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Jacob William
Jacob William
Participant
December 16, 2020
Answered

Lighroom CC and Original files

  • December 16, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 714 views

Hi 

 

Ive been having a bit of confision when using Lighroom CC. I thought it was all coloud based, but certian files get stored as 'Originals' on y harddrive. Can someone explian to me what these originals are? Is it because Im doing an edit in Photoshop then back into lightroom? 

 

Im relativley new to this, and trying to save myself a headache when storing files as Im unsuure as to what they get stored for.

 

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jim Wilde

Although Lightroom does indeed store your originals in the cloud, there are certain situations (mainly when editing an image) where it's better from a performance perspective to temporarily download and then utilise a copy of the image to the specified local hard drive. So that's what Lightroom does, but unless you have chosen in Preferences to "Store a copy of all originals locally", those temporary downloads should get deleted by Lightroom at some point (although the algorithms which control that need to be tightened, as currently those "temporary" originals are hanging around for too long), You can of course specify a separate drive for those downloaded original copies in order to avoid too much space on the system drive being used.

1 reply

Michael J. Hoffman
Community Expert
Michael J. HoffmanCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 16, 2020

There are two versions of Lightoom, and the names have changed over time, so it's common for new users to be confused. The two current versions are called:

 

  • Lightroom - the cloud based version (originals in the cloud), with desktop, mobile and web clients. Currently at version 4.1
  • Lightroom Classic - the desktop version (originals on your hard drive). Currently at version 10.1

 

Does this help?

Jacob William
Jacob WilliamAuthor
Participant
December 16, 2020

Hi Michael 

 

I'm using cloud based but it's storing certain original files, not all of them, on my hard drive, which I don't understand how it selects these, if I can disable it, and if not, how I can at least select certain folder to save into as right now it's creating tons of folders for the dates they download.

 

I chose cloud to save my HD and external storage but if it's saving originals to my HD I may as well be using Classic? 

 

thanks!

Jim Wilde
Community Expert
Jim WildeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
December 17, 2020

Although Lightroom does indeed store your originals in the cloud, there are certain situations (mainly when editing an image) where it's better from a performance perspective to temporarily download and then utilise a copy of the image to the specified local hard drive. So that's what Lightroom does, but unless you have chosen in Preferences to "Store a copy of all originals locally", those temporary downloads should get deleted by Lightroom at some point (although the algorithms which control that need to be tightened, as currently those "temporary" originals are hanging around for too long), You can of course specify a separate drive for those downloaded original copies in order to avoid too much space on the system drive being used.

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