P: "Reader" for family/parents (private, encrypted sharing)

Report · Mar 06, 2019

Hi. After having migrated my wife's and my consolidated 50k+ photo library from iCloud to Lightroom CC, I am now looking into how to share specific subsets of pictures with her and my family, most importantly our parents. We have agreed that we do not want an "open", unencrypted system, as could be done by sharing on the web: (a) because of privacy issues, but more importantly (b) because we would need to send around new links for every new album to all family members, making administering the family-wide photo sharing much more complex. Once we start having kids in 2-3 years, this issue will boil up big times 😉

What I am suggesting to come up with is a read-only sign-in for family members (or standalone "Lightroom CC Reader" app) to which we can share specific albums (e.g., those including our future kids) without the photo data to leave the Lightroom CC ecosystem. This has briefly mentioned here, but I felt this issue is big enough to start a new conversation.

I know that I could resort to Lightroom CC's web-sharing option, create "shared albums" in iCloud and post pictures to those, or use another cloud-based service to share photos with family, such as Dropbox. However, all these solutions require more effort, complexity, picture data in multiple and thus redundant locations, etc. I just want a tidy, easy to use option within Lightroom CC.

Thanks for considering this request.

Report · Mar 06, 2019

Hi.
I think you can do an adobe portfolio. Photos will stay in Lightroom. You can specify which albums to show. It can be protected by password. The only issues is it does not update automatically, that is, every time you add a new photos to an album you have to manually enter into your site and RESET FROM LIGHTROOM.

Report · Mar 06, 2019

Apple TV ‘s Lightroom CC is viewer only

Report · Mar 07, 2019

Good thing you can take it with you everywhere you go! 🙂

Report · Mar 07, 2019

In order to share our family photos with my wife I have to install LR mobile on her phone/tablet. However there is a risk of her accidentally marking, starring, deleting photos from the library.

She doesn't need to edit anything, just safely view and share. Is there a feature planned for this? How do I go about this without creating albums and sharing practically all of our photos?

Report · Mar 07, 2019

Thank you for this input! I will consider it as a temporary fix. However, it seems more like a "hack" - ideally, my parents would get a push notification on their iPad when there are new pictures available in any of the shared albums. Setting up a website with Adobe Portfolio would qualify more as a "pull" method, in which the receiving party has to actively check for updates, rather than a "push" method by which the receiver gets notified.

Report · Mar 07, 2019

I actually wasn't aware of this, but it makes sense. Thanks for pointing it out!!
Still, unless I get something very wrong, whoever watches on Apple TV will see all albums, right? I don't want my relatives to see all the albums in my library 😉 And as Armen points out, not really portable 😞

Report · Mar 07, 2019

After thinking more about it, I guess what I am really asking for here is

(a) the ability to share albums (and maybe entire folders) in a view-only ("read-only") fashion between Lightroom CC users, and
(b) the ability to sign up for a free Lightroom CC membership that only allows viewing shared albums.

I am sure lots of initally "viewing-only" members will convert to paying customers over time, so it should make sense from a business perspective as well.
Again, thanks for considering this request.

Report · Mar 09, 2019

Hi,

You already can share view only albums in 3 official ways and many third party ways.
1) You can share an album, or 2) you can publish an adobe portfolio site, or 3) you can create and share a Spark page. The site can also be password protected. In which ways these solutions are not good for you?

Best

Report · Mar 15, 2019

Hi KK! Have you had any success with this workflow? I think we are searching for solution to the same problem.

In my experience sharing albums is cumbersome. Ability to share folders would help but still far from perfect.

Report · Mar 15, 2019

Hi Armen, no I have not. I decided against building a web-based photo sharing system for my parents which they will then try to access on a browser on their iPads. So yes, currently it is very cumbersome. My wife and I share one account, and so far we didn't have any accidental deletions/markings/ratings. I think you and me need to consider that there are many photographers here that care for advanced editing instead of us "lifestyle people" who care for organizing and sharing photos...

All I hope for, honestly, is to inspire the developers and hope that within a year or two, such a functionality gets added. I am sure there is a big market for sharing within the Lightroom CC ecosystem, think digital picture frames that draw automatically from a shared library, as you can do with Google Photos right now (https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/22/18005724/google-home-hub-digital-photo-frame-review-specs-featur...). It would be so great to be able to get photos onto my realtives' digital pricture frames without any "hacks" - just as part of the Lightroom CC experience.

Report · Mar 15, 2019

Hi C Martello,

1) You can share an album

Do you mean I can actually share an album with another Lightroom CC account? In the sense that we both see the same album; when I add pictures to the album, they will be visible in the other Lightroom CC account; when the other person deletes an image, it will be deleted from my Lightroom CC account as well (considering I chose the album not to be read-only)?

Does such a functionality exist - or did you only refer to sharing via a web link?

In which ways these solutions are not good for you?

Well, they are not good insofar as I would like to make many of my photos that I will organize in Lightroom CC over the next years available for my relatives to view permanenty -- i.e., let them look for new (and older) pictures of their grandchilds whenever they want. I want this to be as automated as possible.
(1) Web-based sharing albums is cumbersome because I would have to send out links to my relatives after every vacation, after every special event that I create a new album for. After a while, they themselves would need some form of organization for all the links I have sent - not the Lightroom CC experience I am enjoying as the owner of the Lightroom CC account. Plus, most of older relatives are on iPads, where web-based photo libraries are far from easy to navigate.
(2) Adobe portfolio is cumbersome because obviously, it has been designed for a different set of users (photographers?). As above, I would need to manually add every new album to the portfolio, and update the portfolio after every photo that has been added (see first comment in this threat). This is not realistic - I want new photos of my kids to show up on my parents' devices immediately after I took them (auto-import from phone), not after I have executed a sequence of administrative steps. Also, again the issue of iPads, web-browsing on iPads (see above), and the necessity to enter passwords in a webbrowser on iPads by senior citizens 😉
(3) Now, I am not familiar with Spark. But it seems to be web-based as well, has to be manually administered, etc.

I just want to be able to take a photo with the phone, have that photo imported in an album in Lightroom CC on my phone, and then, a few seconds later, have a push notification show up on my parents' iPads that a new photo from e.g. our winter vacation show up in their read-only Lightroom CC app on their iPad.

I hope I didn't bore anyone reading this 😉 I'm sure many people, especially the younger ones, care for such a functionality.

Thanks & Regards!

Report · Mar 15, 2019

So why would you just not use Google Photos? It ticks all the boxes and even more.

Report · Mar 15, 2019

Good point! Because a) I want to diversify my data among different companies, b) Google knows already way to much about me, and most importantly c) Lightroom CC finally offers the functionality I was looking for (cloud-based iPhoto successor). Google Photos, for example, does not offer to search for photos that are not part of any album.
Anyhow, I really love Lightroom, I'm just asking to make a great product even better (after all, Lightroom CC is in its early development).

Report · Jul 26, 2024

I love flipping through my photos on my iPad and smartphone and even showing them to my family and friends. But it's annoying how easily I accidentally change some settings (rating, rejection) while browsing. It would be great if Lightroom mobile had a view mode. In view mode, I could browse through my images without fear of accidentally making changes to my images.