Access disk-based photo folders on Creative Cloud and across devices

[drshortcutify]

Hello community,

I have a Mac and a Creative Cloud subscription. I mainly use Lightroom Classic. I have about 15K photos saved on my Mac's hard disk in a number of folders organised by year and by trip/topic. On the one hand, I would like to back them up, and on the other, I would like to be able to access them across devices (with the same folder structure by year/trip/topic). Ideally, I would like to be able to edit them as well, across devices and apps. So I guess they should sync.

I am looking for the best way to do this. Is it to simply, on my Mac, to move all my photos from the "photos" folder to "Creative Cloud files"? I thought I should check first given that it is a rather dramatic move (15K photos that I care a lot about!) 

Thanks for your help! 

[JP Hess]

There are two approaches you can take to accomplish this. One approach would be to migrate your entire catalog to Lightroom for the cloud. This would copy all of your images to the cloud and would essentially make Lightroom for the cloud your primary program that would be in control. You would do your importing using that version of Lightroom. Any time you import the images would then be immediately available on any device on which you have Lightroom installed and are logged in with the same Adobe ID.

The other approach would be to continue using Lightroom Classic and NOT migrate your catalog, but create collections of images that you want in the cloud. Then you would choose which of those collections would be shared. The collections that are shared would not send full-sized images to the cloud but would be smart previews. These previews would be large enough to be edited, and could be edited on any device on which Lightroom is installed. Any adjustments made on any device would be applied to the master image on the main computer, and any adjustment made on the main computer would be applied to the smart previews on other devices. The smart previews do not impact allotted cloud storage space. One disadvantage of working with smart previews is that they cannot be sent to Photoshop. Photoshop editing requires master images.

Both methods that I have described have their advantages and their disadvantages. You will have to decide which one best suits your needs and make your choice accordingly. One thing to point out is that it is not recommended that you try to use Lightroom Classic and Lightroom for the cloud on the same computer. While it can be done, it simply is not a recommended workflow.

[Conrad C]

One major factor is whether you would like to retain local control over your images using a folder-based system.

• If you migrate all your photos into the Lightroom (cloud) desktop app, it will upload all 15,000 so that the Lightroom Photos server will become the master copy of your photos. Any device you own will contain only a local cache of the cloud-based images you are editing. Migrating images to Lightroom (cloud) will completely disconnect them from your current local photos and Lightroom Classic catalog. Because of that disconnection, Lightroom Photos in the cloud will never update to match changes you make to images locally on your desktop or in Lightroom Classic. While Lightroom has something in the UI called “folders,” those are really the Lightroom equivalent of the Collections in Lightroom Classic, just a virtual organizational tool not connected to any file system.
• While it is possible to do a single bulk download of all original images you have uploaded to Lightroom Photos in the cloud, I believe they come back using a default date-based folder organization. Whatever folder organization the images had before being uploaded is lost.
• If you stick with Lightroom Classic and sync specific collections to Lightroom Photos, your local folder organization will continue to the the master storage for your originals, with all of those files under your control and your responsibility to back up. But as JimHess said, Lightroom Classic only syncs Smart Previews.

Moving all the images to Creative Cloud files will only do one thing: Make it possible for other devices to open the photos from Creative Cloud Files. That works fine for desktop apps, which are built around file system access. But the Lightroom apps for mobile devices do not see images in Creative Cloud Files by default, the mobile apps are directly connected to Lightroom Photos for automatic cross-device syncing of files, edits, and organization. Even if you use a mobile app to import an image from Creative Cloud Files, edits will be tied to the copy imported into Lightroom Photos, so to get those edits back out to Creative Cloud Files you would have to do a manual export, but including the edits might require exporting to a different format, which would confuse a Lightroom Classic catalog tracking that image since the format changed…this gets complicated.

Also, I would not consider copying a file to Creative Cloud Files a backup if it’s the only copy, because if you delete a file from Creative Cloud Files locally, it will also be deleted from Creative Cloud Files on the server. (Although it looks like Creative Cloud Files does preserve versions and deleted files that can be recovered, at least for a while.) In other words, moving images to Creative Cloud Files is essentially the same as moving them to Dropbox.

[StricklySpeaking]

This is a topic you should study and carfully pick the best option for your workflow.

I have been working through some issues on my storage and have come to realize several issues with the versions of Lightroom.

If you move to the Cloud you will have to deal with the time it takes to move your files back and forth. You can only work with the Cloud when you have an internet connection. There is a fee of about $10/TB/month of data you place on the cloud. I assume 1.2TB would cost you $20 per month. In theory the idea is the Cloud takes the burden of keeping your files safe and backing them up for you. There are ways you/they can screw this up though.

If you start to move files around best to do this inside of Lightroom.  Stay with the version you are currently using until you feel like you have everything stable and backed up. There are issues as you move from version to version of Lightroom.

If you keep files local keep your files in one place and have a backup routine for the files. Adobe is indicating you must use a drive connected to computer (MAC) and not a NAS or network drive.  This is a problem for people that have large amounts of files and multiple devices that need access.  There can also be issues when if you have a disaster and have to restore files. The Lightroom catalog may not consider your resoted files to be the same files you lost. When you restore files you may also not restore your Lightroom edits.

I am not telling you how to do this just some of the issues I have seen. At a minumum I would keep a good copy of all files locally so I could work with them without Lightroom if necessary or rebuild the lightroom catalog.

A good external drive to consider is a Segate SRDONF2 which is a 10 TB drive but you can get smaller and larger. The cost is about $20/TB.  If you attach this to your MAC Segate supplies software to format the MAC for Catalina. Have not done this but I think Lightroom would support it bacause it is on your MAC. I have used this drive as a shared drive on Ubuntu 18.04 and then worked on my MAC using Lightroom 9.1. Seems to be working fine but I have seen warnings about possible problems. I have a Lab with a printer that uses a Windows 10 computer and need to access files from there also so I really need NAS type drive. I also know a lot about MAC, Windows and Linux so dont do this type of thing unless you feel good about it.

I know Adobe really wants the revenue from the cloud service and I feel there are issues with the Clasic system that will continue to evolve. People that have lots of files and generate files at a fast rate (Pros) will have issues with the cloud. File sizes for each shot are increasing also. I shot with a Hasselblad and the files are about 300mb each. Makes using the cloud a problem.  Cloud will work for people shoting photos on a phone.

I am posting this to help you but also interested in comments others will have becasue it will continue to be an issue for all of us.

Good Luck!

[drshortcutify]

Folks I am extremely grateful for your detailed responses. What a nice Christmas gift. I feel I have to give more details about my workflow to work out whether it 'makes sense' and whether a bespoke solution to my issue can be found. 

I am not a pro, but I have a good camera (Canon 70D) and shoot in RAW. All my RAW files are kept on an external drive. Then I edit the RAW files in Lightroom Classic and export the result of my edits in JPEG to my Photos folders on my Mac for viewing (any problem with this?). I do regularly back up my whole hard disk on two separate external drives (one at home and one at the office, in case one goes up in smoke!)

So I guess I am good with backups and storage (right?). So then the question becomes: how can I access the edit JPEG files that are on my Mac's Photos folders from the other devices, even in preview format? I have created a collection with my Photos folder but I do not know how I can have this collection available in the cloud. When I go on my iPhone's Lightroom app and sign in, there are zero photos available for viewing (I think I have one TB at the moment which is more than enough). 

Lastly, is there any way I could use my other devices to edit my RAWs and then save the result into my Mac's Photo folders? Is this what JimHess was suggesting with 'collections saved in the cloud'? 

Thanks and happy holidays!

Reza

[StricklySpeaking]

Based on you comments I would say you are fine with cloud-based Lightroom. You can do the things you want to do with that Program.  You need to spend the time to learn how to use the program and get what you want out of it.

I suggest you spend some time on Julie Ann Kost blog, https://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/. She has lots of good you-tube stuff showing you how to do things. There are others as well, consider signing up for Lynda.com for a few months and take a few classes. I have done this and watch them while at the Gym.

Keep backing up your RAW files locally until you are very comfortable with the cloud. Then I would still make backups pulling the images from the cloud later in case they have a disaster. However, if you are paying for the space let them do most of the work for you. Saves you the cost of more drives and some time.

You will be able to work on all images with multiple devices using the cloud Lightroom CC. You may have some issue with the speed of your internet connection but you will have to just see how that works out.

If you were generating a lot of images the local version of Lightroom would be better but I think you are the customer Adobe is targeting. I also feel, with some work, you could switch to local later if you found you did not like the cloud version.

[JP Hess]

If you create a regular collection of the raw files that you  want to edit on other devices, and choose the option to share that collection, and have also chosen the option to synchronize from Lightroom Classic, then Lightroom Classic will synchronize smart previews of those raw files to the cloud. Then it will be possible for you to access that collection from other devices and edit those smart previews on those devices. Those adjustments made on other devices will apply to the raw files on the master computer. In other words, the adjustments will apply to the master files. And, adjuustments made to the master files will also apply to the smart previews that are seen on other devices.

On the other hand, if you decide that you want to migrate your entire catalog to the cloud then the full-sized raw files can be stored in the cloud and you can edit those full-sized raw files on your other devices. The decision is yours as to which way you want to go.