P: Ability to sync Lightroom Classic keywords with the Lightroom Ecosystem

If I were a photographer that makes money off his photos then I would have sent an invoice for the time wasted on keywording in LR CC!

My Syncomatic plugin could recover some of that wasted time. Using LRCC, they could export copies of the images they were misled into keywording in Mobile or LRCC, then use the plugin in Lightroom "Classic" to sync the keywords from these temporary copies to the originals.

I sincerely wish I didn't have to suggest this workaround, and wish Adobe had put effort into implementing a proper mobile keywording solution.

> you can enter keywords for smart previews in LR CC. LR CC knows these are originating from Lightroom Classic! 

That would certainly be a good way of distinguishing them, although I imagine some people would still try to add keywords to originals added directly to the mobile apps and wonder why the keywords aren't appearing in Classic.

I think some things they have done are indefensible. Like the impression that you can enter keywords for smart previews in LR CC. LR CC knows these are originating from Lightroom Classic! If I were a photographer that makes money off his photos then I would have sent an invoice for the time wasted on keywording in LR CC!

For me - and many others - the cloud is only a supplement to the desktop version and there simply isn’t a way to make the cloud version viable, not today, not ever. I am often photographing in remote areas where I will not even have cell phone reception - and even if I had then having to manage battery charges due to the large draw of a mobile data connection would prohibit the use of the cloud anyway!

Somehow I think the “cloud is everything” developers seem to sit on high bandwidth backbone connections. Maybe Adobe should send their LR CC developers to the suburbs of smaller towns where there are more realistic bandwidth or even make them use mobile Edge connections (because they are commonly encountered as soon as you leave the urban environment) to see how well their apps scale...

Ah thanks Karl, I didn't spot that you weren't Lewis!

I do agree that Adobe's communication on the lack of keyword sync with Classic has left a lot to be desired, and I think we'll see more of these issues crop up as the gap starts to widen, with more features being added to the mobile apps without being synced back to Classic.

In Adobe's mind, the LRCC mobile apps are intended to sync with the LRCC desktop apps from this time on. They didn't remove the existing sync functionality from Classic, but they didn't add new keyword sync functionality to Classic either. They are trying to separate the two different mindsets (desktop based vs cloud sync), because trying to shoehorn cloud sync into a desktop-focused app just doesn't work well. I'm not going to comment on the rights or wrongs of those decisions, but that's what they're thinking.

I was answering your question more genericly, I myself didn’t spent as much time on keywords in LR on my mobile device in the end (unlike the guy you responded to). Still I was pissed that I have spent time on a lost cause, LR CC has a bug if it even allows keyword entry for images where it knows not to sync them back!

I do use a combination of hierarchical and non hierarchical keywords, so even to have those non hierarchical ones sync back would have been helpful for me. But it’s a major bug to even give the impression that you can keyword for smart previews originating from LR Classic. I am a software developer myself and if I were to be given the task to implement a feature like that then I would have to make it work for all input data or at the very least prevent it’s use when it’s not feasible to work.

And the sorry excuse of “LR CC users don’t understand hierarchical keywords” doesn’t work, if LR CC is ever to get to replace LR Classic then it must provide these as well!

Thanks Karl. I'm well aware that it doesn't have most of the features - I was looking to understand your priorities and workflow, because you obviously like the idea of cloud computing. 

The mobile CC app doesn't have hierarchical keywords either, but that was ok for your hours of keywording? How did you end up working around that one?

Really? You need to ask? Lightroom CC has almost none of the functionality needed to replace Lightroom Classic and it mandates use of the cloud for the RAW images, something that is impossible for most because of bandwidth constraints - I have the fastest internet connection available in the street where I live, to upload a single RAW image takes minutes (and they aren’t that big). My mobile plan is expensive and is capped at 200 MB/month - any mobile use of original RAW images is out of the question.

But for those asking here the killer of the new dumbed down Lightroom CC would be the lack of hierarchical keywords!

Let me ask a question Lewis... what features is Lightroom CC desktop that you'd need before you could move over from Lightroom Classic?

I have wasted many hours keywording images on Lightroom CC, only to find that they haven't synced back to Lightroom Classic CC. I was excited about Lightroom CC, as I thought it would be really useful for when I'm out on the road I would be able to do all my processing on my laptop, then sync everything back to my main editing machine when I got home. It sort of half works, which is disappointing.

And therein lies the problem: A flaw by design is just as bad as any flaw!