Lightroom Mobile Unable to Get Full Resolution or RAW Files

[wheretowill]

Hello! I'm really hoping someone can help me or point me in the right direction!

This is a long story but I will keep it short. I recently had a storage problem on my last vacation. My SD cards were filling up quicker than anticipated and each time I dumped them onto my iPad I started running out of space on my iPad. Upon arriving home I had to do some serious rearranging of my pictures on my desktop computer. After a lot of juggling around on different harddrives, I finally managed to get all of pictures in one location and synced in a collection so that I can edit on my iPad or iPhone when I am not at home. (I use Lightroom Classic on my desktop).

Now the real problem. For some reason, when I'm editing on my iPad I can't seem to get the full resolution of my pictures! When I am on a picture and I click the little cloud in the upper right hand corner, it usually would say "DSC12345.ARW downloaded" OR "Get this original". It will not let me download the original RAW file for the full resolution because the button to "Get this original" is not there anymore! What it says instead is "Local - Smart Preview"  and "Cloud Backup - Smart Preview". I can't be certain but I think what it used to say was "Local - Smart Preview" and "Cloud Backup - RAW File" and then I was able to click "Get this Original" to get the full quality and resolution of my images. I hope this is making sense....

I have all of my RAW files on my hard drive on my desktop computer and they have been imported and added to a synced lightroom collection. Is there something I'm missing? How was I able to view full res pictures on my iPad before and now I can't? Also in case anybody asks, in the settings in Lightroom Mobile under "Cloud Storage & Sync" I do have "Only Download Smart Previews" checked OFF. 

Any thoughts?? I really just need to be able to view my pictures on my mobile devices at the full resolution! Do I need to import these pictures differently or sync something somewhere or refresh somethng or update an Adobe file folder for synced photos?

Send help!

[JP Hess]

When images are imported to Lightroom Classic, then added to a collection, and then that collection is synchronized to the cloud for sharing with other devices, the images that are synchronized are only smart previews. It is not possible to synchronize full-sized images from Lightroom Classic. If you want full-sized images in the cloud they must be imported using Lightroom (the cloud version). Alternatively, you can take images with your mobile device and those images will be added as full-sized images. But any collections synchronized from Lightroom Classic will only be added as smart previews.

[wheretowill]

Thanks for your response!

So I did a test. I opened Lightroom CC on my desktop and imported a RAW file to which it did indeed upload the file and I could not access the RAW file at full resolution on my iPad. Perfecct. 

So now I will have to upload everything to Lightroom CC but continue to edit in Classic (I prefer Classic over CC) and on my mobile devices? Seems kind of silly that the Classic version will only upload Smart Previews to the cloud...

And now I'm wondering if I should upload all of these photos from my vacation through Lightroom CC on my desktop and run the risk of having duplicates since I already uploaded the same files to Classic? Or should I delete everything and just start fresh and upload through the Lightroom CC. And then what would happen to the edits that I've done thus far if I do decide to delete everything and re-upload? I'm assuming they would be gone too. What a headache!

[JohanElzenga]

If you import the original images in Lightroom desktop, and do this from the location where Lightroom Classic stored them, then you will not get duplicates. Lightroom is smart enough to know that it already has smart previews online, and replace the smart previews with originals.

[JP Hess]

Seems kind of silly that Classic will only upload smart previews to the cloud? That is by design, that is how it has always been. The beauty of that system is that the smart previews do not impact your cloud allotment. In other words, it is possible to allow Lightroom Classic to upload as many smart previews as you wish and never run out of cloud space. You can edit those smart previews, and the adjustments made to the smart previews will affect the full-sized images wherever they are stored. The downside is that it is not possible to open those smart previews in Photoshop, and it isn't possible to zoom them to 100% for critical detail work. That would have to be done on the master images. Importing the full-sized images using Lightroom desktop DOES impact whatever cloud allotment you have as part of your subscription.

[wheretowill]

I guess for my workflow it feels silly to me. Others might be perfectly what they need.

I do a lot of detailed work and require the sharpest images possible. So when I'm going through my albums flagging and deleting the slightly out of focus images, I need to be able to see everything in the original photos and not the lower res Smart Previews.

I'm trying to think back to how I was handling photos before and I'm seeming to remember every time I did a shoot I would plug my camera directly into my iPad and import the photos to Lightroom which would also upload the RAW files to the cloud. When I jumped on to Lightroom Classic after they were all there. It must have just thrown me for a loop when I uploaded through Classic instead, only to come across this issue now for me.

Thank you for your response though and helping me figure this out! Greatly appreciated.

[JP Hess]

As you have discovered, importing images directly to Lightroom Classic is not the best choice for you if you want your full-sized images in the cloud. You will have to import them using your iPad, and then let them synchronize down to your Lightroom Classic. Using that workflow will allow you to have the full-sized raw files on both computers. If you import the images to Lightroom Classic then it is only possible to put the images in a collection and share them as smart previews in the cloud. That has always been the plan. Many users who go this route depend on this workflow  so as to not exhaust their cloud allotment.