Multiple storage locations

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@Richard___G wrote:

My preference would be for my Adobe iPad products to be able to load and save files to my Dropbox account.  So:

1. Is this posible?

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No. The only cloud service supported by all of the cloud-based (non-Classic) forms of Lightroom (desktop, phone, tablet, web app) is Lightroom Photos on Adobe Creative Cloud. Only Lightroom Classic can reference files on Dropbox, leaving the original photos in Dropbox.

On the iPad, you can import Dropbox images into Lightroom on iPad. In the Dropbox app for iPad, select images, tap Export, and select Lightroom. But that would not do what you want. In any of the cloud-based Lightroom apps including the one for iPad, importing images from any location outside of the Lightroom app, including Dropbox, always means uploading a copy of them to Lightroom Photos on Creative Cloud. That cloud store is what will be referenced by any of the cloud-based Lightroom apps. There is no way to make any cloud-based Lightroom app reference an image on the local file system. For the cloud-based Lightroom apps, Lightroom Photos in the cloud is the primary photo storage, so all references point there only.

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@Richard___G wrote:

2. Are the iPad versions of these Adobe products campatible with the same file formats as on my pc/dropbox files?

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I think the cloud-based Lightroom apps support the same camera and image formats as Lightroom Classic, but there might be some exceptions.

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@Richard___G wrote:

3. Would I risk damage to the LRC catalog in doing so?

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The question no longer applies since it isn’t possible for any cloud-based Lightroom app to reference files on Dropbox. They can only import and upload copies of the originals to Lightroom Photos on Creative Cloud, which is not what you want.

The only way to have access to the Dropbox-stored images from both the local (Lightroom Classic) and cloud-based (Lightroom) apps is to continue using the Lightroom Classic catalog to reference them from the Dropbox folder, and sync collections of those images up to Lightroom Photos, where all cloud Lightroom apps including the one on iPad can sync with them. One limitation of doing it this way is that the cloud Lightroom apps will have access to Smart Previews of those images, not the full resolution originals, because Lightroom Classic only uploads Smart Previews to Lightroom Photos.

(If this sounds complicated and confusing, that’s because it is. Lightroom Classic, designed for local storage, doesn’t integrate fully with the Lightroom system of apps, which are designed for cloud-only storage.)

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@Richard___G wrote:

Or do I have to store images edited on my iPad to Adobe's cloud or  Apple iCloud since they both can access my iCloud images?

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The Apple cloud won’t help with this. As with any other external source, the cloud-based Lightroom apps can only import copies of photos you feed it from Apple Photos or iCloud file storage (which are two different things).

1. Is this posible?  No. All Lightroom mobile apps store photos in the Adobe Cloud.

2. Lightroom apps are "compatible" with all image formats. (Only new camera file formats may take time to be made compatible by Adobe.)

3. No Damage.  When Lightroom-Classic is set to 'Sync' -it downloads all files from the Adobe Cloud to a 'Local' folder accessible to LrC.

4. As in 1. All Lightroom mobile apps store photos in the Adobe Cloud. (iCloud is only available to Apple Photos apps).

Apple iCloud is a totally independent system, with no compatibility with Lightroom Apps.

Lightroom-Classic MUST have 'Local' versions of photo files- Even if you want to also use Dropbox, One Drive, etc.