Lighroom : compatibilité descendante

[courtille]

Je travaille parfois pour des associations qui disposent que d'anciennes versions de produits Adobe. Je fournis les sources. C'est souvent le cas pour Illustrator mais ingénieusement il propose la possibilité d'enregistrer dans une version anterieure. De manière similaire, comment est-il possible de convertir une bibliothèque Lightroom Classic dans une version compatible LR-6 ? Au moins pour conserver les tags, le cadrage...Merci.

[cmgap]

There are a few ways to this. Open Lightroom 6 and create a new catalog. Under the File menu choose Import From Another Catalog. Navigate to the catalog that you want to convert and complete the import process.

[courtille]

If I understand correctly, with their LR6, they will be able to import the catalog from my LR (latest version) without losing the main corrections?

[DdeGannes]

As far as I am aware LR 6 will be able to import a Catalog created by LR 1 to 6. This is not the case with LR versions 7 to 9.

[richardplondon]

It is not (as far as I know) possible for the user of a significantly older version of LR, to do anything with a Catalog belonging to (or exported from) a newer version of LR. Some minor upgrades may not change the Catalog format, but major ones (perhaps always?) do.

However, you can write out metadata (as covered in another post) or you can export an edited image using the "Original" file type selection. This latter method saves a copy of the selected source image(s) into a new location (that you define), in original format that was imported - such as, camera Raw or camera JPG - plus some metadata describing the latest LR editing. Unlike writing metadata, this (export Original) method works with virtual copies as well as master copies. Some organisational LR metadata (such as Collection membership, and detailed editing History) is not included but keywords, copyright etc as well as all Develop settings including crop, and Snapshots are.

When this image with its written metadata (whichever method has been used) gets imported by your clients into their (older version) LR catalog, the attached or accompanying metadata will be interpreted and used automatically. Some of this metadata may relate to new features which their LR version does not have, and that will be ignored. Some metadata may relate to features which both LR versions have, but where the visual effect of setting a particular value for a particular parameter may be different - especially when some other parameters are being ignored. And some will work exactly the same.

To get around this incompatibility issue, especially when there is a big difference between the two software versions, you can tell your (current) LR to employ an older Process Version for editing a particular image. This is set at the top of the Calibration panel. LR then presents (in Basic panel) the adjustment sliders relevant to this chosen Process Version, which may be different than for latest version - making use of a given value for each of those sliders, in the same way as an older LR version would have done, if that natively used this same Process Version. So adjustments can be 100% compatibly transferred... for the identical outcome... at least, in theory... because in effect, it is (for these images only) largely "as if" you had used that older software.

[Per Berntsen]

I sometimes work for associations that have only older versions of Adobe products. I provide the sources. This is often the case for Illustrator but ingeniously it offers the possibility of recording in an anterieure version. Similarly, how is it possible to convert a Lightroom Classic library into an LR-6-compatible version? At least to keep the tags, framing... Thank you.

Lightroom catalogs are not backwards compatible, so an LR Classic catalog can not be opened in LR 6.

What you can do is save metadata to the image files, and your client can then import them in LR 6. But features that don't exist in LR 6 (like Texture, for instance) will not be visible.

Select all the files in Library, then go to to Metadata > Save metadata to files (or press Ctrl/Cmd + S).

For proprietary raw files, the metadata will be written to sidecar XMP files, so you will have to give those to your client as well. 

Not all metadata will be included, like collections and ratings.

The edits will be visible, but will not be listed in the History panel.

After importing, your client wlll have to select the images, and then go to Metadata > Read metadata from files.

But unless you have a good reason for giving raw files to your client, I would just export the edited files as tiff or jpg, and give the exported files to the client.

[courtille]

Merci beaucoup à tous.