Its image-editing features are basic.

You’d use it to ingest from the camera’s card to a hard drive; make your initial selects; and apply metadata using templates. Then you’d add the keepers (originals) to LR CC.  Its advantage is that it does these things very fast, faster than any version of LR I’ve used.  Granted, I’ve not tried LR CC in this situation.

I can certainly understand your reluctance to add another program to the mix. I use PM less now, because I rarely shoot events. I don’t often have more than a few dozen images to ingest at a time. 

If you ever wanted to try PM, there’s a trial version available. As I said, I have no affiliation with them other than as a customer.


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## Jimmsp (Oct 21, 2018)

Barry Pearson said:


> .....
> I've simply "played" with Lightroom CC. My impression from this very limited experience is that I can't realistically use Lightroom CC for this purpose at the moment. I'm not sure whether I will be able to do so in the foreseeable future.
> ..



I can understand completely. My issue is not just about upload speed of my large raw files. From my point of view, LR CC was designed primarily for photographers who shoot their jpegs on a mobile phone and who want to rapidly do quick edits before uploading to a social media site. My photo club has a lot of those folks. Granted, others can use LR CC's mobile capabilities as well.  It will probably evolve into a complete solution for everybody, eventually integrating LR Classic's capabilities.  But it is not there yet.

As I have progressed in improving my photography abilities, most of my shots these days are "good" ones, with some being better than others.  For me to cull out the good ones from the best ones, I generally need to look at details that I can only see on a large screen. And if that large screen is attached to my desktop, then I use the better solution of LR Classic which interfaces with Photoshop well where I also generally look at small details as I complete my post process work.  I would be hard pressed to do my work to my satisfaction on the  small screen of a tablet, never mind on a smart phone. I use the "Compare" capabilities on LR Classic a lot. Forget it if I am constrained to a tablet.

Do I use LR CC? Occasionally when I shoot with my smart phone. It is a handy tool for those those shots.  I also use it to share some of my better DSLR photos via LR Mobile.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Oct 22, 2018)

What MikeSeb said -- I use Photo Mechanic as a front end for Lightroom.  It works GREAT as that.  Today I shot volleyball -- I came back with about 1200 shots, in about 15 minutes I culled it down to 65, cropped and straightened those; I brought those into lightroom, and culled 7 more and did final touchup.  I had them published to a web site within 30 minutes of coming in the door. 

If I had tried to do that in Lightroom I would have been at least an hour longer.

PhotoMechanic is not cheap, but it is  HUGE time saver for culling, cropping, straightening.   NOT as a final home, just a front end.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 22, 2018)

Guys, this focus on PM is getting way off topic. "Improving" the front-end culling experience wasn't the question, the OP's question was only about whether LRCC could eventually replace his use of LR Classic.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Oct 22, 2018)

Jim Wilde said:


> Guys, this focus on PM is getting way off topic. "Improving" the front-end culling experience wasn't the question, the OP's question was only about whether LRCC could eventually replace his use of LR Classic.



But Jim, I think it is quite relevant, as the question related to aggressive pruning of images, indeed culling 90% is right up there with what I frequently do (though I easily hit 95%). 

Classic is often thought to be too slow for large culling; CC adds the additional issue of trying to block uploads of about-to-be-culled images as well as still suffering from many of the preview/ingestion related issues of Classic.  Both products treat culling AFTER they do a ton of ingestion related tasks, all of which (despite recent improvements) are still very, very slow.

It's a little like asking "will the rock in my shoe be too painful if I take off my socks?" -- the answer is to remove the rock from your shoe, not to decide if bare feet are tolerable with it.

I'll stop pushing PhotoMechanic now (it's not like a get a commission), but I really do think getting culling outside is the better answer to CC as a replacement, than trying to turn off internet while you cull.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 22, 2018)

Well clearly we've interpreted the OP in completely different ways. Nowhere in that post did I get the impression that Barry was looking to LRCC to help him with a problem with culling speed in Classic, and after MikeSeb's first push for PM Barry responded with an explicit statement that "_*My query here was about Lightroom CC, not about Lightroom Classic CC*_", which seemed pretty clear to me.


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