Any way to sync collections from different catalogs to one Lightroom online account?

[sirhawkeye]

So I have three catalogs to keep my photos separated (one that's for headshot clients, one for people who buy prints of my landscape shots, and a personal catalog that has everything else -- my travle photos, family pictures etc).

Is there any way I can have all three sync various collections to the online Lightroom account for sharing?  I use each catalog on a weekly basis so each would be launched so they could sync with Adobe.

Or should I perhaps create a fourth catalog strictly for images to be synced (and use XMP files to pass edit data to the fourth catalog from the other three)?

I really enjoy using the feature, but also like keeping my photos separated out into different catalogs.

What are the possible ways to do this? 

[DdeGannes]

No, you can only have one Catalog from LrC syncing to your Creative Cloud storage.

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

The only way is indeed to create a fourth catalog that you sync to the cloud, and use .XMP sidecar files to keep the photos in sync. Be careful and make plenty of backups, because sooner or later you will use 'Save metadata to files' when you should have used 'Read metadata from files'.

[sirhawkeye]

OK thanks.  I was thinking about this more and I don't really need to edit the files in the fourth catalog, so I could just import the finished JPEGs into a collection solely for the purpose of syncing them to the Adobe cloud. 

I know it's a bit more work than setting up a gallery on a website, but in some respects it might be easier especially for large amounts of files being uploaded at once (I can just leave another machine running with the fourth catalog open uploading).

[JohanElzenga]

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@sirhawkeye wrote:

OK thanks.  I was thinking about this more and I don't really need to edit the files in the fourth catalog, so I could just import the finished JPEGs into a collection solely for the purpose of syncing them to the Adobe cloud. 

I know it's a bit more work than setting up a gallery on a website, but in some respects it might be easier especially for large amounts of files being uploaded at once (I can just leave another machine running with the fourth catalog open uploading).

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In that case, use Publish to disk rather than export. That makes it very easy to update those jpegs when needed.

[richardplondon]

Just in case you are unaware, the XMP method of synchronising between Catalogs will miss out on any virtual copies that may be present. I suppose that a Sync Folder could help to update the importation of any new images as well as ensuring metadata is updated within this fourth Catalog. That would still depend on writing metadata out from the primary Catalog(s). Another option that does respect Virtual Copies and some other matters, is to Import from Another Catalog. All of these options sound to me like a lot of tedious work for which a very clear and sufficient justification would be needed.

If the images themselves are located in a NAS or file server or some such, then a catch-all Catalog can indeed live on a different computer without any great consequence. The images would be referenced using network addressing that works the same from any computer; or, if using mapped drives, those would need to be set up identically. Your software plan permits two CC sign-ins to be active concurrently - on the basis that a single licensed user may be switching back and forth between those two, in practice.

[sirhawkeye]

It is kind of a shame that you cannot sync with multiple catalogs ,as long as there isn't a collection with the exact same name in the catalogs (all collections would be unique across different catalogs).  I guess though, it's likely a limitation by design as LR has to have the catalog open in order for it to sync, but if they could find a way, maybe a separate plug-in that syncs collections from other catalogs or the current catalog in the background, while you work in one of the catalogs.

[richardplondon]

It would certainly be a challenge to sync a Catalog while that was not open! And Collections only have any existence within a Catalog, as do Virtual Copies of course. Also to have multiple Catalogs remaining open at the same time seems to be a no-no with this particular database engine, on both Windows and MacOS. 

Another issue especially when relating to Collections, is what happens when the same image, or simply a Collection of the same name, repeats in multiple LrC Catalogs. Also, what would ensue if (say) a Collection was renamed in one of those Catalogs - etc etc. Messy. And Lightroom (cloud) cuts all these Gordian knots at a stroke. IMO that is the more appropriate technology if always having a cloud-held set of up to date images, is anything of a priority.

LrC's cloud sync works fine AFAICT provided the cloud side of things can be regarded as more 'incidental' IMO; so, accepting the consequences that its local-centric workflow naturally imposes - such as, the syncing of a single chosen Catalog only.

If Collection names are to be unique across different Catalogs, one option may be this plugin

Collection Publisher 

whereby a location on disk is specified, and exported copies are published to there, automatically making subfolders reflecting the live Collections within the current Catalog. The same process could happen into the same parent location, from another Catalog too, creating and then later updating other Collection related subfolders alongside. And the whole lot can be regularly synced into cloud, or AFAICT this whole Publish could be targeted to the local storage location which will automatically sync itself to Creative Cloud. sync-creative-cloud-files .

[JohanElzenga]

I think the solution of all this is pretty simple. All the OP has to do is remember to open the fourth catalog in Lightroom Classic from time to time and import any new images, so it gets a chance to sync these new images. As he already switches between three other catalogs regularly, that doesn't sound like a big deal.