P: Ability to sync Lightroom Classic keywords with the Lightroom Ecosystem

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Keywords do not sync correctly: When added on the mobile app (iOS), they do not appear in LR classic and not in LR Web (I deleted the new LR CC immediately, this version does not make sense to me).
Same problem into the other direction: Keywords from LR classic do not appear on the mobile app. 
Attention: At this stage the whole keywording within the iOS app should not be used!

[JohanElzenga]

This is a known limitation. Keywords do not sync between Lightroom Classic and the cloud.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

If it would be a "limitation", then we would have two different sets of keywords. We do not have two different sets of captions (they are synced) or copyrights (are synced too).This can not be intentionally, so it must be a bug. 

[JohanElzenga]

I can assure you that it is intentionally.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

OK, two different sets of keywords for the same picture within the same collection and the same cloud ... Adobe needs to explain that.

[JohanElzenga]

No, there are not two sets in the cloud. There is only one set in the cloud: the set coming from Lightroom CC. Lightroom Classic does not sync keywords to (or from) the cloud at all.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

OK, I correct: two one picture two different sets of keywords are associated. Imagine that for other parameters ... this makes no sense for the user.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Keywords sync from LR Classic to LR Mobile, but not from LR Mobile to LR Classic. Star ratings sync in both direction. Changes in picture sync in both directions. For me this missing keyword sync is a bug. And Adobe will fix it.

[john beardsworth]

That's not right Peter.  I would phrase it like this - and advise you to read carefully "Keywords sync from LR Classic to LR Mobile if the keywords have been saved directly into the image itself (not xmp sidecar) when the image is first uploaded, but not from LR Mobile to LR Classic"

This is not a bug. It is Adobe's deliberate design decision.

[JohanElzenga]

Correct. So if you upload from a raw file the keywords will not sync. If you upload from a TIFF or JPEG and you've written the metadata to the file itself, they will sync, but only once. If you make any changes, those changes will not sync.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

John and Johan, looks like you have insider information. Ok, then the whole keyword sync is useless. Shame on Adobe Software Engineering 🙂
I am an Engineer by myself and know how difficult such a sync mechanismn is. Let us hope the best that they change their minds and implement it later.

[berliner_ffm]

I also think this syncing issue is a big let down. I was hoping to give keywords also in Lightroom cc and Lightroom web and they sync to LR classic

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Have tested the sync of caption/subtitle and it working fine. You can change it in Web, LR Mobile or LR Classic and sync is done in each direction.
This gives me hope that Adobe is fixing the Keyword Sync. No Engineer is implementing caption sync and not keyword sync. Anyway, caption sync is working for me because I am doing all my keyword tagging with Photo Mechanics and fill caption field automatically with name of picture folder and keywords.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@Peter Chater, how do you get your tags from Photo Mechanics into the LR catalog?

[john beardsworth]

"No Engineer is implementing caption sync and not keyword sync."

Don't bet on it, Peter.

If you consider it, caption sync is easier for the engineer - it's just reading/writing a photo's text entry. Each keyword is a separate entity, so syncing would need to loop through the keyword structure looking for matching items (note hierarchy is an issue) and then apply those keywords to the photo. So more difficult, but not rocket science - if the will is there.

PhotoMechanic, like Bridge, just uses xmp to store tags and other metadata, and LR simply reads that.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Yes, it is easier, but Engineers love a challenge. But could be they were stopped by Marketing or Finance.
I am using Photo Mechanics for some years, because PM does not have a catalog. In LR Classic you can create a Smart Collection to find all picture with changed metadata by third party apps and then you can read all these updated meta data. This is useful if you do all your tagging in PM and want to have this info synced to LR mobile. Currently I am using Mylio for that, but my hope was to have all in LR. I am not giving up hope.

[Califdan2]

This thread is quite confusing.  Is there an Adobe document someplace that explains this in all its permutations? 

However, this may explain why some of my keyworded images from LR Classic show Keywords in LR/CC and some do not.  And, that explanation - according to this thread - is that some of my synced images have metadata written back to the image file and some don't - which is entirely possible.

I just took one of my CR2 RAW files which did not show any keywords in LR/CC and saved the metadata to an XMP file in LR Classic.  Indeed, the keywords did not appear in LR/CC desktop or LR Web.  However, an DNG image with saved metadata does show Keywords in both LR/CC Desktop and LR/CC Web but changes made to keywords in classic do not migrate to the cloud.

I think I need another computer to help me understand this logic which is quite inconsistent.  Given  Adobe's justification of no folders being "why should you care what folder something is in as long as you can find it:" - I'm surprised that they would give us a situation where you have to know the underlying file type in order to know how the system will work.  I'm hoping that is a bug and not a design feature. 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

It's a real shame, I have thousands of tags done in LR Classic - if I can't use them in CC this is pretty worthless for me. Any comments from Adobe??

[johnrellis]

According to Victoria Bampton (Lightroom Queen), who is pretty well-plugged-in to Adobe, "no new sync functionality will be added to Classic (so keywords and collection hierarchy won’t sync)."

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi John, do you think Classic will be obsolet in some time? And is Adobe is implementing all Classic Feature into LR Mobile aka LR CC ?

[johnrellis]

Leading questions! Though I have (strong) opinions on all this, I recommend reading Bampton's recent blog posts: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/.  In my own opinion, Adobe has for several years pared back investment in desktop LR, putting in the bare minimum to maintain desktop LR's revenue stream.  I don't see that changing.

[twmerritt]

It is disappointing to learn that keyword syncing with Lightroom Mobile only works with the less feature-rich Lightroom CC and not with Lightroom Classic CC. I hope Adobe reconsiders and adds that functionality to Classic. It should've been added at introduction of Mobile. 

[Jao vdL]

I understand one of the main reasons for this is that Adobe changed to a flat keyword hierarchy in Lightroom CC while Lightroom Classic has nested keywords (you know like Europe -> Iceland -> Reykjavik -> opera house). Lightroom CC cannot do any of that and likely will never gain this capability as apparently it is too hard for the typical user to use. Most of my keywords are hierarchical and I can't see a flat hierarchy working well for me.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

And therein lies the problem: A flaw by design is just as bad as any flaw!

[Lewis Craik]

I have wasted many hours keywording images on Lightroom CC, only to find that they haven't synced back to Lightroom Classic CC. I was excited about Lightroom CC, as I thought it would be really useful for when I'm out on the road I would be able to do all my processing on my laptop, then sync everything back to my main editing machine when I got home. It sort of half works, which is disappointing.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Let me ask a question Lewis... what features is Lightroom CC desktop that you'd need before you could move over from Lightroom Classic?