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I need help migrating my Lightroom Classic library to Lightroom CC

Contributor ,
Jul 15, 2020 Jul 15, 2020

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So Im considering switching from Classic to CC as I do a ton of editing on my ipad. I like the idea of my photos being in the cloud (full res). But I will still occasionally use Classic. 

So far the info I have found has told me to simply migrate the catalog to CC. I already have all my images in Classic in collections. This will simply upload them to the cloud. 

Now my question is on local storage. One person mentioned that when you open Classic, any synced collections will be dowloaded locally. Within the preferences there is a spot to select the location, and even the folder structure. I like this. So there is also a local option in CC. Should I have this turned off to avoid doubles locally? Or should I not let Classic do it?

I tried exporting a small folder as a catalog to test. The thing I don't get, is when I opened classic back up, the images all doubled in the folder within Classic. If I use my finder, the folder shows just single images. 

My plan was to open Classic, let them download to the new folder structure, then erase the old folder. If there is a way to not redownload images that are already on my hard drive, thats ideal. I have 3 TB of images and that will put me over my data cap with my ISP. 

Thanks for any tips on this workflow!

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LEGEND ,
Jul 15, 2020 Jul 15, 2020

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Syced collections are collections of images that are in Lightroom Classic that have been synchronized to Lightroom. That means smart previews are in the cloud but the master images are on your computer. When you import images directly to Lightroom (for the cloud) you can choose an option to store a local copy, but it is a copy and is not part of the Lightroom ecosystem. Images imported to Lightroom should also be added to Lightroom Classic, and in that case you would have master images in both places. In my opinion, you should think twice before migrating your catalog to Lightroom. When that choice is made you pretty much make the choice to pretty much abandon Lightroom Classic and commit yourself to using Lightroom as your primary version. It isn't practical to try to use the two versions together.

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Contributor ,
Jul 15, 2020 Jul 15, 2020

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My intention was to use CC for the primary version. There are a few reasons I still need to access my photographs in Classic, most importantly its how I upload to my website, through a plugin. 

I have been using them together for years, with Classic as my primary. Im aware of how and where the smart previews are done. My question is in regards to the local files. 

When I migrated the test catalog to CC, it created the folder structure it was supposed to in Classic, but the images did not appear. They remained in their previous location. 

Every day I take photos on my iphone. They are automatically uploaded to LR mobile, which in turn downloads them to my specified folder when I open Classic. This is an excellent way to transfer all of my mobile images to my desktop. 

So my question is do I need the local location setup in Classic, CC, or both, if I'm using CC for my primary editing. If you explained this in your answer, I'm sorry but I didn't understand.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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Just be sure to evaluate Lightroom carefully before you migrate your entire library. You can only migrate one catalog. So if you have multiple catalogs it will be necessary for you to combine all those catalogs into one. And the migration process isn't instantaneous. Also look at the feature set in Lightroom because it's not the same as LrC. Be sure you will be satisfied with what tools you will have at your disposal. And, your images are not organized the same as they are in LrC. Not in folders, but in albums. Not trying to discourage you, but making you aware of some workflow adjustments that you really should be aware of before you make such a commitment because once you migrate to Lightroom that program pretty much takes over and it's difficult to integrate LrC into a workflow again. I'm just saying.

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Contributor ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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I appreciate the warning, Im well aware of all this. As I said Ive been using the programs together for several years. I know preciseley what editing tools I will be missing, and that they are on the way. But there are a few things that CC will never be able to do. 

 

What I am looking for help on is the local storage issue. I know CC has a way to store files locally. I also know that is an option in Classic. I don't know if I need to have both of these turned on. One forum said that if I open classic after everything is synced in CC, all the photos will dowload to my specified location in the CLASSIC preferences. I tried and it did not work. I am trying to take advatange of the automatic sort by date option. The CC preferences dont give you the option. 

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LEGEND ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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I can't help you much because I don't use CC that much. I DO use it to use the mobile Lightroom camera to take images that automatically download to LrC. And that's about the only real purpose I use it for. I don't really bother to edit on my iPhone. I use Lightroom very little.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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No, that is not 'an option' in Lightroom Classic. Lightroom Classic needs to store all its images locally, and so it does. Lightroom desktop does not have to do this, that is an option. If you are using the two together, then do not use the option to store originals in Lightroom desktop, because that would create unnecessary duplicates.

 

If you migrate your Lighroom Classic catalog to Lightroom, then Lightroom Classic will not download all the images again. It does not have to do that because the images are still present locally. It will of course download any image that you add to Lightroom (desktop or mobile) later.

 

One final thing: if you work with both apps you will have to remember this: add all your images via Lightroom desktop or Lightroom Mobile, so originals are synced. If you import images into Lightroom Classic and sync them, then these will be synced as smart previews. If you want to delete an image from your system, then you must do that in Lightroom Classic. If you delete an image in Lightroom cloud, it will only 'unsync' and remain in Lighytroom Classic.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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Contributor ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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Thanks for the info Johan. This just got interesting. 

 

So after reading your comment, I went and looked, and sure enough, I have a ton of doubles. 18gb worth. My download folder in CC was set to a different spot than the one in Classic. 

 

The way I see it I have two options if I want LR to restructure my organization by date. 

1. Turn it off in classic. This way when my folder migrates into CC, all the files will download to the drive I specify in CC preferences. I just checked and it does them by date. If I choose this method I'm not sure how accessing those files will work in Classic, as after they are redownloaded I would delete the original location so I don't have doubles. 

2. Turn it off in CC. This way Classic will redownload all synced files to a location I specify in preferences. My only concern with this method is while I am editing in CC, if I want to say go into photoshop for further edits, I will have to download it as the original downloaded by classic wont be accessible with CC? Man this is confusing. 

 

Bottom line is I will be doing way more work in CC. I use LR time lapse, which I need classic for but those are separate images and a separate catalog. My only other real tie to Classic is my website is on smugmug and their plugin makes it really easy to upload files. I'm wondering if I should just use a separate catalog in Classic for this, and if so I can just direct Classic to the folders created by the CC download. 

 

Does this make sense?

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Community Expert ,
Jul 17, 2020 Jul 17, 2020

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Bottom line is I will be doing way more work in CC. I use LR time lapse, which I need classic for but those are separate images and a separate catalog. My only other real tie to Classic is my website is on smugmug and their plugin makes it really easy to upload files. I'm wondering if I should just use a separate catalog in Classic for this, and if so I can just direct Classic to the folders created by the CC download.

 

That won't work because those images will be unedited originals. What you can do is export these images 'as original' (or as DNG) from Lightroom cloud and then import them into a non-synced Lightroom Classic catalog. That is probably the easiest and safest method.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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Community Expert ,
Jul 17, 2020 Jul 17, 2020

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>I use LR time lapse, which I need classic for but those are separate images and a separate catalog.

 

If you have a license that includes Photoshop, there is a much better method to make timelapses that also works with Lightroom Cloudy and you wouldn't need Classic for. Just google for timelapse Photoshop and you will find lots of tutorials. It is far more flexible (easy pans and zooms for example and you can do any resolution including 4k) and gives way better results than doing it in Classic.

 

>My only other real tie to Classic is my website is on smugmug and their plugin makes it really easy to upload files.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if a connector for Lightroom Cloud gets created sometime but it is probably still far out. Classic really works well with these publish plugins and we haven't seen anything like it in Cloudy.

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Contributor ,
Jul 17, 2020 Jul 17, 2020

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The timelapse program I use is called LR timelapse and it works in conjunction with Lightroom classic. It's amazing piece of software. But I'll look into Photoshop thanks. 
I imagine that stuff is coming too that's kind of why I wanted to try to download through classic and keep my Lightroom classic catalog close to the cc system as I could so eventually when they work together if they do I still have that option.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 17, 2020 Jul 17, 2020

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Ah, I just checked it out and it appears it has become way better than the original script that I used years ago that had the same name. This is much more full featured and looks better than the Photoshop route at least from the webpage indeed. The Photoshop solution can do all these things but achieving them is not as one-click as what is shown here.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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If you have 3 TB of images, then migrating the Lightroom Classic catalog means you need 3 TB of cloud space. Migrating is all-or-nothing, there is no selective sync like you have in Lightroom Classic with synced collections. The entire catalog will be migrated to the cloud!

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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Contributor ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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Yes I know, I would get 5tb of cloud space.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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You would also need 3TB of local storage space on your system disk. When you migrate a catalog, Lightroom Cloud copies all the images into a local folder on your hard drive. It then uploads those images. This prevents many people from migrating their catalog at once and the only way to deal with this is to migrate your catalog in sections by exporting a subcatalog from your main catalog and migrating them piece by piece.

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Contributor ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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I have a 12tb raid array that my images are currently stored on.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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It doesn't matter. Lightroom Cloud always uses the startup disk for migrating

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Contributor ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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Even though I set the destination for somewhere else? I am planning on doing it in stages, my IPS has caps that I will destroy otherwise. 

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Contributor ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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Does it help if i import the images vs migrate?

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Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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If you import it does the same thing. It copies all the images into a local cache on your startup disk and then uploads them before deleting the local copies. You can do the import indeed (make sure to write xmp sidecars from Classic to make sure your edits transfer) but you would again need to do it in batches.

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Contributor ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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Thanks for the info. All of my images are already in CC synced in Classic collections. Because of this are the sidecar files still necessary?

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Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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Oh! That actually changes things considerably. In that case you shouldn't migrate and you don't need to write sidecars since all the edits are already synced. You can simply import batches of images from your external RAID into Lightroom Cloud and it will recognize it already knows about these images and it will just upload the raw files and associate them with the already existing entries in the cloud catalog that were synced from Classic. It will need to upload the raw since Classic only syncs smart previews.

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Contributor ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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Fantastic! So if I wanted to take advantage of the folder system cc does when it downloads, after everything is uploaded should I just turn on local storage and let it all redownload? How will this work if accessing the files from classic again?

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Community Expert ,
Jul 16, 2020 Jul 16, 2020

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You can have Lightroom Cloudy download copies of your images indeed using its preferences. This only helps to increase the speed of access to your images or allows you to work without internet access. One caveat is that you do not want to set the download location to the same location as where Classic stores images. This can lead to serious corruption and file loss. So you will end up with duplicate images. Also note that people often think of this option as a way to backup their images in Cloudy but it really isn't. If you accidentally delete an image from the cloud storage, Lightroom Cloudy will delete it from the local storage too! It is just a fast access cache.

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Contributor ,
Jul 17, 2020 Jul 17, 2020

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Great info thanks. I will

aleays have a local copy. I guess that's why my thought was to let classic store them locally and then I can still

have access for my other uses. Would the only disadvantage be speed in CC? Most of the time I will just edit with smart previews. I think it was another post of yours in a different forum that made me think to download them through Classic.

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