Using LR on my iPad Pro with LrC on my Mac
I am working on a blog about a workflow that I imagine will be useful for people taking photos in the field (or on the field) but I wanted to check to see that I've got some of the assumptions - and definitions - correct. So I would appreciate your input. Not sure if it would be better to post this in the LR community but thought I would post here, first.
The Premise
With Lightroom Mobile, my new iPad Pro is now the front end of my digital photography workflow, particularly when I’m not in the studio. And with Lightroom Classic, I can keep my established desktop editing and asset management just the same as it always was.
Here's how it looks:
First, Nomenclature:
LrC is Lightroom Classic which is the older Mac and PC version of Lightroom that stores pictures locally using the respective OS file systems of Mac and PC.
Lightroom and Lightroom CC are the Cloud versions. Right?
What is the Mac version of LR called? Is this called "Lightroom Desktop"?
What is the web version of LR called? (The one that is accessed through https://lightroom.adobe.com/ )
What are the iOS and Android versions called? Are they referred to collectively as "Lightroom Mobile"?
Here are some of the key functions of the workflow that I wanted to check with people:
Automatically Download Photos to your Mac/PC
In Lightroom Classic (LrC) on your Mac or PC, go to Preferences > Lightroom Sync > Location and select both “Specify location for Lightroom’s Synced images” and, if you are using this for your manual imports, “Use subfolders formatted by capture date”. If you have been using LrC for years like me, this is the default for importing photos into Lightroom. It ensures that any new photos that you add on Lightroom Mobile on your iPhone or iPad - including the original photos that you upload to your iPad directly from your digital camera - will be downloaded to those same subfolders on your Mac or PC. This is brilliant because you can use LR on multiple devices yet still have all of your photos stored locally as you, the LrC user, have always done.
Automatically Add Photos
To automatically add any photos to Lightroom that are taken on your device cameras (iPhone, iPad), in Lr Mobile go to Settings > Import > Auto Add From Camera Roll and select what you want to add: Photos, Screenshots, Videos, or all. In this way, a photo that you take on your iPhone will automatically appear in Lightroom on all of my devices. Sweet. This largely duplicates the function of Apple's Photos app via iCloud, but it gets those photos directly into your Lightroom workflow.
Saving Space
In Lightroom on each of your mobile devices, go to Settings > Cloud Storage and choose “Only Download Smart Previews.” This ensures that you will have lightweight but fully editable versions of photos stored locally on your mobile device, saving precious space. The originals are kept either in the Cloud (the default for LR) or optionally on the local hard drive of your computer (the default for LrC).
With these three settings, I have all I need to take photos with my digital cameras and my mobile devices, do quick edits, labeling and prioritizing directly on Lightroom on my iPad, share them immediately with other people and on social media, and continue to edit them on my 5K monitor when I get back to my desktop.
Cleaning Things Up
When LR iPad sends my camera’s photos to the Cloud, they are usually kept as Smart Previews on my iPad, in order to save space. That’s great. But even though the originals have been transferred over to my Mac at home, those same originals are also stored in the Cloud. That’s ok but they’re taking up a lot of space.
- To remove those originals from the Cloud: in Lightroom Classic, on the left side navigation panel go to Catalog > All Synced Photographs and delete them.
- To put SmartPreviews back into the Cloud - and view and edit your photos from all your other devices - you’ll have to use Collections on Lightroom Classic. Just click the ‘sync’ icon next to any Collection and it will sync across.
I hope this makes sense and look forward to comments, questions and corrections.
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