Photography Masterclass - Keeping Everything In Sync - Desktop, Cloud, and Mobile

Welcome to Terry White's Photography Masterclass! In this episode, we'll do a deep dive in Lightroom Syncing from Desktop, Cloud, and Mobile and cover both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic. Get your questions answered.

[@stephanmanfre3121]

Brilliant tutorial! Two suggestions / add ons: - To free up cloud storage space: Once Lr photos have sync‘ed down to LrC, I move the physical files to my standard folder structure (all inside LrC, of course) (in my case organized by date). I then delete them from all collections (I just delete them from „all sync’ed photos“ in LrC). The photos are no longer sync’ed and cloud space is freed up. Now I put them into whatever collection I want them to be in. Only smart preview sync‘ed and no cloud space taken up. What sounds like a lenghty process is a quick thing once you get used to the workflow. - Clean up my hard drive / physical photos when working in Lr: I do underwater photography and a significant % of my shots are just for the bin. I often use unproductive time at stations, in trains, etc. to clean up my pictures. However, if I work from Lr and delete a photo, it is only removed from the sync‘ed photos. The physical photo remains on the hard drive. If I want to delete a photo physically, I do not „delete“ it in Lr, but rather mark it as „rejected“. Next time in LrC, I delete all rejected photos.

[@stineldo]

I don't understand the "The physical photo remains on the hard drive" part. If you delete the pic on your iPhone, would that not also delete that pic on your computer/mac (and delete it from the MobileDownloads.lrdata "folder")? I guess my logic is correct for photos taken on the iPhone (so LR is the source). I guess you meant that your source is LRC

[@stephanmanfre3121]

@@stineldo - Thanks for your reply! Actually, the situation is as follows: When LR (mobile) synchronizes your photos with LrC (incl. those taken with your iPhone; LR being the source), the "full resolution photo" is sync'ed (not just smart previews). I.e., you have the original photo in full resolution in LrC. If you then delete a photo in LR, the photo is NOT deleted in LrC. (That's just the way Adobe has structured the programm). NB: the photo is removed from your collection in LrC, but not from your folder / physical hard drive. In contrast, if you delete a photo in LrC, the photo is also removed from LR.

[@stineldo]

@@stephanmanfre3121 ok I will try to drag one of the synced photos to my standard folder structure and then check if these pics are gone out of the MobileDownloads.lrdata "folder" on my mac! Thank you for the explanation!

[@davep6603]

Thank you, Terry! The line you kept saying, “smart previews up, originals down”, is the simplest (and best) explanation of how the sync works between Lr Classic and Cloud.

[@BretBihler]

Thanks so much for this info Terry. You ALWAYS have great information for us, and always explained in good, simple detail.

[@TerryLeeWhite]

Thank you!

[@suryajala]

This hour cleared up issues I have had over and over. Many thanks!

[@corvanderlinden4650]

Great class - very good explained

[@jfbruceco]

I echo the comments that this can be confusing and adds for potential to lose photos. Lightroom should have more descriptive notes when you delete, it should note that classic versions are not deleted, and you may want to reject if you want both Lightroom and Classic to perform the same delete. Adobe should have a reference page for each situation. For example, I use Classic with the 20gb cloud storage. If I go on vacation and shoot 50gb of photos and video, what are my best options? I don’t want to pay for. 1tb of cloud . Love the system but there needs to be more reference material. Great job with this video but watching an hour long video hoping it answers my question is hard to find time for . All the best, keep up with these videos, they are very helpful.

[@doriswoodruff4810]

Best class ever explaining the syncing….only question i have is a friend started with Lightroom to import photos into and later changed to LrC . She didnt know all the implications of that when she began to learn and now doesnt want to use Lr to edit. She wants to get the originals down into folder etc on her LrC so all will be in her drive backup rather than the cloud. How can we accomplish this? we will both be rewatching several times this video…it was terrific…we just dont want to accidentally NOT have the originals as their are 1500 photos and many she wants to edit and use via LrC.

[@TerryLeeWhite]

Hi, thanks. If she turns on syncing in LrC that should bring down all the originals from Lr.

[@JBrandt67]

Thanks for this video... The sync is SO complex to understand and very confusing. Once images come from different devices, you slowly mess up the storage in the cloud with all the originals sitting there. How can I assure that ONLY smart views remain in the cloud? And once originals are downloaded to LrC, am I able to move them in decent folder structures? Seems they end up ALL in one single folder and I can not manage them as I can manage local LrC files.

[@TerryLeeWhite]

Hi, In order for ONLY Smart Previews to remain in the cloud you would have to (1) Let them sync down to LrC and verify that they are there. (2) then go to Lr and delete the images from the cloud. You can do this on mobile, web or Lr desktop. Those images you deleted will remain in LrC UNSYNC'd (3) then you would drag them back into a sync'd collection in LrC to put them back in the cloud as Smart Previews. Once images are downloaded to LrC you can move them to different folders with in LrC all you want. They do not have to remain in the single folder that they downloaded to.

[@JBrandt67]

@@TerryLeeWhite This is very helpful, Terry. This helps a lot to understand where the physical files go. I am very familiar with how computers manage files, so I get it. Wondering how a "normal" user could ever understand this. Would be great if Adobe could make it more transparent where physical files go, etc. Thank you again!

[@stineldo]

@@TerryLeeWhite in step 2, could you - instead of deleting them in LR like you suggested - not just move the files in LRC from their location and drag them into a folder on the hard drive (inside LRC). If you delete them in the "all synced photos", this should also be fine right? That way, you can do everything inside LRC

[@colinweir5807]

I have images in LR classic with smart previews in LR {cloud}. When I edit the LR previews and later open LR classic, it overrides and removes LR edits. Am I missing a step or setting ? 🐯

[@AbhilashaKitchenQueen]

💕💕💕👌💕💕💕👌

[@twingo7]

Superb tutorial… thank you very much. My only question relates to lr classic I get that it only syncs collections. But what if you have created perfectly structured folders, these don’t sync to the cloud. You must create the same structure for your folders as your collections. Am I missing something? In lr classic How do we sync our folders to our collections so these can be uploaded Thanks

[@TerryLeeWhite]

Drag the folders down to the Collections panel to instantly turn them into Collections. Then sync. Also going forward it’s best to organize using Collections instead of Folders. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZOwZ5VqppZqg7s

[@lynnwhyjae]

Terry, noticed that all my photos I imported via iPad to CC are no longer in my classic library. They have the exclamation point. How do I get my CC albums/photos back in Classic? If you have a video on that great, please point me somewhere!

[@mauriciobaez525]

Great video; and it gets even more complicated when you try to use it with onedrive instead of the adobe cloud expensive storage

[@TeamDisney24]

Great video. Thanks for the info. At the end, you said the phone (or iPad) would only use a smaller version until you exported it, then it would download the full version of the photo. What if the cloud only has the Smart Preview? Would it pull the raw photo from my LRc into my phone or iPad?

[@TerryLeeWhite]

If the cloud only has a Smart Preview that’s all you can get.

[@TeamDisney24]

@@TerryLeeWhite Ahh, ok. So I can make edits on my iPad but to export a quality edit, I need to do it in Lightroom Classic. Makes sense. And all edits I do on the iPad transfer over like presets and keywords, right? Thanks so much for all your informative videos.

[@TerryLeeWhite]

@@TeamDisney24 keywords are not compatible between Lr and LrC.

[@mpbdsnu]

What use is a smart preview if I can’t do anything with it?

[@TerryLeeWhite]

Because you CAN do something with it. You can edit it in LrC. You can even export images from it. You can SEE the images when you don't have the originals with you. They load faster on mobile. I could go on, but I think I've answered the question.

[@velmaecasanova4766]

How are phone photos stored in the LrC Folder structure?

[@TerryLeeWhite]

No different than any other photos.

[@ReyMartinez133]

How to FIX Lightroom PERMANENTLY PENDING message syncing 3 photo....last version Lightroom.......

[@TerryLeeWhite]

this might help: helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/kb/stuck-syncing.html

[@ggclawyer]

Great explanation thank you but definitely adobe need to make things more simple specially like albums and collections catalogs… too complicated