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fbx43
Known Participant
July 17, 2019
Answered

LR Classic & LR iPad—getting all photos in common?

  • July 17, 2019
  • 2 replies
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Dear Folk:

Am I mistaken in thinking that I can have all my photos in Lightroom Classic on my local machine AND backed up to the Web so that they can be used by LR Mobile on my iPad, with any changes made on the iPad, or new photos added on the iPad, also backed up to my local Lightroom Classic folders on my Mac, and any changes on my local LR Classic folders backed up to cloud for iPad use?

I am not particularly interested in using LR CC on the Mac, just on the iPad.

Or is the only way to do this a full on conversion from LR Classic to LR CC?

Any help with this problem much appreciated. And it it’s already covered in detail somewhere, just a link would do the trick.

Thanks much—

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer john beardsworth

fbx33  wrote

So how do I deep six the images in LR CC/Mobile on the iPad so I can thereafter upload the Smart Previews ONLY of the pix on my Mac in LR Classic? So that both collections are identical and remain that way thereafter.

In Lightroom Classic, go to Preferences / Lightroom Sync where there is a Delete All Data. This does what it suggests, zapping everything in the cloud. You can then sync as many images as you want from Lightroom Classic.

2 replies

Conrad_C
Community Expert
Conrad_CCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 18, 2019

It's not really practical to do.

fbx33  wrote

Am I mistaken in thinking that I can have all my photos in Lightroom Classic on my local machine AND backed up to the Web

They won't be backed up completely, because only Smart Previews sync from Classic to the Web.

fbx33  wrote

with any changes made on the iPad, or new photos added on the iPad, also backed up to my local Lightroom Classic folders on my Mac, and any changes on my local LR Classic folders backed up to cloud for iPad use?

Original images added through any cloud-based client (iPad, Lightroom Web, Lightroom desktop, phones) will sync down to Lightroom Classic, into the import folder you specified in Lightroom Sync preferences. But after that, only Smart Previews will sync back up. This is because Lightroom Classic uses your local drives as the primary storage area. If you want a full backup, you must back up your drives that contain the Lightroom catalog or original image files.

The other issue is that you said "backed up to my Lightroom Classic folders." You cannot sync folders to the cloud, only collections. If you want to sync a folder, you have to create a collection of it first. All other versions of Lightroom (which are all cloud-based) do not preserve folder organization, only collections (called "albums" in non-Classic versions). But if you edit a image synced to the iPad from Classic, those changes will sync all the way back to the original local file in its folder.

Because Lightroom Classic syncs collections but not folders, you can't automatically sync all folders to the cloud. If you want to sync every photo you have in Classic, all of them must be added to at least one collection.

To summarize:

Lightroom Classic uses your local drives and folders as primary storage, and a single catalog file as the point of connection to the cloud. The cloud is an end point or source, but not a central location. Backup of those local folders is your responsibility using your own backup drives.

Lightroom uses the cloud as primary storage. All Lightroom clients are only terminals to the cloud, except Classic which will download copies and keep them. The cloud primary storage is backed up by Adobe, so you don't have to.

fbx43
fbx43Author
Known Participant
July 18, 2019

Both answers are very helpful to me and explain clearly how to accomplish what I want to accomplish, i.e. to have access to all the same photos on my Mac using LR Classic and on my iPad Pro using LR CC/Mobile.

However, there is one additional problem:

I have all photos (28K+) on the Mac. On the iPad Pro there are 17K+ photos from a previous use of LR CC and/or from Apple Photos (which apparently pushes everything directly to LR CC/Mobile on the iPad Pro AND, if my eyes do not deceive, also to my Mac’s install of LR Classic).

Now, the 17K+ on the iPad Pro are essentially old duplicates with possibly different names etc.

What I want to do is DELETE all photos on iPad Pro in LR CC/Mobile, and THEN re-sync the Smart Previews from my current 27K+ pictures on the Mac to the blank/empty LR CC/Mobile.  I want the 27K+ photos available as full size on Mac and Smart Previews on iPad Pro.

When I tried this previously, I suddenly had all 17K+ of photos from the iPad Pro showing up in LR Classic IN ADDITION to the 27K+ photos on the Mac in LR Classic — suddenly I had about 50K+ pix showing in LR Classic AND taking up space on the 500 GB SSD hard drive of the MBPro 13”

So how do I deep six the images in LR CC/Mobile on the iPad so I can thereafter upload the Smart Previews ONLY of the pix on my Mac in LR Classic? So that both collections are identical and remain that way thereafter.

Many thanks for both replies about, very clear and instructive, and now if I can get over this last hump I won’t bother you again.

Cheers—

john beardsworth
Community Expert
john beardsworthCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
July 18, 2019

fbx33  wrote

So how do I deep six the images in LR CC/Mobile on the iPad so I can thereafter upload the Smart Previews ONLY of the pix on my Mac in LR Classic? So that both collections are identical and remain that way thereafter.

In Lightroom Classic, go to Preferences / Lightroom Sync where there is a Delete All Data. This does what it suggests, zapping everything in the cloud. You can then sync as many images as you want from Lightroom Classic.

DdeGannes
Community Expert
DdeGannesCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 17, 2019

Lightroom Classic does not sync your original files from your computer storage to the Creative Cloud. You have to create Collections in LR Classic and sync the collections to the cloud storage. Smart previews of the files will be created and uploaded and you will be able to access the previews with your mobile devices iPad, Tablet, iPhone or Smart Phone. Any edits or changes you make with any device will sync to the other devices. The mobile devices will have to sign on to your Creative Cloud account Using your user ID and Password.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/lightroom-mobile-desktop-features.html

Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.
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