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joejukes
Known Participant
February 11, 2023
Answered

LR plus LRC workflow.

  • February 11, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 976 views

Hello. 

I know there are plenty of posts on this subject, but I'm having a little trouble understanding the mechanics of it all, and how not to get everything messed up if I make the change. 

Currently, I ingest into lrc, and make albums to sync with Lr so I can edit on my iPad, whilst also keeping the ability to edit in LRC if I wish. 

However, I want the ability to use eitherPS or some other app, AP for example, on the iPad. At the moment it will only send smart previews and the edits don't sync to the raw (obviously). 

The solution it seems is to keep the raws in LR. 

How do I exactly go about that?

 

I'm a professional, and I come back from shoots with upwards of 1000's of images sometimes. 
How do other people manage this workflow?H

how does it work regarding LrC if I import via raws LR on the web/iPad? How do you cull before hand? 

Thanks. 

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jao vdL

Thanks for the write up, but I really cant see how it works. Firstly, it tells me that it wont upload a duplicate. As far as I can tell, there is only the smart preview in the cloud. This obviously has the same name. It's failed at the first hurdle and I can see this will not be a viable method for me. 

 

What a mess. All I want is the ability to use 'edit in' from lightroom on the iPad, without using a smart preveiew as that makes the process of finer detail editng in a different application pointless.

 

I guess the only truly reliable option is to ingest using LR and not classic. Of course, thats a ridiculous prospect uploading and downloading 1000's of full RAWs a week just to have this feature.

 

I don't understand Adobe at this point. EVERY other pro photographer I know uses Classic, obviously, yet the only pro feature one really wants in the cloud is RAW support, coupled with the highly useful Smart Previews.

 

It doesn't make sense, and as you pointed out its unlikely to every change. Tearing my hair out as editing on the ipad is a real pleasure.

 

Thanks for your help all the same.


Yeah this is very flaky and not scalable. I would really love my iPad to be more of a companion to Classic too which is why I wrote the thread I linked many years ago. The upload only in Lightroom Cloudy thing is not scalable to 1000's of images indeed. My workaround with the seperate upload through cloudy works for me but I know it is not reliable. Only thing you can do is probably to add your voice and vote to the thread I linked. Really a pity that Adobe ignores the needs of more pro (at least in volume) photographers that want a companion to Classic and not to Cloudy.

2 replies

Conrad_C
Community Expert
Conrad_CCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 11, 2023
quote

However, I want the ability to use eitherPS or some other app, AP for example, on the iPad. At the moment it will only send smart previews and the edits don't sync to the raw (obviously). 

By @joejukes

 

If you use Lightroom on iPad to edit a Smart Preview synced up from Lightroom Classic, the edits done to the Smart Preview on the iPad do sync back to the original in Lightroom Classic. It’s part of the reason Smart Previews was invented. You should be able to edit a photo either in Lightroom Classic or from any of the Lightroom cloud clients (desktop, tablet, phone, web browser) and those edits sync up to the cloud and back down to all clients. If that isn’t happening, you should ask for help troubleshooting that.

 

quote

The solution it seems is to keep the raws in LR. 
…how does it work regarding LrC if I import via raws LR on the web/iPad? How do you cull before hand?

By @joejukes

 

If you were to keep all originals in Lightroom instead of Lightroom Classic, you would need enough Internet upload speed and upload time to copy all originals up to the Lightroom Photos cloud server, and you would also need to pay for enough storage so that you don’t run out of space in the cloud.

 

If by “cull beforehand” you mean during the import process on an iPad, Lightroom on iPad does not offer the same import screen as in Lightroom Classic or Lightroom on macOS/Windows. What you see when selecting images to import on iPad is the standard iOS file picker, which shows small thumbnail icons where you basically can’t see any detail.

 

That does not mean you can’t cull. On an iPad, one option is to find some other photo file browser software that shows better previews. But that might not be necessary if you have studied the built-in iOS Files app and realize that it is a pretty good image browser in itself.

 

For example, if you want to pre-select images before importing, you can use the iOS QuickLook feature to see full-screen previews that you can magnify. In the Files app on iPad, open a folder of photos/videos, even on a connected card reader or camera, and while viewing the source in the Files app, tap an image and it should open into a large preview window. You can swipe to view other images in the folder. You can use the iOS Tags feature to mark files you want to import, but I think you have to exit QuickLook (click Done) to apply tags.

 

When you open Lightroom on iPad, and begin to import from the Files app, you can see the colored tag dots in the import file picker, and you can sort by tags so that you can select all tagged files in one swipe.

 

Note that the full screen QuickLook previews also work in the iOS file picker that pops up during Lightroom import, but instead of tapping (which selects to import), you need to tap and hold until the context menu pops up, then tap QuickLook. So this is the second option: Cull in the import file picker, using QuickLook to see larger, zoomable previews.

But…

 

If you don’t like the idea that it will take a lot of upload time and probably a higher subscription storage fee to manage very large shoots from the Lightroom cloud server, then forget about the above, and instead stick with Lightroom Classic. Make each shoot a collection so that all of the images in it can be synced to the cloud in one click, edit their Smart Previews from Lightroom on iPad/web all you want, and those edits will sync back down to the Lightroom Classic, applied to the originals on your own local storage.

J
joejukesAuthor
Known Participant
February 12, 2023
quote
quote

However, I want the ability to use eitherPS or some other app, AP for example, on the iPad. At the moment it will only send smart previews and the edits don't sync to the raw (obviously). 

By @joejukes

 

If you use Lightroom on iPad to edit a Smart Preview synced up from Lightroom Classic, the edits done to the Smart Preview on the iPad do sync back to the original in Lightroom Classic. It’s part of the reason Smart Previews was invented. You should be able to edit a photo either in Lightroom Classic or from any of the Lightroom cloud clients (desktop, tablet, phone, web browser) and those edits sync up to the cloud and back down to all clients. If that isn’t happening, you should ask for help troubleshooting that.

 


By @Conrad_C

Yes that works, but thats not what I asked. I suggested that further edits done on the iPad using Photoshop or Affinity Photo are not synced back to the origianl RAW, instead resulting in a synced back reduced sized image. My problem is not that I'm having trouble using LR and LRC in the smart preview sense, rather I want a reliable workflow where I can edit the full raw in an external app on the iPad, and have all that synced on LR iPad/Cloud/LRC. If the Smart Preview was able to be eded in an external app and then those edits synced back to the cloud then it would solve this issue. That definitely wont work when using Affinity Photo as the 3rd party client. Does this work if using PS on the iPad and 'edit in..' from LR? **EDIT: no it doesnt work, I end up with a reduced size PSD duplicate, based on the smart preview not on the RAW.

 

I dont care about upload bandwith - I have enough. And this is for my work, so an extra outlay per month to facilitate the situation isnt an issue at all. And thanks for the Files culling suggestion. Thats actually the way I do it when I have previously culled using the iPad.

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 11, 2023

If you import into the iPad or into LR Cloudy on your Desktop, the images will also get downloaded into Classic automatically. It downloads to the location set in your Classic preferences. I set that to be the exact same dated folder structure as direct import into Classic. This works well if all you take is an iPad for example (and your iPad has enough temporary storage capability). This is also a great solution if you are dealing with not too many images. Culling you would do in the import panel by only selecting those for import you actually want. importing and culling is not as efficient as doing it just in Classic so if you are dealing with 1000's of images this is not an effective workflow.

 

It is possible to first import everything into Classic, sync what you want to sync to the cloud (getting you smart previews there) and then import just the images you want in full raw into Lightroom Cloudy uploading them to the cloud. This is supposed to link those raw files with the already uploaded smart previews but unfortunately is not super reliable and often you get duplicates. It is something to try though as YMMV as they say. I've succesfully used this to get full raws in the cloud for images that were first uploaded as just smart previews.

J
joejukesAuthor
Known Participant
February 12, 2023
quote

If you import into the iPad or into LR Cloudy on your Desktop, the images will also get downloaded into Classic automatically. It downloads to the location set in your Classic preferences. I set that to be the exact same dated folder structure as direct import into Classic. This works well if all you take is an iPad for example (and your iPad has enough temporary storage capability). This is also a great solution if you are dealing with not too many images. Culling you would do in the import panel by only selecting those for import you actually want. importing and culling is not as efficient as doing it just in Classic so if you are dealing with 1000's of images this is not an effective workflow.

 

It is possible to first import everything into Classic, sync what you want to sync to the cloud (getting you smart previews there) and then import just the images you want in full raw into Lightroom Cloudy uploading them to the cloud. This is supposed to link those raw files with the already uploaded smart previews but unfortunately is not super reliable and often you get duplicates. It is something to try though as YMMV as they say. I've succesfully used this to get full raws in the cloud for images that were first uploaded as just smart previews.


By @Jao vdL

Thanks for the reply. Clunky solution then, really.

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 12, 2023

Yes very clunky but it does work. The problem is that adobe has decided years ago it woukdn't further add syncing features to classic and that they wouldn't support a mixed workflow. Very unfortunate and imo a very wrong decision as you can see here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-should-be-able-to-sync-full-raw-files-to-the-cloud-not-just-smart-previews/idi-p/12248616 something I wrote as a feature request 6 years ago

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