Synching smart previews and editing in LR Cloud

[heaterography]

I have LrC and also LR (cloud).  If I sync a directory to the cloud, it uploads a smart preview.  If I go into LR and work on the smart preview, will the resolution be good enough to edit with?  I'm used to using LrC on my big desktop, but would like to use my laptop so I'm not isolated from the family as much.

I've been struggling to try and find a reliable way to upload RAW to the cloud and work on that in LR, but I just can't get a reliable way to do it, and still sync back to LrC.   It's been a struggle for me to try and wrap my head around this.

My last attempt, I tried sync, so smart previews are in the cloud.  I then went into LR, loaded RAW from local to cloud.  I then ended up with LR showing original in both places (local and cloud), but when I go back to LrC, I see that the originals I uploaded in LR show up as virtual copies, but not stacked with the original.  Don't quite know what to do with that, or if that will even be workable.

Using Windows 11, fully updated.  Lightroom classic and Lightroom both updated to the newest versions.

[Anshul_Saini]

Hi @heaterography,

Thank you for reaching out with your detailed questions regarding the interaction between Lightroom Classic and the cloud-based Lightroom. Here’s the easiest way to think about it:

Lightroom Classic (LrC) only sends Smart Previews to the cloud, not full RAW files.
These Smart Previews are smaller than RAW but still great for editing. Any changes you make in Lightroom (cloud) will be synced back to your original RAW file in LrC.

If you upload RAW files from Lightroom (cloud), they are stored in the cloud as full originals.
When they come back to LrC, they show up as separate files in the “From Lightroom” collection, not stacked with your originals. That’s normal.

Best workflow if you want LrC as your main library:

1. Import RAW files into LrC.
2. Put them in a synced collection.
3. Edit Smart Previews in Lightroom (cloud) on your laptop.
4. Edits sync back to your originals in LrC.

This way, you avoid duplicates and keep everything organised.

If you want a single source of truth, avoid uploading RAW from Lightroom (cloud). Stick to syncing Smart Previews from Lightroom Classic instead.

This behaviour is normal and workable, but the cleanest workflow is:
Import RAW into LrC > Sync Smart Previews >  Edit in LR (cloud).
For your immediate need to edit on the laptop away from the desktop, your current Smart Previews workflow is the easiest and most effective method.

For full details, you can check out this help article: https://adobe.ly/3MDh9Ap

I hope this helps!

Best,

Anshul Saini