Syncing of Color Labels: Lightroom CC (V9) and LRC(v15): Smart Previews

[dragondart]

Testing the new color label support in Lightroom Desktop (v9)  syncing with LRC. Changes to color labels are correctly sync'd from Lightrooom desktop(V9) to the sync'd images in LRC(v15). Also the reverse works - change a label in the sync'd image in LRC and its reflected in the cloud clients. Smart previews only seem to work one way. If I change the color label in an image file in LRC that is sync'd via smart previews to the cloud - it is correctly reflected in Lightroom Desktop(V9), However the reverse is not true. If I change a color label in a syn'd smart preview in Lightroom Desktop(v9) it is not updated in LRC. This seems a bit odd as star rating for example are. Also it seems odd to work one way. I would understand if ti didnt sync at all.

[Aleke]

Hi @dragondart, thanks so much for reaching out!

When you get a chance, could you share a quick screen recording of your workflow? That’ll help us take a closer look and better understand what’s going on.

Appreciate it!

Alek

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen · Accepted solution]

Cloud sync of color labels between Desktop and Classic isn't supported yet. I can't reproduce what you're seeing with synced smart previews, but it could well be like the old trick/bug that got keywords to the cloud in older versions, where it got pulled from xmp already stored in the smart previews.

It is supposed to / does work between Local mode and Classic using XMP files, but there are a few oddities because of the way LR Classic handles color labels (being able to assign different words to different colors, etc.)

[dragondart]

Thanks @Victoria Bampton LR Queen (yet again!). As it happens I did a complete re-test and you are absolutely right. Heavon knows what I did the first time!.  I can confirm that changing color labels in cloud sync'd files in LRC does get reflected in LR just not from LR to LRC. Note I just use the standard color labels. Also it works for smart previews from LRC to LR - in fact any change to a "smart preview) file will cause the color label to be picked up by LR Cloud.

As per an earlier post on renaming - not reflecting changes back from LR to LRC is, for me, a bit of a blocker as I'd like to use the sync back to LRC to enble me to make a backup of my cloud files

@Aleke - no need to send you my workflow as this seems to be working as designed.

[grayj7988641]

Not all photos seem to sync across Lightroom and Lightroom CC. 

[alexeit20270339]

Could it be that the the color lables sync from LrC to LR once -- if applied in LrC prior to being added to the cloud? And, as you say, they don't sync back from LR to LrC if changed in LR.  This behavior would be consistent with how tags (keywords) sync.  In my testing, I cannot get a change of a color flag in LrC to an already uploaded image to reflect in LR.

[dragondart]

@alexeit20270339 color labels, like edits etc, will sync from LRC to LR evertime you change them. They just don't sync from LR to LRC yet. As I said above if they did, along with the new file name change feature, it would be a automatic way to get a local UPTODATE copy of cloud images which you could then backup with timemachine etc. I'm on the way to migrate from LRC to Lightroom cloud and will use this mechanism. The other option is to export evertime you edit an image but that's just to prone to forgetting - at least for me! Also export doesn't use the new .acr sidecar for certain changes - they still go in the .xmp file.

[dragondart]

On migrating an LRC Catalog(V15) to the Cloud (Lightroom V9) not all images have their color labels copies across! I follwed the documented process on preparing the catalog prior to migrating. After successfully migrating only the first 55 (capture date order) had color labels migrated - the remaining 23 did not despite having labels. I noticed the behaviot on a prior migration but assumed I ahd dome something incorrectly. 

The LRC catalog was created by "Export this Folder as a Catalog" from my master catalog. There was no medadata mismatch with files or missing files.

I have had some migrations (smaller in no of files) succusfully migrate all labels.  

Thoughts?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@dragondart 

At this stage in the Color Label implementation, this is not unexpected behavior. Future updates will address this.  Unfortunately, I do not have an ETA for this. 

[dragondart]

Thank you @Rikk Flohr: Photography. Just to clarify are you saying that when migrating an LRC catalog the migration of color labels is effectlvely unreliable at the moment - ie it works for some images but not all?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

The method for transferring Color Label information from a Lightroom Classic catalog to the Lightroom Ecosystem will be changing in a future release. Until then, this workaround may suffice.

You can try this in your Migrating Catalog:

1.  Go to All Photos
2.  Filter for Red
3.  Select All
4.  Set label to none
5.  Reset to Red
6.  Repeat for Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple.
7.  Migrate catalog

Do you see a different result?

If yes - and it is better, that will be the limit for today's version.

If yes - and it is not a better result, we will need more information. 

If no - we need to find out if the colors that fail to migrate are "White"

[dragondart]

Thanks @Rikk Flohr: Photography . I'm not 100% sure what you are suggesting - it seems you are suggesting all color labels to none and then migrating. I can see I wasn't 100% clear in what was happening in my post. All images are migrated but some don't get labels migrated. The issue seems to be that the migration process gives up transferring labels. I have purple and green set as labels. It seems to happily transfer labels for 55 of the images (be they purple, green). It then gives up for the last 23 even though they have labels (some purple and some green). That is was is really odd. So all images are migrated - just not all labels!

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

No. See step 5 again (I have reworded it)

This will do nothing for your migration in the past, but might be worth a try in a future migration.  Until the aforementioned changes come in...

[dragondart · Accepted solution]

@Rikk Flohr: Photography I followed your suggestion with the added step of "Metadata->Save MetaData to File" and re-migrated the catalog (I did have to create a new catalog - just renaming the existing one LR would allow a re-migration) and then migrated it to LR and it worked! Next time I migrate I will simply try forcing the metadata write to files before hand and see if thats the issue. Note Smart collections I had set up showed no problems with metadata conflict. 

But thanks as forcing the metadata to be uptodate seems to have solved the problem

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Thanks for letting us know. 

[dragondart · Accepted solution]

@Rikk Flohr: Photography I did indeed migrate another LRC catalog to LR and only did a "Metadata->Save MetaData to File" prior to the mirgration and it sucessfully transfered all color labels. No need to reset the color labels. As I have a large-ish LRC catalog I am only migratiing a portion at a time by "exporting as a catalog" a number of files and then migrating the new catalog. I think what was happening was despite settting "automatically writing metadata to files" not all files hads been updated in the backfround prior to migrating the catalog. Its a bit odd as the smart collections I had set up to check on metadata status were showing no issues. Clearly that was not the case. A forced save meta data to files has solved the issue. Thansk again for your help...

[Ken Tryon]

I just updated to v9.0 (I'm not in the beta program), and syncing color labels between LR and LRC was my first question. It sounds like this is planned for future releases, but there are details to be worked out—is that accurate?

Off topic: I'm happy to see bulk renaming has been added, and it would be even better if it was available on export. 😏