# Lightroom Cloud for prolific photographer - advice



## maxlakner (May 30, 2021)

Hi,

I’ve been using Lightroom classic for almost 15 years, and I take a lot of photos.  I’m excited about the cloud version, but after trying it I have two problems - the functionality is not as good as classic.  Which is fine, I’m thinking, what if I do my main edits in classic, then import to cloud as a backup.  But!  I‘m going to fill up 1 TB every 4-6 months probably - and I’m trying to think about how to plan this.  I love being able to share the folders directly from lightroom, and I love having an online backup.  What do other people who shoot a lot do?

Thanks
Max


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## Johan Elzenga (May 30, 2021)

I assume the answer is that most will use Lightroom Classic…


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## Paul McFarlane (May 30, 2021)

I completely concur with Johan. I deal with photographers who are handling thousands of photos they shoot every year - Cloud is simply impractical for them (apart from storage costs, the upload speeds), and they use Classic (with all of it's additional features).

Horses for courses as they say...


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## clee01l (May 31, 2021)

1TB in essential photos is a lot for even the most professional of photographers. 

I use Lightroom Classic as my master DAM tool and I use Lightroom as a front end on my iPadPro and all of the benefits of Lightroom in the cloud. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Johan Elzenga (May 31, 2021)

clee01l said:


> 1TB in essential photos is a lot for even the most professional of photographers


That depends on what ‘essential’ means to you, and how much time you have to always weed out non-essential photos right away. I have about 6 TB of photos. I’m not saying they are all essential, but I wouldn’t want to have to delete 80% of my photos. I could probably delete 50% if I wanted to, but that would still mean excessive online storage costs. Your solution of using the iPad as front end and Lightroom Classic as DAM is very nice, however. The only disadvantage I can see is that you can’t start tagging your images when you are on the road with your iPad, because keywords don’t sync.


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## clee01l (May 31, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> That depends on what ‘essential’ means to you, and how much time you have to always weed out non-essential photos right away. I have about 6 TB of photos. I’m not saying they are all essential, but I wouldn’t want to have to delete 80% of my photos. I could probably delete 50% if I wanted to, but that would still mean excessive online storage costs. Your solution of using the iPad as front end and Lightroom Classic as DAM is very nice, however. The only disadvantage I can see is that you can’t start tagging your images when you are on the road with your iPad, because keywords don’t sync.


Again, 6TB of not necessarily "essential photos" is another reason to keep everything in a local LrC catalog.    My 12.9" iPadPro replaced my 13"MBP.    The sync process is so much more convenient than having to import a travel catalog that the inconvenience of keywording in the field is a minor inconvenience.  In Lightroom on the iPadPro, I can import, cull, rate, flag and perform basic edits.   My keyword organization has gone to hell because of the incompatibilities between Lr and LrC.   At some point I will remove my hierarchal keywords and  go with a flat keyword scheme that is compatible to both Lr and LrC


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## Johan Elzenga (May 31, 2021)

clee01l said:


> At some point I will remove my hierarchal keywords and go with a flat keyword scheme that is compatible to both Lr and LrC


You can't. Even a flat keyword scheme won't sync.


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## Johan Elzenga (May 31, 2021)

clee01l said:


> The sync process is so much more convenient than having to import a travel catalog that the inconvenience of keywording in the field is a minor inconvenience.


That's very personal, of course. To me it's the opposite. The inconvenience of having to import a travel catalog (and lugging around a laptop) easily outweighs the problem of not having range masks, keywords, HDR merge, panorama merge, and smart collections, just to name a few things I would really miss in Lightroom for iPad.


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## clee01l (May 31, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> That's very personal, of course. To me it's the opposite. The inconvenience of having to import a travel catalog (and lugging around a laptop) easily outweighs the problem of not having range masks, keywords, HDR merge, panorama merge, and smart collections, just to name a few things I would really miss in Lightroom for iPad.



It’s not like I do no processing in Lightroom Classic. HDR and Panorama merges are saved for when I return to LrC. Smart Collections populate automatically when the keywords are present. So, I don’t miss these because they await when I return to my master Lightroom Classic catalog. One thing that I do miss in Lr is the Color Label Sets which are integral to my WorkFlow Smart Collection I use extensively in LrC. 

Often if on a long trip with a good internet connection, Images imported on my iPadPro are already in the LrC catalog. And when I do return home I open Lr on the iPadPro downstairs where it lives and by the time I get to LrC on the desktop upstairs, all of my trip images are there. Where you have to import twice, I only import once while still on the road. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Johan Elzenga (May 31, 2021)

I agree that both workflows have their advantages and disadvantages. I'm often in a situation where I do not have a good internet connection, or only an expensive one. That's another reason why I prefer my laptop. The lack of keyword sync would be my biggest problem, however. I fully understand that the iPad workflow works for you.


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## gilgarci (Jun 1, 2021)

Right now I have Lightroom plan with the CC Lightroom on my desktop and on my mobile devices and 1 TB storage. I am getting a new computer soon and I am really interested in getting Lightroom classic and I see there is another plan that includes this and Photoshop. It seems to be the same price and more storage. but I don't understand why. If you get so much more in the second plan, why is it the same price?  Is LR Classic cloud based like the others? Could one of the pros out there make a recommendation on the best way for me to use Lightroom Classic? And I wanted it to be cloud based. I would not want it to be all on my desktop......Thanks.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 1, 2021)

gilgarci said:


> It seems to be the same price and more storage. but I don't understand why.


You're mis-reading the plans....the Photography Plan, which includes Lightroom Classic and Photoshop as well as the Lightroom cloud-related apps, only comes with *20 Gigabytes* of cloud storage, versus the *1 Terabyte* that your Lightroom plan contains.

If you want it cloud-based and not on your desktop then Classic isn't for you. All original image storage with Classic can ONLY be local, it cannot be cloud-based. It can upload smart previews of the locally-stored originals to the cloud, but the originals themselves have to stay local.


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## gilgarci (Jun 1, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> You're mis-reading the plans....the Photography Plan, which includes Lightroom Classic and Photoshop as well as the Lightroom cloud-related apps, only comes with *20 Gigabytes* of cloud storage, versus the *1 Terabyte* that your Lightroom plan contains.
> 
> If you want it cloud-based and not on your desktop then Classic isn't for you. All original image storage with Classic can ONLY be local, it cannot be cloud-based. It can upload smart previews of the locally-stored originals to the cloud, but the originals themselves have to stay local.


Thank you, yes, you are correct. I was misreading the plan. Is it possible to use Lightroom Classic on my desktop and still have the mobility of syncing on my iPad and phone? Right now I sync across all of my devices, but if I were to change plans to get the classic, what would my options for syncing be?


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 1, 2021)

gilgarci said:


> Thank you, yes, you are correct. I was misreading the plan. Is it possible to use Lightroom Classic on my desktop and still have the mobility of syncing on my iPad and phone? Right now I sync across all of my devices, but if I were to change plans to get the classic, what would my options for syncing be?


Yes, it's possible to do that, in fact many Classic users are doing it. Simply put, you can sync your entire library from Classic to the cloud and all those images will sync to your iDevices in the same way as they do from Lightroom desktop. The difference is that Classic can only sync smart previews (2560px on the long edge), though none of these count towards your reduced 20GB of cloud storage (smart previews in most cases will be "good enough" for viewing and even some basic editing, but are no good if you need to export in full resolution from one of the iDevices). It's also important to note that Classic is impaired when it comes to syncing metadata with the cloud. Keywords, Location Data, Face Tagging data, Develop Presets....none of these sync with the cloud.


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## gilgarci (Jun 1, 2021)

Another clear explanation, thank you. One more thing I do not understand. If classic has 20GB storage  and Lightroom Cc has 1TB fine. Right now I read that I have 800 plus GB sed up on the cloud. What happens concerning the difference? Do I now put my photos on the desktop hard drive to bring that down? And you say now I do not have all my info on my photos? Location etc. Is this for new photos with Classic or all I have now?

And I assume there will be no problem with phone fotos syncing to Classic also.

Thanks again from an old retiree who developed his black and white film 60 years ago.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 1, 2021)

gilgarci said:


> If classic has 20GB storage  and Lightroom Cc has 1TB fine. Right now I read that I have 800 plus GB sed up on the cloud. What happens concerning the difference? Do I now put my photos on the desktop hard drive to bring that down? And you say now I do not have all my info on my photos? Location etc. Is this for new photos with Classic or all I have now?
> 
> And I assume there will be no problem with phone fotos syncing to Classic also.



You have a couple of options. The easiest, and most expensive option is to convert your Lightroom 1TB plan to the Photography Plan but use the 1TB variant of the Photography Plan. So all the images stay in the cloud, and they will also download to the local hard drive to be managed by Classic. But, that costs twice as much as the standard 20GB plan, so maybe not something you would want to do.

Assuming therefore that you just want to convert to the Photography Plan with 20GB, then yes you will have to clear out those 800GB of images from the cloud, and there are a couple of ways of doing that:

1. Create a new Classic catalog, and start the sync function. That will download a complete full-resolution copy of all the images in the cloud, to be stored on a local hard drive. Once the download is complete and you've run a first backup of the downloaded images, you can proceed with deleting the contents of the cloud. The problem with this approach is that if you have added Keywords or Location data or face tagging in Lightroom, none of that would sync into Classic, meaning it would have to be redone. Other metadata, such as Titles and Captions would download OK. Any albums you have created in Lightroom will be retained (as Collections in Classic), but any Folders created in Lightroom will not sync to Classic, so you would have to manually recreate the Classic equivalent (Collection Sets).

If you decide to use this method, before starting you should visit the Classic Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab......there you can change the image download location from the default of an obscure folder on the system drive, to a folder and location of your own choosing. You can also choose to have the images stored in that selected parent folder in a date-based sub-folder structure, rather than all dumped into a single folder.

2. The other way would be to export all the images from the cloud (using the "Original" file-type option), then once downloaded they could be imported into the new Classic catalog. This has the advantage of preserving all the Keywords and Location data, but has the disadvantage of not retaining the album and folder organisation that you may have created in Lightroom. The workaround for that would be to apply album-specific keywords to all the images that are in albums, before starting the export, allowing you to more easily recreate the collections in Classic.

Phone photos will still sync via the cloud into Classic, but of course those photos are uploaded from the phone in original format, so they would count against your 20GB allowance. Many users wait until the phone photo arrives in Classic, then they delete it from the cloud, then sync it back up from Classic (so as a smart preview, which doesn't count against the 20GB allowance).


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## clee01l (Jun 1, 2021)

gilgarci said:


> Another clear explanation, thank you. One more thing I do not understand. If classic has 20GB storage and Lightroom Cc has 1TB fine. Right now I read that I have 800 plus GB sed up on the cloud. What happens concerning the difference? Do I now put my photos on the desktop hard drive to bring that down? And you say now I do not have all my info on my photos? Location etc. Is this for new photos with Classic or all I have now?
> 
> And I assume there will be no problem with phone fotos syncing to Classic also.
> 
> Thanks again from an old retiree who developed his black and white film 60 years ago.



If you drop back to 20GB you will need to get your full size (800GB worth) off the cloud. These will automatically download to your Lightroom Classic catalog. There is a right way to do this and I am not going to get into that for fear of saying the wrong thing. 
Once you are down to 20GB all of your iPad/iPhone photos will sync full size down to the Lightroom Classic catalog. HOWEVER. You will need to manage that 20GB since it won’t take too much to fill up your plan storage of 20 GB. It will be the same process that you use to clean up the 800GB. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## gilgarci (Jun 1, 2021)

Thank you all fot the help. I now have something to keep me busy!


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## gilgarci (Jun 1, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> You have a couple of options. The easiest, and most expensive option is to convert your Lightroom 1TB plan to the Photography Plan but use the 1TB variant of the Photography Plan. So all the images stay in the cloud, and they will also download to the local hard drive to be managed by Classic. But, that costs twice as much as the standard 20GB plan, so maybe not something you would want to do.
> 
> Assuming therefore that you just want to convert to the Photography Plan with 20GB, then yes you will have to clear out those 800GB of images from the cloud, and there are a couple of ways of doing that:
> 
> ...


Thanks, and one last question....when I create a new classic catalog, won't I already have a classic subscription and thus be over on the cloud limit. When exactly should I download from the cloud? Before I change plans?
Thanks again.


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## clee01l (Jun 2, 2021)

gilgarci said:


> Thanks, and one last question....when I create a new classic catalog, won't I already have a classic subscription and thus be over on the cloud limit. When exactly should I download from the cloud? Before I change plans?
> Thanks again.



This is why I was hesitant to answer your issue completely in my previous reply. I THINK Adobe will give you some timeframe to get your Cloud Storage back down to your new plan limits. But someone else needs to qualify that answer with a definitive reply. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 2, 2021)

I agree, I would have thought that Adobe would have a means already in place for such an eventuality (maybe a one month additional payment to give the user time to effect the download). But in the unlikely event that Adobe aren't helpful, it should be possible to download the trial version of Classic, do the download, then switch the plan.


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## clee01l (Jun 2, 2021)

I think Jim's idea is a good one.   With the Photography plan, you will get a warning from Adobe if you exceed your plan limits and some time (perhaps 30 days) to get the storage back within plan limits before being charged an extra terabyte for the overage.   Since I use the  cloud version as a front end for Classic, I import my camera card  into my ipaf Lightroom and let that sync back to my master catalog.  It did not take long importing 64GB camera cards into Lightroom before I got an email from Adobe warning that I exceed the limit of the 20GB plan.   Not wanting to do the cloud cleanup dance every time I imported a camera card on my iPadPro, I opted  for the larger 1TB Photography plan.  The 1TB Photography plan is more than adequate for importing via Lightroom to Lightroom Classic since I 2 years I have only consumed ~400GB and have not yet "done the dance" to remove the full size RAW that  now also reside in my Classic catalog.


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## gilgarci (Jun 2, 2021)

Excellent info, thanks Clee.  Without understanding everything completely I want to know if I would be able to do this.…..What if I were to get extra hard drive which I would need anyway when I get a new computer. Or ….the new computer might have a TB hard drive and be enough.  While I am still in cc would I be able to download everything into another folder structure that reflects what I have now In CC.  I want to keep the structure in check because I have 40,000 photos up there . When I would change to classic I would simply use the photos I downloaded for my collection and I could also delete what’s on the cloud. Looking for advice from the pros. Thanks.

Also, do I understand that after I go to Classic the CC versions now sync with my desktop and not the cloud since my pics would now be on my hard drive and not the cloud?


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 2, 2021)

gilgarci said:


> Excellent info, thanks Clee.  Without understanding everything completely I want to know if I would be able to do this.…..What if I were to get extra hard drive which I would need anyway when I get a new computer. Or ….the new computer might have a TB hard drive and be enough.  While I am still in cc* would I be able to download everything into another folder structure that reflects what I have now In CC*.  I want to keep the structure in check because I have 40,000 photos up there . When I would change to classic I would simply use the photos I downloaded for my collection and I could also delete what’s on the cloud. Looking for advice from the pros. Thanks.



Sort of, but don't do it that way.....Lightroom has an option to store a local copy of all the originals, which is what I think you are referring to. The problem is that they are the original images, i.e. without any of the edits and other metadata that you have added. All of that information is in the cloud catalog, so the only way to get most of that info from the cloud into Classic is by using one of the two methods that I mentioned.



> Also, do I understand that after I go to Classic the CC versions now sync with my desktop and not the cloud since my pics would now be on my hard drive and not the cloud?



No. Syncing is always done through the cloud, apps never sync directly to any other app (even if you were running Classic and Lightroom on the same system at the same time, they cannot talk directly to each other). Think of the cloud server as the hub through which all traffic passes, each app syncs only to the hub, and it's the hub which controls what data needs to be passed to/from the various synced-enabled apps. So Classic would upload smart previews, which are still stored in the cloud, and the cloud server makes sure those images are available to any of the cloud apps. Any edits that you might then do on your iDevice go back to the cloud server and from there to all the other connected devices, including Classic.


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## gilgarci (Jun 2, 2021)

Thanks……I’ve gotten a good education these last couple of days.


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## maxlakner (May 30, 2021)

Hi,

I’ve been using Lightroom classic for almost 15 years, and I take a lot of photos.  I’m excited about the cloud version, but after trying it I have two problems - the functionality is not as good as classic.  Which is fine, I’m thinking, what if I do my main edits in classic, then import to cloud as a backup.  But!  I‘m going to fill up 1 TB every 4-6 months probably - and I’m trying to think about how to plan this.  I love being able to share the folders directly from lightroom, and I love having an online backup.  What do other people who shoot a lot do?

Thanks
Max


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## Juliette (Jun 3, 2021)

This is all really educational for me too. I've got 6TB of raw photos dating back to 2005. I had been using Classic for years, back to LR 3.0 (and for years didn't understand LR!!) only until recently. I increased to 1TB on CC and have the same workflow as @clee01l.

I prefer this method because I keep 1TB of crucial 5 star images that I can access at anytime, plus personal photos I like to have handy.

I haven't changed out the location of my sync folder yet and need to because it's filling up my hard drive now! However, I have "stuck" sync issues so want to clear that up first. And yes, I did all the troubleshooting steps listed on this forum. I have one image left and cannot seem to get it unstuck!


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 4, 2021)

Juliette said:


> This is all really educational for me too. I've got 6TB of raw photos dating back to 2005. I had been using Classic for years, back to LR 3.0 (and for years didn't understand LR!!) only until recently. I increased to 1TB on CC and have the same workflow as @clee01l.
> 
> I prefer this method because I keep 1TB of crucial 5 star images that I can access at anytime, plus personal photos I like to have handy.
> 
> I haven't changed out the location of my sync folder yet and need to because it's filling up my hard drive now! However, I have "stuck" sync issues so want to clear that up first. And yes, I did all the troubleshooting steps listed on this forum. I have one image left and cannot seem to get it unstuck!


Login to the Lightroom web interface, and delete it there.


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## Juliette (Jun 4, 2021)

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I have been deleting on the web interface but as soon as I delete the image listed, another one pops up. There’s one image that keeps the sync stuck but it ends up being a different one every time. I may need to nuke what’s on the cloud and take more systematic steps. I did all my imports from Classic into CC from my old catalog which referenced external drives. The purpose was so I could have all the RAW images there and that’s when problems began.  Adobe had me create a new catalog and it’s been a mess ever since. 

I like the workflow to CC mentioned here and would like to get to the place where it’s cleaned up and working for me.


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## gilgarci (Jun 4, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> You have a couple of options. The easiest, and most expensive option is to convert your Lightroom 1TB plan to the Photography Plan but use the 1TB variant of the Photography Plan. So all the images stay in the cloud, and they will also download to the local hard drive to be managed by Classic. But, that costs twice as much as the standard 20GB plan, so maybe not something you would want to do.
> 
> Assuming therefore that you just want to convert to the Photography Plan with 20GB, then yes you will have to clear out those 800GB of images from the cloud, and there are a couple of ways of doing that:
> 
> ...


Ok, I think I will take this route soon...... So if I have 4 years with 4 folders each with 4 albums, all the pics will download into a "year” folder and all the albums will disappear?  It seems like I would have to recreate the folder/album strucrure. Lots of work with 40k fotos.
"


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 4, 2021)

gilgarci said:


> Ok, I think I will take this route soon...... So if I have 4 years with 4 folders each with 4 albums, all the pics will download into a "year” folder and all the albums will disappear?  It seems like I would have to recreate the folder/album strucrure. Lots of work with 40k fotos.
> "


Which route.....I provided two different options?

Assuming you mean the first method, read what I said again. Yes all the images will download into the Classic catalog, and will be stored in whichever date-based structure you have selected in the Classic Preferences>Lightroom  Sync tab, which doesn't have to be just "year" folders. Also the albums in Lightroom ARE preserved (as Collections) in LrC during the download....but the Folder structure that you might have created in Lightroom will NOT be preserved, so that element will have to be recreated manually in LrC. Unless you have hundreds of folders, that may not be too daunting a task.


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## gilgarci (Jun 4, 2021)

Yes I did mean the first method and thanks for the explanation. I have about 11 folders with about 100 albums total.


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## Jim Wilde (Jun 4, 2021)

gilgarci said:


> Yes I did mean the first method and thanks for the explanation. I have about 11 folders with about 100 albums total.


OK, so you'll get the 100 albums (as collections) in LrC, but you'll have to create the 11 Collection Sets in LrC and drag and drop those 100 collections into the right place. Shouldn't be too bad...


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## gilgarci (Jun 4, 2021)

That makes it a little easier. I can create the 11 collection sets and drop the albums in……thx!


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