LRC or LRD when upgrading to Mac Mini M2 Pro

Report · Nov 20, 2023

I currently run LR Classic on a Windows 10 PC. Not a gaming PC, but it does alright. However, I've decided to upgrade to a Mac Mini M2 Pro with 16GB memory and 512GB SSD.

My RAW files and my exports are both contained on a network storage device and not on the local PC.

Is there a definite advantage to switching to LR Desktop or should I stay with LRC running on the Mac with my photos staying on the NAS as now? Since I'm basically starting over in a sense, is there a better file structure AND should I switch to LRD?

I'm an amateur photographer so blinding speed is not an issue, but something faster than editing on my Win10 PC would be nice.

Report · Nov 21, 2023

I think it depends if you want all your photos in the Cloud accessible across multiple devices (bearing in mind the cost implication of a plan with the amount of Cloud Storage required).

If you are happy with Classic, just remain with that. This may help:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-cc-vs-classic-features/

Report · Nov 22, 2023

I was thinking about attaching an external SSD to the MM2 and importing to that drive instead of the NAS. For speed. When I was done editing, I would copy the RAWs to the NAS for safe-keeping. Since I don't have the physical MM2 yet, I can't say that importing to the NAS and editing from there will be slow. I'll know more next week.

Report · Nov 22, 2023

You need to realize that cloudy is a completely different paradigm. It only uses local storage as a backup to the cloud and by default offloads images that haven't been used recently and dynamically downloads what it needs. It has one extremely neat feature which is that it stores everything in the cloud and that allows your images to be the same anywhere. It does miss many features that are present in Classic (it can't print, no virtual copies, no hierarchical keywords, no publish services, etc.). So if you're counting on local storage Cloudy is not really the best solution. If you want to edit on multiple devices including tablets and phones, Cloudy is a great solution. Do not expect it to be able to do everything Classic does. It is much more basic but does that one very cool thing. Other cool thing about cloudy is that you really don't need as much local storage. You do need a good internet connection at all times though.

For me personally, I edit on Classic with most of my images being on my NAS. I can edit from anywhere in the world by VPN'ing into my home network and I also use cloudy as a companion to this on my iPad. I even travel with just my iPad and import images there throught ye USB-c port and they show up fully ready and edited on my home machine when I get back, so this (mixed Classic and Cloudy) is another workflow to consider but does take a bit of thinking through of your workflow.

Report · Nov 22, 2023

For me personally, I edit on Classic with most of my images being on my NAS.

That's what I do now, also. There's some latency going to and from the NAS, so that's why I thought a local SSD would speed up the imports and the exports. On Windblows, import/export takes a while even for a few photos. However, if there's no real speed advantage, I'll stay with my current architecture.