Understanding storage options

[philliphatcher]

I have never really understood how Lightroom's storage system works and just muddled through. 

My iMac recently died, and I now have a Macbook Pro with 1TB. I have 700GB available and have just installed Lightroom Classic again.  

I have a 1TB Lightroom folder on Time Machine and a separate 400GB Lightroom folder on a Lacie external drive. 

It seems I won't have enough space on my Macbook, and I would now like to have the security of keeping my photos in a cloud. I've checked Lightroom's pricing, and it seems very expensive, so I'm now thinking of other cloud options. 

So I have these questions:

1. How can I access all my photos on Lightroom while keeping them in non-Adobe cloud storage? 

2. Will new photos automatically upload to cloud storage?

Thanks in advance

[Sean McCormack]

Realistically Lightroom Classic needs local drives. Lightroom is the Cloud version. 

Your Lightroom folder contains a catalog and previews, which take up space on the drive, and you may very well have lesss than 1TB of actual photos. 

[Ian Lyons · Accepted solution]

Classic doesn't use the Adobe Cloud to store full size/res photos. So, best you dismiss that as an option. Also, whilst there are third party cloud options for storing your photos they really aren't the best option if you need  LrC to have continious access to them. Sure, some folk are using OneDrive and similar, but we see too many posts here flagging various access and performance issues with cloud based storage. So, that leaves local/external disks connected to your MacBook Pro. Even though SSD speed isn't necessary for photo storage, my recommendation for external stoarge is an SSD such as the Samsung T7 or Sandisk Extreme. Yes, they are more expensive than a traditional hard drive, but they much lighter and more compact.

[dj_paige]

For Lightroom Classic, you can choose to keep all your photos on an external drive. If the drive you have isn't big enough, you can always get a bigger drive. But with Lightroom Classic, cloud storage isn't really an option.

[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

1. How can I access all my photos on Lightroom while keeping them in non-Adobe cloud storage?

By @philliphatcher

For access in Lightroom Classic itself, you can use any way you like that is local storage. I’ve kept Lightroom Classic photos on different variations of local storage, which all worked fine. As the number of photos I have has grown since Lightroom 1, I have had to keep moving them to bigger volumes. For example, over the years, I have stored Lightroom Classic photos on:

A Mac’s internal storage. 

A separate hard drive in one of the four internal drive bays of a Mac Pro tower. 

A large external hard drive. 

One or more hard drives in a 4-bay external USB enclosure. 

On another Mac’s storage, reached over the network through macOS File Sharing.

A large external SSD.

Also, the photos don’t all need to be in one place. Lightroom Classic lets you spread the photos across multiple volumes, like any combination of the above list.

The main restriction is that the catalog has to be on local storage, not a network server, but it is OK for the catalog to be on an external non-network volume.

For the non-Adobe cloud storage part, you’ll have to use a cloud service provider that lets you sync any folder on your Mac. If this is just for backup, that should be possible. If this is for remote access, it could be complicated. Or you could just sync selected images to Lightroom cloud storage, but they will be Smart Preview proxies, not originals.

[philliphatcher]

Thanks. 

When you say that it will be smart preview proxies and not originals, would that mean should I want to print the photo, it would not be of the same quality?

[Conrad_C]

When you say that it will be smart preview proxies and not originals, would that mean should I want to print the photo, it would not be of the same quality?

By @philliphatcher

That depends on how you print it.

Smart Previews are based on compressed DNG, meaning they preserve raw-quality image data at a much smaller file size than an original. This allows mobile editing to happen at high visual quality but with a much lower demand on Internet bandwidth than if you were shuttling full resolution originals back and forth. From the point of view of tone and color, the quality of mobile editing with Smart Previews is just as good as Lightroom Classic, limited mostly by the color precision of the display on the tablet or phone.

The main issue with a Smart Preview is that it’s limited to 2560 pixels on the long side. Most cameras shoot images larger than that now, so from a spatial resolution point of view, that’s a limitation. For example, if the original is longer than 2560 pixels then you won’t be able to judge sharpening at full resolution in a Smart Preview. Better to do that in Lightroom Classic, where the original is.

Now, about printing. If you print from Lightroom Classic, there is no problem, because Lightroom Classic has the full resolution original. Cloud Lightroom on desktop and mobile does not have a print feature*, so for direct printing, Smart Previews aren’t a problem because you have print from Lightroom Classic, which prints from the original anyway.

Printing Smart Previews can be a problem if you print indirectly from cloud Lightroom. By that I mean if you export files from Lightroom on desktop or mobile to upload them to, for example, a printing service. The export pixel dimensions can’t be any larger than the Smart Preview. Same applies if you print a Smart Preview from cloud Lightroom using the OS print feature as described below. (If you want a 300 ppi print, 2560 pixels supports that at up to 8.5 inches long.)

*Technically, you can print from the Lightroom mobile app by going through the iOS share sheet, and in the desktop web browser app you can use the browser’s Print command. But then you are printing using the much more basic print features of the OS, outside the control of Lightroom.