How do I edit a photo in LR Cloud (Desktop) with LR Classic and stay sync'ed?

So, I have a large set of photos in the Cloud - coming from Mac uploads, Android phone, iPAD iOS, and web.

 

So to be able to edit those Cloud photos easily with LR Classic on the home computer, can I create a new LR Classic catalog on the home computer, and "Sync" that with the LR Classic Cloud option to "start sync'ing".  And let it run a while.

 

I ideally then, if I had a photo in the Cloud, sync'ed to the home computer, I could edit that with LR Classic locally -- ie the crop settings stated as needed here -- and it would sync back to the cloud once edit'ed and saved.

From peter_obermeier_5n1m1dvgiycd0

 

Hi Bill,

yes, that is exactly what I have done. And a minute ago I have tested the custom crop factor in LR Classic and it synced back to LR Mobile.

Please be aware that the first sync is taking several days when you have many pictures. 

You will see the pictures first, then the albums. And be aware that LR Mobile folders are not synced. The albums are becoming Collections in Classic.

From MattDillonPhotography .. 

 

He had two long posts -- good reading...

--  Post 1 of 2

--  Post 2 of 2

 

The Steps:

 

•On LR Classic (on main computer) I make sure the ones I want to edit are synced. Usually not even a step I need to take any action on because I've already done this, but it never hurts to make sure.

 

•I then copy the actual files from the main PC. I drag and drop them into LR Desktop on my laptop and the import dialogue pops up. If the originals are there already LR will quickly realize they are duplicates and not import those (grayed out), if not LR will link them to the synced Smart Previews and you should see that soon after you hit the import button.

 

•Click "Import" button.

One more from MattDillonPhotography

 

From what I read, Bill, it looks like you're talking about running two catalogs. Keep in mind you can only sync to the cloud from one LR Classic catalog at a time, even though you can have as many Classic catalogs as you want. If you've synced from any other catalogs you will get messages nagging at you about this and grinding sync to a halt. (Real fun trying to get that working again if you need to go to a backup catalog.) You will have to *turn off* sync each time you change catalogs to your "offline" Classic catalog to get around this problem. Ideally you should turn off sync before you even open the main catalog. Other than that, yeah, sounds like you got it. 

 

Unless you really need them separate, I do not recommend running two catalogs for this because of the incredible ease for sync issue headaches. I'm getting one just thinking about it. They have caused me many problems and I don't see Adobe having addressed them. It wouldn't be hard to keep Mobile cloud synced and Classic imported photos separated into two parent folders or parent drives along with parent Collection Sets in LR Classic. They are stupid easy to move around inside LR Classic. IMO, that is something that was done pretty well, even if it is sometimes a bit slow to move large chunks of photos.

Well...    slow start.    I got a new drive to play with... keep things "clean".

 

I thought I could go into LR Classic or LR Desktop and say "sync everything in the cloud" down to this local (new) LR Classic catalog...  new disk.

 

No.   Everything is based on an existing LR Classic catalog..  from which I can sync to the Cloud.   But I now have 800GB and 30,000 files in the Cloud, and I need to reverse engineer this.

 

In LR Desktop (Cloud), there is an option for copying everything down to local in original format, but I doubt that's what I really want.

 

 

I thought I could go into LR Classic or LR Desktop and say "sync everything in the cloud" down to this local (new) LR Classic catalog...  new disk.

 

Yes, you can do that. Open the new catalog then enable sync for that new LrC catalog (click on the cloud icon top right and start syncing). Classic will tell you that you're already syncing a different catalog, but gives you the option to switch sync to the new catalog (only one Classic catalog can be the "sync catalog" at a time). Once you proceed with the switch to the new catalog, all the images in the cloud will download into the new catalog, so before you start that make sure you change the download location in the new catalog (Lightroom Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab) to specify the new drive (and probably select one of the date-based folder systems).

 

Before you do any of that, it might be a good idea to understand what problem you are trying to solve? Also, are all those 30k images in the cloud originals or smart previews? From the amount of space they are using they're probably originals, but best to make sure as downloading smart previews into a new catalog will result in "missing images" in that new catalog, though of course the smart preview will still be downloaded.

Your last point first: Select the Filter Bar>Sync Status>Synced from Lightroom Classic, this will show you all images synced up from Classic, i.e. those which exist in the Cloud as Smart Previews only. If the "Synced from Lightroom Classic" entry does not appear in the Sync Status list, that means all files in the Cloud are in original form.

 

If your goal is to migrate back to Classic from the Cloud, there are 3 ways of doing that:

 

1. Create a new empty catalog in Classic and set it syncing as discussed earlier. All images will download into Classic (into date-based folders if you set that up before starting). Existing Albums in Lightroom will appear as Collections in Classic, but Folders in Lightroom (equivalent to Collection Sets in Classic) do NOT sync, therefore would have to be created manually in Classic after the download is complete. Also note that any keywords, location data, and face recognition data entered in Lightroom will not sync down into Classic. Edits and other metadata will sync.

 

2. Use the Adobe Downloader (in reality this is intended as a "lifeboat" for those users exiting the subscription, but can be used in this scenario). Again, all images will be downloaded into date-based folders, but this time no album/collections are downloaded. Keywords should download (though I've had inconsistent results when testing the Downloader in the past), so one approach would be to add a specific keyword to the images in each album in Lightroom before running the Downloader, then use those to recreate the collections in Classic ((after importing all the downloaded images into a new Classic catalog).

 

3. Export all images from Lightroom to the local hard drive, then import them into a new empty Classic catalog. Again, most data is retained apart from the album/collection membership, so it would need the same keyword workaround.

Sync'ing done.   

 

The Cloud files are all sync'ed back to a home LR Classic catalog

 

The Album names came over, but as specified earlier, the context setting folder names did not.    All of my Album names are now self-defining abbreviations -- essentially over-loaded keywords in the name.

 

The base came over sorted by year, month-date.   Which is fine.

 

I can edit a file in LR Classic, for example with the custom crop settings, and it's sync'ed back to LR Cloud.  

 

Deleting photos in the LR Cloud Desktop sync's on the collection level, but the files are not actually deleted out of the LR Classic base. 

 

But deleting from LR Classic, deleted locally and in Cloud. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deleting photos in the LR Cloud Desktop sync's on the collection level, but the files are not actually deleted out of the LR Classic base. 

 

But deleting from LR Classic, deleted locally and in Cloud. 

 

Well yes, that's the way it is intended to work. Deleting a synced image using one of the Cloud apps simply causes it to become "unsynced" in Classic, i.e. it's removed from the All Synced Photographs special collection, and thus also from any synced collection that it may have been in.

Deleting a synced image from Classic, however, will cause it to be deleted from the cloud also...that's because a synced Classic catalog receives ALL images from the cloud (as you have just done), so removing a synced image from Classic must cause the image to be deleted from the cloud, else the cloud would otherwise immediately replace the image again in Classic.