# Update : Getting Phone photos from Phone to LR Classic on Desktop and syncing Smart Previews



## MarkNicholas (Feb 27, 2018)

Operating System: Wind 10 pro
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): LR CC mobile 3.1.1 & LR Classic 7.2


Ok I have now been doing this for some time and have refined my work flow and thought I would share. Apologies if this repeats some of the content in my previous posts which can be considered to be superseded.

Basically my objective is to get phone photos from my phone onto my desktop hard drive (into my chosen folder) and into LR Classic and to then sync back into the LR cloud as smart previews (not originals).

The explanation is quite long winded as there are several steps and each step has a number of options.

1. Taking photos on your phone.

The default method is using the default camera app. You can also use the camera app in LRCC. Whilst this is much more sophisticated it is quite fiddly and takes time to adjust the settings to the extent that you might miss the shot. For most shots I just use the default app but if there is time I occasionally use the LRCC camera app.

Using the LRCC camera app these automatically get uploaded (originals) to the LR Cloud. You can also set LRCC on your phone to automatically upload photos taken with the default camera app to the LR cloud. However, I choose not to do this because I only use LRCC on my phone using Wi-Fi and I take most photos out of a Wi-Fi zone. Also it means that whenever anyone sends you a photo via WhatsApp or the like all these photos will get uploaded to the LR cloud too. So I prefer to upload manually after choosing which photos to upload.

Next step is getting my photos to the LR cloud.

2. Uploading Phone Photos to LRCC

In order not to create an unholy mess in LRCC I have created an Album (not folder) in LRCC called "IPhone" which I use for this transfer process. This ensures that these transit photos are kept separate from my more permanent smart previews. 


From within this Album "IPhone" in LRCC click the blue "+" button at the bottom right (just to the left of the camera icon). You can then select which photos to upload to LRCC.

Once these photos are in LRCC the next step is to go to my PC.

3. Getting Photos onto hard drive and into LR Classic

You can use either LRCC or LR Classic to get these photos into your preferred folder. I have tried both and find it better to use LR Classic. The reason for this is that if I do any editing work on the phone using LRCC the edits will seamlessly be transferred in the migration to my desktop. I have found that using LRCC (desktop version) the edits do not always get transferred.  

In LR Classic make sure that syncing is enabled. The newly uploaded Phone photos will automatically sync with LR Classic and copy them into the LR mobile folder and import into LR Classic. You can change the default location but I prefer to keep the default and simply move them to my chosen folder. To do this, from within LR Classic I simply select all these photos and drag them to my designated folder.

The next step is where I need to remember that my objective is to have smart previews rather than originals in LRCC. At the moment they are in the correct folder but originals are in the Cloud. To remove the originals from the cloud I simply select these photos and go to "All synched photos" and un-sync them. This removes them from all LRCC devices but leaves the originals on the Phone (in camera roll) and also leaves the copies in the LR mobile folder (or in my case my chosen folder) and these photos remain imported in the LR Classic catalog.

The next step is to apply Keywords.

4. Apply Keywords and Metadata

LRCC and LR Classic will not sync keywords once the photos are in the LR cloud. However, if you apply the keywords in LR Classic before they have been synced and then sync, the keywords will be synced. However, any subsequent keyword changes in either LR CC or LR Classic will not sync between them.

Once keywording and adding metadata is complete I do a Cntr+ S to save the data to the jpeg file.

Now I simply drag these keyworded photos to my chosen collection or create a new collection and sync them with the LR cloud. LR Classic will now generate smart previews and sync them into LRCC. These all go into designated Folders which I manage from with LRCC.

Job done. No originals in the cloud and the "IPhone" Album in LRCC is now empty ready for the next set of phone photos to make the journey.


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## Victoria Bampton (Feb 27, 2018)

Good explanation, thanks for sharing Mark.


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## Duncanh (Feb 27, 2018)

I'm about to setup a workflow with the same objectives you have (plus I'd like an online backup of camera raw files whilst travelling) so thank you very much for a detailed explanation of how do it.  I've ignored LRCC up to now to allow things to settle so you've saved me a lot of searching the forum. 

I want to end up with all original images in Classic locally and only selected images in LRCC just viewing on my iPad so just smart previews will do in the cloud showing any edits I've done in classic.  

A couple of things.
a) In step 3 am I right that you say just un-syncing images will remove the images from LRCC/LR Cloud ?
b) I understand why images are still in camera roll after un-syncing and presume you could have deleted the ones in the camera roll as soon as you've uploaded images to LRCC from the camera roll in step 2, is that right ?
c)  When travelling I'd like to backup my raw images.  I download my cards to a laptop or netbook that I take with me. As a backup I was thinking I could upload to LRCC so if I lost my laptop/netbook I'd still have the original raw files in LRCC. Would this work using you workflow ? If so any comments/tips, things I've got to watch for ?  If this works I presume if I don't have a laptop with me I could either use someone's computer to upload to LRCC or investigate if it's possible to upload cards (I use both CF and SD) via my iPad.  I presume I could also cull in LRCC then sync to Classic instead of importing into Classic from my laptop. 

Again thanks Mark


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## MarkNicholas (Feb 28, 2018)

Duncanh said:


> I'm about to setup a workflow with the same objectives you have (plus I'd like an online backup of camera raw files whilst travelling) so thank you very much for a detailed explanation of how do it.  I've ignored LRCC up to now to allow things to settle so you've saved me a lot of searching the forum.
> 
> I want to end up with all original images in Classic locally and only selected images in LRCC just viewing on my iPad so just smart previews will do in the cloud showing any edits I've done in classic.
> 
> ...



a) Yes. What I do is select the photos and then go to "All Synced Photographs" in Library, right click and select "Remove from all Synced Photographs".
b) Yes you could do but I prefer to keep them there until I am satisfied that they are safely transferred to the hard drive and backed up.
c) If you are using a 3rd party computer I believe you can log onto your LRCC account via the web and upload them from there but I have never tried that. When I am away I simply back up my RAW files on my lap top.


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## Duncanh (Feb 28, 2018)

Thanks Mark, very helpful. I like the idea of uploading when I’m away in case laptop lost/dies or when I don’t have it. I’m a bit paranoid about backing (used to be in IT) so I also take a portable external drive so upload to laptop then copy to external !!
Thanks, will setup and test now.


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