# Image based watermarks with Lightroom CC



## scotthunter3 (Apr 17, 2020)

I'm currently using Lightroom Classic on a  laptop and store my images locally. I have considered switching to Lightroom CC as I would like the ability to work on RAW images on my 12.9" iPad Pro instead of low-res Smart Previews. However, the only thing holding me back is the current inability to add a custom image-based watermark (my Photologo) so that I can share images on Facebook without resorting to a naff looking text based watermark. I have learned that I can add my logo with Photoshop for iPad but it's a bit of a faff compared to the export option with LR Classic. And I would no longer have Photoshop if I switched to the Lightroom CC plan - although I don't actually use it for anything else.

Do you think this feature will be added soon as they have already added features like HDR merge and panorama?


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## Victoria Bampton (Apr 17, 2020)

Anyone who knows can't say, and anyone who does say doesn't really know. So I'm afraid that's one of those "wait and see" type questions. But welcome to the forum!


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 17, 2020)

Or to ask another question, why isn't there an option to sync collections of RAW files to the cloud in LR Classic? Surely it's up to the customer how they choose to use their included 20gb of storage? There is even the option in LR Mobile to download originals which seems pointless to me since only Smart Previews are synced. My iPad Pro screen is higher resolution than my 13" MBP so this all seems a bit daft.



Victoria Bampton said:


> Anyone who knows can't say, and anyone who does say doesn't really know. So I'm afraid that's one of those "wait and see" type questions. But welcome to the forum!


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## Victoria Bampton (Apr 17, 2020)

There's a cloud ecosystem which has desktop, mobile and web apps, and they all exchange originals quite happily, storing the photos in the cloud. Lightroom Classic isn't part of that cloud sync ecosystem. It's like a distant cousin that has some partial communication.

Classic's folder based filing is so different to the ecosystem cloud based filing that Adobe chose to avoid the inevitable conflicts that come from having both the local folder system and the cloud in charge of the files, by only allowing Classic to upload smart previews.

There are ways round it, by using the cloud apps to upload originals to the cloud, but they require a human to make decisions in the case of conflicts.


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 17, 2020)

The Lightroom Plan appeals to me for being able to pull my original images from the cloud to an iPad, but I don't think I could live with sharing images on Facebook without my personal watermark. Many non-professionals have their own website and photologo, and text based watermarks just look unprofessional. I'm surprised Adobe hasn't thought of this. Do you know of any software for Mac that will add a PNG watermark with transparency to a photo (PSD, PNG or TIFF)?


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 17, 2020)

Apparently there is a workaround:

https://blog.thomasfitzgeraldphotog...o-sync-full-res-images-from-lightroom-classic


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## Paul McFarlane (Apr 17, 2020)

Watermarks: Photoshop is the obvious one, but there are quite a number of free ones available that will run on a Mac (not tried any, I would use Photoshop!)

Workaround: yes, but you said you favor the Lightroom Plan. This would mean you lose the sync capability with Classic.


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 17, 2020)

You loose Photoshop with the Lightroom Plan.


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## clee01l (Apr 17, 2020)

scotthunter3 said:


> You loose Photoshop with the Lightroom Plan.



It depends upon the plan. I have a 1 TB plan that includes Photoshop, Classic and Cloudy. My master catalog is the Classic catalog stored locally. I import full sized images into my IPadPro and they work their way through the cloud to my master Classic catalog. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 17, 2020)

clee01l said:


> It depends upon the plan. I have a 1 TB plan that includes Photoshop, Classic and Cloudy. My master catalog is the Classic catalog stored locally. I import full sized images into my IPadPro and they work their way through the cloud to my master Classic catalog.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk



Yes it works fine if you import first to the iPad and the RAWs will make their way over to LR Classic, but say you did a HDR merge or panorama in LR Classic and want to have a copy of the DNG on your iPad. Well you can’t do that. For a landscape photographer like me the workflow is a bit limited. Neither of the £9.99 a month plans tick all the boxes for me. But maybe that’s Adobe’s business model.


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## Skeeter (Apr 17, 2020)

scotthunter3 said:


> I'm currently using Lightroom Classic on a  laptop and store my images locally. I have considered switching to Lightroom CC as I would like the ability to work on RAW images on my 12.9" iPad Pro instead of low-res Smart Previews. However, the only thing holding me back is the current inability to add a custom image-based watermark (my Photologo) so that I can share images on Facebook without resorting to a naff looking text based watermark. I have learned that I can add my logo with Photoshop for iPad but it's a bit of a faff compared to the export option with LR Classic. And I would no longer have Photoshop if I switched to the Lightroom CC plan - although I don't actually use it for anything else.
> 
> Do you think this feature will be added soon as they have already added features like HDR merge and panorama?


I use iWatermark+ on my iPhone with my photologo watermark, can't see why this will not work on iPad, using PhotoSync on my Mac and iPhone. upload photologo from iMac to phone and save in photo's(store it in Favorites) then open Watermark+ fine you photologo in favorites, done


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## Rob_Cullen (Apr 18, 2020)

scotthunter3 said:


> say you did a HDR merge or panorama in LR Classic and want to have a copy of the DNG on your iPad. Well you can’t do that. For a landscape photographer like me the workflow is a bit limited. Neither of the £9.99 a month plans tick all the boxes for me. But maybe that’s Adobe’s business model.


Well you can’t do that. ?
Well I seem to be able!  (Someone might prove me wrong)
Currently I have both Lightroom-Classic and Lightroom running on my Windows desktop machine.
1) I select a Pano DNG in the Classic Library
2) [Right-Click] and Show in Explorer
3) Drag the File onto Lightroom where it 'imports' to the Cloud
and in Lightroom I see-


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 18, 2020)

I-See-Light said:


> Well you can’t do that. ?
> Well I seem to be able!  (Someone might prove me wrong)
> Currently I have both Lightroom-Classic and Lightroom running on my Windows desktop machine.
> 1) I select a Pano DNG in the Classic Library
> ...



I was referring to a Lightroom Classic + Lightroom Mobile only solution.  Given that I really want to work on RAW files on my iPad Pro, it seems as though the only way forward is to wave goodbye to Lightroom Classic and go down the Lightroom CC route with the 1tb of storage, as 20gb won't get me very far. I could upgrade my plan for £5 a month extra and have  Lightroom Classic and Photoshop as well, but I did some experimenting with Affinity for iPad, which seems like a great app, and it looks like I can add my watermark on there easily enough without having to pay Adobe extra money each month on my subscription for a basic feature that should be included with CC.

Do people use Classic and CC together? Can you set the local storage folders on CC to be the same as the file structure used by Classic without causing duplication? I experimented with using both but Classic started importing images I had imported into CC into the Mobile folder, causing duplicates. Perhaps this is the way it's supposed to work, using CC to  import images in the first place to keep all originals in the cloud and use Classic as the local backup, but I think would have to move my entire Classic catalogue across to CC and start afresh.


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## clee01l (Apr 19, 2020)

scotthunter3 said:


> Do people use Classic and CC together? Can you set the local storage folders on CC to be the same as the file structure used by Classic without causing duplication?


I use both.  I don't have all of my Classic inventory in the cloud just ~7000  Mostly Proxy files that don't count against a 20GB limit.  But since I import NEFs through my iPadPro, I do need more than 20GB of storage in the cloud as these full size NEFs work their way into the Classic catalog and get stored locally as well as in the cloud.   I have the $20/mo. Plan that includes 1TB plus Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and Photoshop.  I don't think Adobe was intending to have Classic and the cloud working together, but I and several other do have a workflow that gives mt the best of both worlds.

My master images are stored in Classic with some duplication in the cloud. I do not store Lightroom (cloudy) images locally on the desktop, only in the cloud and masters inported into Classic 

FWIW, there is no longer a product called Lightroom CC, just Simply Lightroom (for the cloud) and Lightroom Classic (the successor to Lightroom perpetual).


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 21, 2020)

So I decided to go down the Lightroom / Cloud only route and use Affinity for adding watermarks when I need to.

Can you tell me, if I choose to store images locally on my Macbook Pro in Lightroom, will it organise the files into a organised folder structure by date, or into one file? If you decide to turn on the local backup option AFTER you have already migrated your catalog from Classic, will this backup all the images already in the cloud or only new images you import? Also, by choosing to store a local backup will this speed up the performance of Lightroom when viewing and editing photos, i.e. will Lightroom read from my internal SSD instead of from the cloud?

Many thanks.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 21, 2020)

You really need to stop thinking in terms of the store locally option as being a "backup"....it isn't that at all (delete an image accidentally from the cloud and that local copy is also deleted more or less immediately).

But answering your other questions, using the option will store a copy of all cloud images, not just new images. It also stores them in a date-based folder structure (yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd) which cannot be changed by the user.

Its primary purpose is to enable the user to work offline, but there should also be a small performance benefit (as it will use the local copy when an original is needed), especially if you don't use the "Store a copy of all Smart Previews Locally" option.


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 21, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> You really need to stop thinking in terms of the store locally option as being a "backup"....it isn't that at all (delete an image accidentally from the cloud and that local copy is also deleted more or less immediately).
> 
> But answering your other questions, using the option will store a copy of all cloud images, not just new images. It also stores them in a date-based folder structure (yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd) which cannot be changed by the user.
> 
> Its primary purpose is to enable the user to work offline, but there should also be a small performance benefit (as it will use the local copy when an original is needed), especially if you don't use the "Store a copy of all Smart Previews Locally" option.



Thanks for your prompt reply. I assume I can periodically do a manual backup of the store locally folder - which is in sync with the cloud -  onto an external HD? And yes, I would like to be able to work off local files when rendering panoramas and working with high resolution images so I can take advantage of the speed of my internal SSD, so that's good.

Also, what is the purpose of the "store a copy of all smart previews locally on Macintosh HD" option? I thought new Lightroom did away with Smart Previews, or am I mistaken?


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 21, 2020)

scotthunter3 said:


> Also, what is the purpose of the "store a copy of all smart previews locally on Macintosh HD" option? I thought new Lightroom did away with Smart Previews, or am I mistaken?


Yes, Lightroom can make extensive use of smart previews. They're especially useful on mobile devices, as for most uses they are an acceptable substitute for the originals, and of course have the major benefit of being an awful lot smaller. I have all my cloud-based files (which are all originals) stored locally in smart preview format on all my iDevices, so it's great to be able to whip out the phone to bore some friends with a picture or two without worrying about data allowances or downloading delays. 

But not just mobile devices, you can do the same on a desktop (I have that option checked, but I have the store originals option unchecked as I also use Classic which is where my "proper" backups are done). The only "issue" with only having smart previews available when offline is that you can't export at full resolution (the smart previews are restricted to 2560px on the long edge).


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 21, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> Yes, Lightroom can make extensive use of smart previews. They're especially useful on mobile devices, as for most uses they are an acceptable substitute for the originals, and of course have the major benefit of being an awful lot smaller. I have all my cloud-based files (which are all originals) stored locally in smart preview format on all my iDevices, so it's great to be able to whip out the phone to bore some friends with a picture or two without worrying about data allowances or downloading delays.
> 
> But not just mobile devices, you can do the same on a desktop (I have that option checked, but I have the store originals option unchecked as I also use Classic which is where my "proper" backups are done). The only "issue" with only having smart previews available when offline is that you can't export at full resolution (the smart previews are restricted to 2560px on the long edge).



Thanks for the information. Although I don’t entirely agree on your thoughts on Smart Previews on mobile devices. I didn’t buy a iPhone 11 Pro with 458 PPI OLED Super Retina XDR screen and 12.9” iPad Pro with IPS P3 LCD screen to view low-res previews of my 24px RAW files. In fact, my iPad Pro display has the same size but a slightly higher pixel density than my 2018 MacBook Pro screen.

When viewing my photos on my mobile devices I take pleasure in zooming in to 1:1 and looking at sharp, detailed, in focus, high resolution
images even if they take a bit longer to load than a smart preview.


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## clee01l (Apr 21, 2020)

scotthunter3 said:


> Thanks for your prompt reply. I assume I can periodically do a manual backup of the store locally folder - which is in sync with the cloud - onto an external HD?


You should be using Time Machine to backup ALL of your critical user data not just your image files.  Once set up TimMachine will keep updated version of everything that you choose to back up.  With TimeMachine or some similar system backup app, you can recover and data from ane point in time.  If you accidentally delete a critical document or image or accidentally write over a crucial document, you can recover from the time when the correct file was present.


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 21, 2020)

scotthunter3 said:


> Thanks for the information. Although I don’t entirely agree on your thoughts on Smart Previews on mobile devices. I didn’t buy a iPhone 11 Pro with 458 PPI OLED Super Retina XDR screen and 12.9” iPad Pro with IPS P3 LCD screen to view low-res previews of my 24px RAW files. In fact, my iPad Pro display has the same size but a slightly higher pixel density than my 2018 MacBook Pro screen.
> 
> When viewing my photos on my mobile devices I take pleasure in zooming in to 1:1 and looking at sharp, detailed, in focus, high resolution
> images even if they take a bit longer to load than a smart preview.


Of course having the original on the devices would be "better" than the smart preview in some cases, but there's an element of pragmatism involved as well. None of my mobile devices have sufficient capacity to store my complete cloud library in original form, and while I might see a 1TB Ipad Pro coming my way in the future, there isn't yet a 1TB iPhone as far as I know. So some compromises have to be made, and for my personal use I think that smart previews are a useful compromise for most occasions, and if I find that I absolutely need a true 1:1 view I'll just download the original. But most of the time I'm OK with just the SPs. YMMV.


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## scotthunter3 (Apr 21, 2020)

It depends on how good your home internet connection is and whether you want to flick through your images casually or critically examine them. But certainly on the 12.9" iPad Pro the difference in quality between low resolution JPEG and RAW  in full screen view is very apparent. Downloading a RAW file from the cloud on a mobile device only takes a few seconds, and usually it downloads some or all of the image depending on zoom level. I haven't experienced Lightroom CC properly yet, but with iCloud Photo Library this is how it works. I'm not entirely sure whether the initial view is a smart preview or if it's downloading the original file in stages depending on how closely you want to look at it. You could of course have a separate album stored on the internal device storage for high resolution JPEG exports of your favourite images, which will obviously only take up a fraction of the space of your entire RAW library.


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