Known Participant

Question

I need help migrating my Lightroom Classic library to Lightroom CC

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
July 15, 2020
2 replies
1663 views

So Im considering switching from Classic to CC as I do a ton of editing on my ipad. I like the idea of my photos being in the cloud (full res). But I will still occasionally use Classic.

So far the info I have found has told me to simply migrate the catalog to CC. I already have all my images in Classic in collections. This will simply upload them to the cloud.

Now my question is on local storage. One person mentioned that when you open Classic, any synced collections will be dowloaded locally. Within the preferences there is a spot to select the location, and even the folder structure. I like this. So there is also a local option in CC. Should I have this turned off to avoid doubles locally? Or should I not let Classic do it?

I tried exporting a small folder as a catalog to test. The thing I don't get, is when I opened classic back up, the images all doubled in the folder within Classic. If I use my finder, the folder shows just single images.

My plan was to open Classic, let them download to the new folder structure, then erase the old folder. If there is a way to not redownload images that are already on my hard drive, thats ideal. I have 3 TB of images and that will put me over my data cap with my ISP.

Thanks for any tips on this workflow!

This topic has been closed for replies.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

If you have 3 TB of images, then migrating the Lightroom Classic catalog means you need 3 TB of cloud space. Migrating is all-or-nothing, there is no selective sync like you have in Lightroom Classic with synced collections. The entire catalog will be migrated to the cloud!

-- Johan W. Elzenga

phototocanvaspdxAuthor

Known Participant

Yes I know, I would get 5tb of cloud space.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

You would also need 3TB of local storage space on your system disk. When you migrate a catalog, Lightroom Cloud copies all the images into a local folder on your hard drive. It then uploads those images. This prevents many people from migrating their catalog at once and the only way to deal with this is to migrate your catalog in sections by exporting a subcatalog from your main catalog and migrating them piece by piece.

JP Hess

Inspiring

Syced collections are collections of images that are in Lightroom Classic that have been synchronized to Lightroom. That means smart previews are in the cloud but the master images are on your computer. When you import images directly to Lightroom (for the cloud) you can choose an option to store a local copy, but it is a copy and is not part of the Lightroom ecosystem. Images imported to Lightroom should also be added to Lightroom Classic, and in that case you would have master images in both places. In my opinion, you should think twice before migrating your catalog to Lightroom. When that choice is made you pretty much make the choice to pretty much abandon Lightroom Classic and commit yourself to using Lightroom as your primary version. It isn't practical to try to use the two versions together.

JP Hess

Inspiring

Just be sure to evaluate Lightroom carefully before you migrate your entire library. You can only migrate one catalog. So if you have multiple catalogs it will be necessary for you to combine all those catalogs into one. And the migration process isn't instantaneous. Also look at the feature set in Lightroom because it's not the same as LrC. Be sure you will be satisfied with what tools you will have at your disposal. And, your images are not organized the same as they are in LrC. Not in folders, but in albums. Not trying to discourage you, but making you aware of some workflow adjustments that you really should be aware of before you make such a commitment because once you migrate to Lightroom that program pretty much takes over and it's difficult to integrate LrC into a workflow again. I'm just saying.

phototocanvaspdxAuthor

Known Participant

No, that is not 'an option' in Lightroom Classic. Lightroom Classic needs to store all its images locally, and so it does. Lightroom desktop does not have to do this, that is an option. If you are using the two together, then do not use the option to store originals in Lightroom desktop, because that would create unnecessary duplicates.

If you migrate your Lighroom Classic catalog to Lightroom, then Lightroom Classic will not download all the images again. It does not have to do that because the images are still present locally. It will of course download any image that you add to Lightroom (desktop or mobile) later.

One final thing: if you work with both apps you will have to remember this: add all your images via Lightroom desktop or Lightroom Mobile, so originals are synced. If you import images into Lightroom Classic and sync them, then these will be synced as smart previews. If you want to delete an image from your system, then you must do that in Lightroom Classic. If you delete an image in Lightroom cloud, it will only 'unsync' and remain in Lighytroom Classic.

Thanks for the info Johan. This just got interesting.

So after reading your comment, I went and looked, and sure enough, I have a ton of doubles. 18gb worth. My download folder in CC was set to a different spot than the one in Classic.

The way I see it I have two options if I want LR to restructure my organization by date.

1. Turn it off in classic. This way when my folder migrates into CC, all the files will download to the drive I specify in CC preferences. I just checked and it does them by date. If I choose this method I'm not sure how accessing those files will work in Classic, as after they are redownloaded I would delete the original location so I don't have doubles.

2. Turn it off in CC. This way Classic will redownload all synced files to a location I specify in preferences. My only concern with this method is while I am editing in CC, if I want to say go into photoshop for further edits, I will have to download it as the original downloaded by classic wont be accessible with CC? Man this is confusing.

Bottom line is I will be doing way more work in CC. I use LR time lapse, which I need classic for but those are separate images and a separate catalog. My only other real tie to Classic is my website is on smugmug and their plugin makes it really easy to upload files. I'm wondering if I should just use a separate catalog in Classic for this, and if so I can just direct Classic to the folders created by the CC download.

Does this make sense?

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded