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Sync Lightroom with Smugmug

Explorer ,
Nov 24, 2016 Nov 24, 2016

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I am using the latest version of LR CC and the most current Smugmug publish plugin.  It seems like galeries I add to LR sync to Smugmug but not the other way round.  Is there a way to get LR to get galeries and photos from Smugmug?

Thanks.

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

LEGEND , Nov 24, 2016 Nov 24, 2016

Go to Publish Services and select a collection for a SmugMug gallery with zero images. Right-click on the gallery name and choose “Edit Gallery” and then put a check mark in the box “Sync Photos” and click the Edit button. A progress bar will start and the collection will be populated automatically where there is an exact file match.

During the process you may need to take action on individual photo suggestions e.g. to accept or reject the suggested match for any images displayed in the left and

...

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LEGEND ,
Nov 24, 2016 Nov 24, 2016

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It is possible to use the SmugMug publish service plug in to sync galleries to LR desktop. It’s safest to do it one galley at a time and the on-line photos will be matched to the original in the Lightroom catalog where available.

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LEGEND ,
Nov 24, 2016 Nov 24, 2016

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Go to Publish Services and select a collection for a SmugMug gallery with zero images. Right-click on the gallery name and choose “Edit Gallery” and then put a check mark in the box “Sync Photos” and click the Edit button. A progress bar will start and the collection will be populated automatically where there is an exact file match.

During the process you may need to take action on individual photo suggestions e.g. to accept or reject the suggested match for any images displayed in the left and right panes where there may be more than one match e.g. raw & jpeg, tiff, PSD or different sizes with the same file name. For example if there are two possible matches the right pane will display two tabs at the top. It’s then a simple button press to accept the best match or dismiss in order to find it manually. Click image below to enlarge.

SmugSync.jpg

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Explorer ,
Nov 24, 2016 Nov 24, 2016

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Not intuative, like many thinks in LR but effective.  Thank you for the help, 99jon.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 06, 2019 Oct 06, 2019

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When I go through this process, pictures are flagged as "conflict" even if they only share the filename (different cameras, file sizes and dates). Is there a way to change the "match" logic so it validates on more than just the filename ? My current workaround is to suspend the sync, rename the "duplicate" and then re-sync, but that in some cases results in the loss of metadata I had already created (people, GPS). Adobe Tech Support chat is ZERO help, I don't think they even understood the issue!

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LEGEND ,
Oct 06, 2019 Oct 06, 2019

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I don’t think it’s an Adobe issue but as designed by the SmugMug plug-in developer.

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New Here ,
Oct 17, 2017 Oct 17, 2017

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I have a similar question - but what if I created the SmugMug gallery without using LR?  I just started using LR last week but there is a set of galleries I'd like to sync into LR so I can make mods and then sync them back to SM.  Any chance that might work?  I've tried the advice above but it results in 0 pictures synced.

Thanks,

John

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LEGEND ,
Oct 17, 2017 Oct 17, 2017

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No problem. When you right-click on the SmugMug tab in Publish Services in the LR Library you can do the set-up/edit and log-in to your SmugMug account. A sync button is available to update, whenever you make changes directly on your SmugMug site.

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New Here ,
Oct 17, 2017 Oct 17, 2017

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No dice.  The sync resulted in 0 images.  The galleries in question were uploaded directly from Windows Explorer to SmugMug galleries/folders via the SmugMug web interface.  What is on the site is more accurate now than what's on my computer so that's why I'd like to pull all the photos into LR.

Keeping fingers crossed that there's a way.

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LEGEND ,
Oct 17, 2017 Oct 17, 2017

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There are two steps:

Sync SmugMug hierarchy

Sync photos

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New Here ,
Oct 31, 2017 Oct 31, 2017

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I stumbled across this topic when looking for something else, but in my experience, the photos already need to be in your Smugmug Library if you want to "sync" in reverse like this. Please correct me if I'm wrong as this is my only major complaint with the SmugMug plugin.

For instance, I share a SmugMug account with another user to catalog photos for a high school athletic team. If I want to sync her photos into my LR catalog, I actually have to manually download the photos in a web browser, import them into LR, and then sync the hierarchy and the photos. If they aren't already in my library, I'll get zero photos as mentioned in the post above.

This probably makes sense because you can't really have photos in the Smugmug Publish tab if they don't exist in LR right? Ideally in this situation, there would be an option to create a folder to bring all these unmatched/uncataloged photos into your library, but I don't think this is possible. This is a major stumbling block in a sharing situation like mine or if someone has a sizable SmugMug presence that was not previously tied to LR. The workaround in either case is to manually download all the galleries and import them into LR prior to trying to sync. You can import them into existing folders based on the individual Smugmug galleries or one big folder called "SmugMug Imports" and then organize later.

One word of caution about importing photos and then syncing as mentioned above: DO NOT change anything in the photos prior to syncing with Smugmug! Even a slight change in name or metadata will likely confuse SmugMug to the point where it will ask you to resolve conflicts while syncing. Generally, if I don't change anything I don't get any conflicts, but a minor change usually leads to a lot of tedious conflict resolution. This wouldn't even be an issue if you could just import the photos automatically via the plug in.

Other than that, the plugin's integration between SmugMug and LR is a godsend.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 31, 2017 Oct 31, 2017

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Have you tried the bi-directional nature of the Smugmug publisher plugin as discussed here: Metadata Synchronization Smugmug to Lightroom? — Digital Grin Photography Forum

I've been trying it out on a gallery in SM that has 1200 photos. those photos don't exist in LR. For some reason LR crashes as the sync process nears completion. I'm thinking it's too many photos for the publisher to handle.

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New Here ,
Apr 05, 2020 Apr 05, 2020

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Been trying to figure this out for AGES!

This worked like a charm.

Thanks 99jon!

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 25, 2021 Aug 25, 2021

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Here's what Josh, a SmugMug hero, wrote:

1) Double-click on SmugMug in the Publish Services section in LR to open the SmugMug plugin settings.
2) In the Publishing and Syncing section, check the Sync Folders and Galleries box. It’s probably best to leave “sync photos” unchecked (for now). Click Sync Now.

That will sync the current folders/galleries on SmugMug with the plugin, and any new galleries you created should then appear in the plugin. They will initially show 0 photos (this is normal). To get the photos to show within those new galleries, you’d need to ensure that 1) the photos exist within your current LR catalog, and 2) you’ll need to Sync Photos for those galleries. You can sync photos for an individual gallery by right-clicking on any gallery in the plugin > Edit Gallery. Check the Sync Photos box, and save.

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New Here ,
May 13, 2023 May 13, 2023

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Is there a way to keep that "Sync Photos" box checked?  It reverts back to unchecked each time I close that Edit Gallery dialog box.  In other words, I would like to continuously keep that Smugmug gallery synched with Lightroom to reflect any photos added to either location.  It seems that in order to do that, I have to clunk through and find that "Sync Photos" checkbox each time, and worse yet, there is no indication that the folders are out of sync.  I have to discover that for myself.

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Community Expert ,
May 13, 2023 May 13, 2023

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No the plugin is really built with the assumption that you will manage the smugmug galleries from within Lightroom Classic. Classic uses publishing plugins, not syncing plugins is really the basic reason for this. It will really only work well if you only ever upload to smugmug from Classic. It does not do bidirectional well except for that sync photos and galleries button. It has many other problems such as that it does not deal well with smart galleries and collected images that show up in multiple galleries. You can actually get to a situation where one smugmug image that shows up in two galleries through collect or smart gallery gets connected to two different images or different versions of the same image in Classic. You also cannot connect an image on smugmug to a different image in Classic after it has been connected or after you uploaded it using the publish plugin. So you can't for example do a AI denoise and now have the image on smugmug sync from this new source instead of the old raw image. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the smugmug plugin but it has many issues. Some caused by the publish infrastructure just not being that flexible and others caused by the smugmug structure not really mapping well to Classic's structure. They should really fix the collected/smart gallery image issue though. Have submitted that as a bug to smugmug a decade ago.

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