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Participant
December 18, 2022
Question

should i store video on lightroom classic?

  • December 18, 2022
  • 5 replies
  • 1587 views

Hello, i am a beginner on Lightroom Classic, but i was wondering should i consider storing video separately ? 

5 replies

Conrad_C
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 18, 2022

I’ve organized video in Lightroom Classic for many years. I like having both stills and video of the same subject in one place when gathering them to edit as a single story. But I don’t do anything else with the video in Lightroom Classic; I don’t edit them there in any way.

 

It’s easy to get the video to other applications. In Lightroom Classic on the Mac, the Grid view (and Filmstrip) is a valid macOS drag source, so when I want to edit the video, I select the best clips in Grid view, drag them out of Lightroom Classic, and drop them into the video editing application. If it wasn’t that easy to get video clips out of Lightroom Classic to editing applications, I’d probably be using something else to organize the video.

 

Lightroom Classic has many limitations with video. You won’t see all of the metadata or file info that a pro video application will show, and some things like the capture date don’t always work correctly. But as a simple organizer and previewer, it’s OK, especially if stills are your main thing.

 

But if video is more important than stills in your work, you may want to compare the video organization and metadata features of Lightroom Classic with pure file browsers that support video, such as Adobe Bridge or NeoFinder, or more specialized video organizers (not sure what’s out there).

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
December 18, 2022

In addition to the excellent answers provided, keep in mind you are not 'storing" video's in Lightroom Classic. The video's are referenced in a catalog that indexes where on your drive(s) they exist. Just as in a Library of books, there are card catalogs that point to where you'd go to find a book; the book isn't in that card catalog. You can edit your videos anywhere, LR simply points to where they reside, making it a nice tool to keep track of them. They like everything, is 'stored separately'. 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
johnrellis
Legend
December 18, 2022

Lots of people catalog their videos in LR. But beware that it can sometimes be flaky, with LR refusing to import videos or to play them (or play them smoothly).  Adobe doesn't provide much useful support for video.  Most people most of the time don't have problems, but as you can see from reports here in the forums, if you do encounter problems, Adobe's not going to be much help, and there are just voodoo remedies suggested here (that sometime work).

Jill_C
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 18, 2022

I like having everything that comes off of my cameras cataloged in LRC. You can add keywords just like with any other asset, making them easy to locate. I also make slideshows within LRC that include both stills and videos, so it's useful to have both in LRC.

Jill C., Forum Volunteer
Rob_Cullen
Community Expert
Community Expert
December 18, 2022

You can index your videos in the LrC Catalog, but editing ability is very limited.

I haven't tried, but thinking you could set up a Post Processing option in an Export Preset to 'open' a video in your Video Editor App.

 

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .