full size photos on Classic and LR

[dalec15261689]

Hello, I'm thinking about upgrading from the 20gb photography plan to the 1tb plan. Can full-size photos exist both on LR online and on the LR Classic hard drive? Will edits sync? What's a good way to upgrade the online photos from smart previews?

[Sameer K]

Hey, @dalec15261689. Welcome to the Lightroom community. I'll help you set up the way it works for you.

Images only sync as smart previews from Lightroom Classic. Originals are downloaded from the cloud & stored locally in a database to serve Lightroom Classic's nature of keeping the images locally.

As a test, you can install Lightroom Desktop and import a few full-size raw images for the images that are already on the cloud as smart previews. Lightroom should detect the smart preview & replace it with the original you've imported.

You can confirm the same on Lightroom Web (https://lightroom.adobe.com). My recommendation is to go slow with this process. At the same time Lightroom uploads, Lightroom Classic will download the original from the cloud & it'll double up the local storage usage in your computer.

Let me know once you play around with this. Thanks!
Sameer K

[dalec15261689]

Thanks. Actually I'm wondering about going the other direction. I have LR Classic on my computer and that's where the originals are stored. I've been syncing LR Web and only smart previews are there. I've recently gotten Photography/1TB so I'm wondering how replacing the smart previews on LR Web would work. Do I have to manually upload all the originals from my pc?

[Theresa J]

What is your reason for uploading full resolution images to the cloud? Are you sure you need this? I'd advise against using both LrC and Lr for your full res image because you will end up with duplicates. It can get very confusing, very fast.

[dalec15261689]

I'm trying to figure out how to transition from the 20gb plan, where the originals reside on my computer and smart previews get synced to the cloud, to the 1tb plan where there would now be enough room to replaced the smart previews with the original files.

The reason for having the originals in both places would be so that I could work on and download full-size originals from my second computer which is not the one with Classic.

[JohanElzenga]

Thanks. Actually I'm wondering about going the other direction. I have LR Classic on my computer and that's where the originals are stored. I've been syncing LR Web and only smart previews are there. I've recently gotten Photography/1TB so I'm wondering how replacing the smart previews on LR Web would work. Do I have to manually upload all the originals from my pc?

By @dalec15261689

What you need to do is import the Lightroom Classic originals (not a copy) in Lightroom desktop. Lightroom desktop will be clever enough to see that these are the originals from the online smart previews and will replace the smart previews with the originals. And Lightroom Classic will be smart enough to not download these originals again.

[dalec15261689]

I'm not sure I understand. The originals are on the pc which has Classic. Do add the same originals to LR web? Would those replace the current smart previews in LR web? Or can Classic handle this and sync all the originals to the web?

I might be misunderstanding how sync works. When originals are entered into Classic, do the same files get synced/uploaded to LR web or are only smart previews get synced?

[JohanElzenga]

I'm not sure I understand. The originals are on the pc which has Classic. Do add the same originals to LR web? Would those replace the current smart previews in LR web? Or can Classic handle this and sync all the originals to the web?

I might be misunderstanding how sync works. When originals are entered into Classic, do the same files get synced/uploaded to LR web or are only smart previews get synced?

By @dalec15261689

I wasn't talking about Lightroom web, but about Lightroom (desktop). Install Lightroom on that computer too. Then follow my instructions. After that you can use Lightroom on a second computer to access the cloud originals too.

[dalec15261689]

Many thanks to y'all for helping me. I think I made a mistake referring to Lightroom Web. What I mean to refer to is the two programs running on my computer (pc #1): Lightroom Classic and Lightroom. Ultimately my goal is to be able to use Lightroom (not Classic) on my laptop (pc #2) to work on the same catalog and on the same originals, not smart previews. I think that would result in the originals existing in three places: Lightroom Classic and Lightroom on pc#1 and also in Ligthroom on pc#2.

[Theresa J]

With this workflow your images will exist in two places, pc #1 with LrC, and in the Lightroom cloud.

Your proposed workflow makes sense if you need to move images from Lr into Photoshop on the laptop. Or, if you need to export full resolution images on the laptop for printing, or design work. If the laptop is only for editing in Lr, you do not need full resolution images in the cloud. Smart previews are designed for this.

I have a desktop iMac with my LrC catalog and all my images on external hard drives. I use Lr on my laptop for editing smart previews that are synced from LrC. The smart preview workflow is perfect for my needs.