Help with Lightroom Classic to Lightroom

[lmontilla89]

I've decided to give Lightroom Classic a try after using the newer Lightroom exclusively. I'm really enjoying the UI of LrC over Lr, however I'm struggling to adapt with the limited cross-platform convenience/compatability of LrC. I've scoured the web for videos and instructions but nothing I've found is really explaining things in terms that translate between the platforms in a way that I understand.

Specifically:

I love that Lr will transfer through cloud between my desktop, phone, and laptop so that I am able to access and pick up on edits regardless of my current location. Since I am mobile frequently, it is nice to be able to access these edits easily between platforms. If I edit a photo in LrC, even though I have sycning active, I haven't been figured out how to be able to open the photo in Lr besides exporting from LrC to my hard drive then using "add photo" in Lr to add it to the library. Using this method hasn't allowed me to access the original version of the photo either, or I haven't figured out how to access it at least and the photo is set as the edit as default settings. 

To put it another way - In Lr I am able to make edits and save them as different "versions," and I'm unsure how that translates to in LrC, snapshot maybe? What I really want to know is if I can make edits to a photo in LrC and export it or access it out to Lr in the format of seeing the edit as a saved "version" (with any gradients and healing) while still being able to switch back to the original, and vice versa.

Thanks in advance!

[@MNiessenPhoto]

Hi,

One way to sync photos from Lightroom Classic is through collections (not smart collection).

Check this article for info on how to do it:

How to sync Lightroom Classic photos with Lightroom (adobe.com)

An alternative way is to drag/drop pictures you want to sync to the "all synced photographs" folder in the library's Catalog panel (top-left). You can't drag a full folder, but could very well select all of your pictures and add them this way.

Unfortunately, if your goal is to sync everything, any new pictures you add to Lightroom Classic will have to be added manually, either to the synced photographs folder or to the synced collection.

I've just tested the version thing, which I had never used... But it's not reflected in LrC (other edits appear, so the photo has been synced). The other way around, a snapshot in LrC doesn't become a version in Lr either. It makes sense that the two would be linked and maybe there is some option to activate that, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Hope that helps,

Michael

[F. McLion]

Another important shortcoming to note is that keywords from LrC are NOT synced.

No one knows why Adobe refuses to add this feature.

[Jim Wilde]

Specifically:

I love that Lr will transfer through cloud between my desktop, phone, and laptop so that I am able to access and pick up on edits regardless of my current location. Since I am mobile frequently, it is nice to be able to access these edits easily between platforms. If I edit a photo in LrC, even though I have sycning active, I haven't been figured out how to be able to open the photo in Lr besides exporting from LrC to my hard drive then using "add photo" in Lr to add it to the library. Using this method hasn't allowed me to access the original version of the photo either, or I haven't figured out how to access it at least and the photo is set as the edit as default settings. 

To put it another way - In Lr I am able to make edits and save them as different "versions," and I'm unsure how that translates to in LrC, snapshot maybe? What I really want to know is if I can make edits to a photo in LrC and export it or access it out to Lr in the format of seeing the edit as a saved "version" (with any gradients and healing) while still being able to switch back to the original, and vice versa.

Thanks in advance!

By @lmontilla89

If syncing between LrC and the cloud has been successfully established and not paused at either end, edits that you make on any of the connected apps, including LrC, should automatically sync to the rest. There's a slight difference in approach here, in that LrC syncs each edit as it is made, whereas the Lightroom apps only sync the edits when you move on to another image (or you exit the app). So any edits you make in LrC should be seen almost immediately in any of the other apps, there is no need to export the image in order to get the changes viewable elsewhere in the cloud. If that isn't happening, there is something fundamentally wrong with your setup which needs to be figured out.

Conduct some tests. Select an image in LrC and do a quick noticeable edit (e.g. press the V key to switch it to B&W), then locate the same image in one of the cloud apps and wiat a few seconds and you should see the image change to B&W. The do the test in reverse, i.e. switch it back to Colour, move to the next image to allow that change to sync, then wait to see it change back in LrC. If these changes aren't syncing, report back so we can try to figure out what's going wrong.

In terms of Versions and Snapshots, these do not sync. So if you edit an image in LrC it should change in the Lightroom apps but a new version isn't automatically created there (though of course you can create your own named version to include the LrC edit).