Today’s Question: Since syncing [to the cloud] is possible with Lightroom Classic, can’t you work on your images on any device, thereby invalidating a potential benefit of Lightroom Cloud?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can edit images synchronized from Lightroom Classic from virtually anywhere, such as by using the Lightroom mobile app or Lightroom in a web browser.
More Detail: One of the core features of the cloud-focused version of Lightroom is that it enables you to store photos in the cloud, so they are accessible from anywhere you have an internet connection. However, that same basic capability is included with Lightroom Classic as well.
The only real difference is that with the cloud-focused version of Lightroom the original files are stored in the cloud. With Lightroom Classic when you synchronize photos to the cloud the synchronized copies are saved as Adobe DNG files with a reduced resolution. But this doesn’t really impact your workflow in any meaningful way.
You can simply enable synchronization for the collections in Lightroom Classic that you want to have available from elsewhere. Then using the Lightroom mobile app or Lightroom in a web browser (https://lightroom.adobe.com) you can edit the synchronized photos. The changes you make will synchronize back to Lightroom Classic.
Note that while it is also possible to use the cloud-focused Lightroom desktop application to access photos that had been synchronized from Lightroom Classic, I don’t really recommend mixing the use of Lightroom Classic and Lightroom due to the risk of confusion in terms of where photos are actually stored.
