Do I really want Lightroom to store all my IOS Phtotos?

[Tim Kambitsch]

I just joined as a paid Lightroom CC subscriber.  I may have toggled something recently because all 11,000 phtots on my iPad are syncing up to the cloud space.  I did not intend this.  On my iPad the total file is 40GB so I could store them all in the Adobe cloud but 99% are things that I won't edit.  I already have my photos synced to my iMac for backup so I am at loss as to why I would want my all my photos automatically uploaded to Adobe.  It has completed about 30% of the uploads, and while think I know how to stop it, I don't know if I should. 

I would love some friendly advice on why or why not I would want to store all my photos on Adobe and perhaps some thoughts on what complications come from trying to store and sync my entire photo library in Adobe, on my iPad, and my Mac Photos. I've had enough trouble keeping my Apple ecosystem in sync.

[selondon]

Hi Tim,

If you are a subscriber (which plan?) then Lightroom Mobile will automatically upload everything that you have imported, to the Cloud.

When you say you have the photos already synced to your iMac, what was your workflow to achieve this? And on the iMac are you using Lightroom (Cloud Based) or Lightroom Classic?

The advantages of using cloud storage is that you can access and share your photos on Desktop, Web, Mobile and view on Apple TV.

The disadvantage in that it costs money and you may prefer to store your files on a local disc with the traditional Lightroom Classic.

I have about 150GB in the Cloud and rarely have issues. Although Cloud storage is a pain if you have slow, or obviously, no internet.

The Desktop and Mobile apps store recently imported full res files for a period, determined by various factors (on Desktop you can set the % of local cache). After a while these are replaced by Smart Previews or Thumbnails to save space. Additionally any photos you edit are normally pulled down from the Cloud at full res, again being replace after a while.

Minimal disc space on a phone with low storage or a Mac/PC with a small SSD can also prove problematic.

[Tim Kambitsch]

Thank you Selondon. Your question about how I sync my photos shows I was
vague in describing my use environment.

I've never used the Lightroom Classic. As I have just joined the Lightroom
Cloud community, I didn't have any photos uploaded until just a few
weeks ago. When I said I synced by photos, I was referring solely within
the Apple ecosystem. I have thousands of photos that were mostly taken
with my point and shoot Canon cameras going back to 1999 but recent photos
are simply from my iPhones over the last decade. Using Apple's sync
feature in iTunes I regularly uploaded my photos to my aging mid-2011 Apple
iMac. iTunes allowed me to sync all my photos between the iPhone and what
pictures are from my iMac and/or iPad. I've had nearly all my photos on
three machines and more recently in iCloud. Not a completely perfect
environment but I have been able to access all my photos from all devices
and new photos get synced to all my Apple devices.

My desktop computer's aging Sierra MacOS 1012.6 operating system cannot run
Lightroom Cloud. So at the moment I have only been storing and accessing in
my Lightroom photos from my iPad.

As I mentioned in my original post, I have flipped some switch that
instructed Lightroom Cloud to suck all my iPad photos up to Adobe's Cloud.
It took a number of days, but for some reason it stopped at 4709 pictures.
And I still am trying to figure out if it has all of them.

So I plan to use Lightroom Cloud for storing and editing all the RAW files
I find worthy of importing, editing and sharing/printing, but I wasn't
expecting all my Apple photos to be imported. I have my photo library
located on my iMac (in Apple Photos) and in ICloud, that is synced with my
iPhone and iPad. Now it looks like I have all these in Adobe Lightroom
Cloud. I see all the advantages of cloud based storage, but do I really
need all of these photos in two Cloud environments? I'd love to hear how
others witinthe Apple ecosystem make use of Abobe's Cloud without confusion
and frustration.



--
Tim Kambitsch