Category: Ask Tim Grey

Today’s Question: I’m wondering if the same sort of procedure from Lightroom Classic on the desktop can be synchronized with the Adobe Portfolio of your images [for sharing photos online similar to the “Make Public” option for synchronized collections].

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can share directly from Lightroom Classic to Adobe Portfolio by enabling synchronization for one or more collections and then using the Adobe Lightroom integration to bring albums into Portfolio.

More Detail: Adobe Portfolio is a service that enables you to create a customized website featuring your photos, and it is included with the various Creative Cloud plans, including the Creative Cloud Photography plan that includes Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, and Photoshop.

At first glance it might not seem that Adobe Portfolio integrates with Lightroom Classic, because the only integrations shown are for Behance, Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Stock. However, synchronized collections from Lightroom Classic count as albums in Adobe Lightroom when it comes to integrating with Adobe Portfolio.

The first step, of course, is to make sure you’ve enabled synchronization for the collections in Lightroom Classic that you want to make available on your Adobe Portfolio site. Once those albums are synchronized you can go to Portfolio (https://portfolio.adobe.com) to configure the albums.

On the left panel you’ll see when signed in to Adobe Portfolio go to the Integrations option in the Essentials section of the left panel. There you’ll see an option for Adobe Lightroom, and you can click Add Albums to add albums based on the synchronized collections from Lightroom Classic. This enables you to integrate collections of photos from Lightroom Classic into your Adobe Portfolio website.

Today’s Question: If you send a photo from Lightroom [cloud-focused version] to Photoshop and create layers, then do a Lightroom adjustment on the Photoshop file, all the layers are gone! This is terrible! Is there any way around this? This issue alone would prevent me from ever using Lightroom.

Tim’s Quick Answer: In this scenario the original layers aren’t actually lost, but rather a new flattened copy of the image is created. You could go back to the prior version of the image to get back to the layers, but that version won’t reflect the Lightroom adjustments. I would agree that this is an issue that can cause confusion and frustration.

More Detail: Both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic support the option to send an image to Photoshop for editing. However, they operate differently, and it is important to understand what to expect when including Photoshop in a workflow that revolves around Lightroom or Lightroom Classic.

In both cases, if you send a raw capture to Photoshop the result will be a new image, saved as either a Photoshop PSD or TIFF file. You can use layers and all other features within Photoshop before saving and closing the file. The resulting derivative image will be saved alongside the original and reflected in Lightroom or Lightroom Classic.

If you send the derivative image back to Photoshop without making any changes in Lightroom, then you’ll be right back to your layered image, just as you left it. However, if you had adjusted the derivative image in Lightroom, when you send that image back to Photoshop it will be a flattened copy of the original derivative image. That can be a bit alarming and can certainly be frustrating.

However, that flattened version is actually an additional copy of the original image. In fact, with Lightroom every time you send an image to Photoshop a new copy is created. If there were no Lightroom adjustments applied, the copy will retain the layers. If there were adjustments applied the copy will be flattened so it can reflect the adjustments from Lightroom.

In Lightroom Classic you have the option to choose “Edit Original” when you send a derivative image back to Photoshop. If you use this option the layers will remain intact, but any adjustments you applied in the Develop module on the derivative image will not be visible while you’re working in Photoshop.

With Lightroom the only way to continue working with the layered image is to be sure not to apply any adjustments in Lightroom. That obviously isn’t really an ideal workaround, but it does help avoid the potential confusion that exists in Lightroom Classic where you need to choose between three options when sending a derivative image to Photoshop.

So, in Lightroom the layers aren’t really lost, they’re just preserved in an earlier copy of the image. That may or may not be a problem depending on your workflow needs and personal preferences. But I do agree it would be much better if Lightroom behaved the same way as Lightroom Classic in this regard, so you could choose how to deal with derivative images in this context.

Today’s Question: I’m all for the larger output resulting from a composite panorama, but if there is any motion in the subject matter (such as waves or wind-caused movement), a composite image can be very frustrating and not worth the bother. Any recommendations on how to minimize the effect of the motion in the composite image?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The primary things I recommend doing to help ensure greater flexibility when it comes to blending frames of a composite image for a scene with considerable movement would be to overlap the frames by a larger amount and to assemble the composite panorama with a manual approach in Photoshop.

More Detail: When there is movement within a scene you’re photographing for a composite panorama, movement within the scene can be problematic even if you’re using a fast shutter speed. For example, from one frame to the next the wind might cause objects to move within the frame, causing challenges when blending those areas of the panorama together.

To begin with, I suggest overlapping the individual frames for the panorama by more than you normally would. When using a reasonably long focal length beyond about 100mm (based on a full-frame 35mm format) you can overlap by around 20%. For wide-angle scenes I recommend overlapping by 50%. But if you know the frames will be tricky to blend together, I recommend overlapping by a bit more than these factors.

In this type of situation if the panorama doesn’t come together well using an automated approach such as can be done with Camera Raw, Lightroom, and Lightroom Classic, I recommend manually assembling the composite panorama in Photoshop. To get started with that process I recommend selecting the individual frames for the panorama in Adobe Bridge, and then from the menu choose Tools > Photoshop > Photomerge.

Using this command will bring up the Photomerge dialog in Photoshop. There you can set the Layout option to Auto, and make sure the “Blend Images Together” checkbox is turned on. The other checkboxes can be turned off, and you can click the OK button to begin assembling the composite panorama.

The resulting panorama will be a composite image with a layer for each of the images representing the individual frames. Each of those layers will have a layer mask that was automatically generated to blend the images together. You can then use the Brush tool to paint with white to reveal areas of the individual layers, and paint with black to block areas. This enables you to customize the blending, so that you can for example paint around areas where movement between frames prove to be problematic.

While this approach can involve a bit more work, it can also help ensure the best results in terms of seamless blending of the composite panorama. This is especially important for situations where movement in the scene makes it difficult to blend the frames of the composite panorama effectively, and so automated tools for assembling the panorama don’t yield the best results.

Today’s Question: What, exactly, is installed on my computer when I install Lightroom? Is the operation of Lightroom in the cloud or on my computer? I ask for two reasons. 1) Lightroom Classic really bogs down my computer, and I have to reboot after an hour or two of work. Will this happen with Lightroom? 2) The Adobe website says I cannot work in Lightroom on two separate devices simultaneously (unlike Lightroom Classic). Does this mean that the operation of Lightroom is happening in the cloud and not on my computer?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic are installed and run from your computer. The “cloud” aspect of Lightroom relates to cloud-based storage and a degree of processing in the cloud, such as to enable advanced search features. Both versions of Lightroom therefore have similar system requirements and have similar performance.

More Detail: The reference to the cloud in the context of Lightroom (rather than Lightroom Classic) tends to cause some confusion. In fact, that same confusion was quite common when the Adobe Creative Cloud plans were first introduced. There is a common misunderstanding that the software runs in the cloud rather than on your computer, but that is not the case.

The desktop applications available through an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription get installed and are run from your computer. That means they will consume system resources such as the processor, memory, and hard drive space. If Lightroom Classic doesn’t perform well on your computer, there’s a good chance that Lightroom will also not perform very well, though there are some variables here.

First, I recommend reviewing the system requirements for the software you’ll be using, to make sure your computer will support the software. For example, you can find the system requirements for Lightroom and Lightroom Classic here:

Adobe Lightroom:
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/system-requirements.html

Adobe Lightroom Classic:
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/system-requirements.html

Assuming your computer meets or exceeds the system requirements, I recommend making sure you have a good amount of hard drive space available. In general, I recommend having at least 10GB of free hard drive space, but more can be helpful.

With Lightroom Classic it can also be helpful to ensure the catalog has been optimized. If you use the built-in catalog backup feature in Lightroom Classic you’ll have the option during the backup to have the catalog scanned for errors and to optimize the catalog. I recommend enabling both of these options.

If you continue to have issues with performance in Lightroom Classic you may want to reset the preferences. To do so you can go to the General tab of the Preferences dialog, hold the Alt/Option key, and click the “Reset all preferences and relaunch” button that will appear. You may also want to uninstall and reinstall Lightroom Classic to see if that helps.

As for running more than one instance of Lightroom, this is indeed possible because there is not a central catalog to manage. With Lightroom Classic you can only have one instance open at a time because the catalog can only be opened on one computer at a time.

Today’s Question: I received an email from Adobe notifying me that as 3/1/24 the Creative Cloud Storage would be discontinued. Now that Adobe has launched Lightroom with a hybrid of online and local image storage options, is Adobe doing away with the option for Lightroom Classic subscribers to use collections for syncing select images to Adobe cloud storage?

Tim’s Quick Answer: No, Adobe is not discontinuing the ability to synchronize collections from Lightroom Classic to the cloud. There are also various other options for storing images or documents in cloud storage with Adobe. All that is being discontinued is the synchronization of the Creative Cloud Files folder.

More Detail: Adobe recently announced that they were discontinuing the option to use Creative Cloud Storage to synchronize files from a folder on your computer to Adobe’s cloud-based storage, which provided an option to synchronize images and documents across multiple computers via online synchronization.

This change will not prevent you from synchronizing collections of photos in Lightroom Classic. It also won’t affect the storage of cloud-based photos for those using the Lightroom desktop application (or mobile or web versions of Lightroom). It is also still possible to use online Creative Cloud Documents storage, which is supported by Photoshop, for example, and enables you to save photos to online storage so they can be accessed from virtually anywhere.

The Creative Cloud Files feature that is being discontinued is a separate feature that did not operate directly within any Adobe software. Rather, it functioned through your operating system. A “Creative Cloud Files” folder would exist within the folder for your username within the operating system. Any files saved in that folder would be synchronized to Adobe’s cloud-based storage, so you could access those files from any computer on which you have signed in via the Creative Cloud application, for example.

I had understood this feature was being discontinued on February 1st, but I have now seen that some users were notified via email that the deadline is March 1st. Whether or not you received such an email, it is a good idea to confirm whether you have any files stored in the Creative Cloud Files folder that you would like to preserve. That folder can be found under C:\[username]\Creative Cloud Files on Windows, or at Mac HD/Users/[username]/Creative Cloud Files on Macintosh.

You can also learn more information on the following page on the Adobe website, but I’ll warn you in advance that the page can be a bit confusing because there are references to various storage options, including the similarly named but completely different “Creative Cloud Files” versus “Creative Cloud Documents”:

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/eol-creative-cloud-synced-files.html

Today’s Question: Is it possible to use Lightroom [cloud-focused] to edit images locally on a laptop, then when I get home, import those photos to Lightroom Classic?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, if you use the local browsing option in the cloud-focused version of Lightroom to edit photos, and then import those photos into the Lightroom Classic catalog, the updates you applied in Lightroom will be reflected in Lightroom Classic.

More Detail: With Lightroom Classic, by default the updates you apply to metadata or to adjustment settings are saved only within the catalog. You can, however, choose to automatically (or manually) save standard metadata (including Develop settings) to photos. In the cloud-focused version of Lightroom, when browsing photos on the Local tab, any updates to photos are saved directly to the source image files, which in the case of proprietary raw captures means the metadata will be saved in an XMP sidecar file.

If you later import those photos into a Lightroom Classic catalog, the metadata updates and adjustments will be reflected in those imported photos. You could therefore, for example, use the cloud-focused Lightroom on a laptop for your traveling workflow, and then import the photos you captured during your trip into your Lightroom Classic catalog when you get home, and the updates you applied in Lightroom would be reflected in Lightroom Classic.

The important thing to keep in mind is that this workflow should really only involve a one-time transfer from Lightroom to Lightroom Classic. For example, after importing photos into Lightroom Classic any updates you apply in Lightroom would not be reflected in Lightroom Classic. In fact, if the photos were stored in the same location as part of this workflow, making changes in Lightroom would result in metadata conflict errors in Lightroom Classic.

So, as long as you start with Lightroom using the Local tab, and then when you’re finished you import the photos into Lightroom Classic and only work in Lightroom Classic from that point forward for those photos, you’ll have a workflow that can be convenient without creating any problems.

Today’s Question: I use Lightroom Classic exclusively for editing my photos, in part because I want to maintain full-resolution images locally. I create collections and synchronize to the cloud so that I can share with family and friends and have specific images available on my smartphone. I haven’t figured out a way to share directly from Lightroom Classic, so I have been using Lightroom desktop [cloud-focused] to create shared albums. Is there a way to share in this way from Lightroom Classic while retaining my full-resolution originals locally?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes. You can simply add photos to collections in Lightroom Classic and enable synchronization for those collections so they will be synchronized to the cloud. You can then use the “Make Public” option for selected collections so they can be made available to anyone by simply sharing a link.

More Detail: In Lightroom Classic you can enable synchronization for a collection, and proxies of the photos in the collection will be synchronized to the cloud. Those proxies are reduced-resolution copies of the originals, not actual copies of the source image files. This differs from the cloud-focused version of Lightroom, which copies the source image files to the cloud when you add photos to the library.

Once you enable synchronization for a collection in Lightroom Classic, the collections for which you enabled synchronization will appear as albums in the Lightroom app on your smartphone and other mobile devices, as well as through Lightroom in a web browser (https://lightroom.adobe.com). In addition, those albums would appear in the Lightroom desktop application, but I don’t recommend using both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom desktop applications in your workflow.

If you want to make a synchronized collection of photos available to anyone you share a link with, you can make the collection public. Start by clicking on the collection within the Collections section of the left panel in the Library module in Lightroom Classic. Make sure you’re in the grid view rather than the loupe view, and click the “Make Public” button at the top-right of the grid view.

Once you’ve made a synchronized collection public, a link will appear to the left of the button that now reads “Make Private”. You can click that link to open the shared collection in a web browser, but you can also right-click on the link and choose “Copy to Clipboard” to copy the link so you can paste it, such as to paste the link into an email or text message you share with others. Note that when you share a synchronized collection in this way anyone with the link can access the photos online.

Today’s Question: I appreciated your presentation comparing Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, and Bridge. One question I have is whether the cloud version of Lightroom supports the plug-ins I currently use in Lightroom Classic.

Tim’s Quick Answer: No, the cloud-focused version of the Lightroom desktop application does not support plug-ins, while Lightroom Classic and Photoshop do support plug-ins.

More Detail: Software plug-ins provide a way to extend the features and workflow of host applications. There are a wide variety of plug-ins that support Photoshop and Lightroom Classic, for example, providing various benefits in terms of improving image quality, applying creative effects, streamlining your workflow, and more.

However, the cloud-focused version of Lightroom does not currently support plug-ins. Therefore, if you want to use plug-ins in your workflow with Adobe software, you will need to consider using Lightroom Classic or Photoshop rather than the cloud-focused version of Lightroom.

It is worth noting, however, that you can send photos from Lightroom to Photoshop. In other words, while you can’t use plug-ins directly in Lightroom, you could edit a photo in Photoshop by sending it from Lightroom, and then make use of the plug-ins within Photoshop. This is actually an approach I tend to prefer, so that I can make use of multiple plug-ins on various layers within a single layered image, rather than creating multiple versions of a source image using several different plug-ins.

While the lack of plug-in support is an issue that has been raised frequently over the years among photographers who use software from Adobe, there is no indication of whether or when Adobe might update Lightroom to support plug-ins.

Today’s Question: You made reference to the “Lightroom ecosystem” in one of your answers, and I’ve never heard that term before. Can you please explain what this ecosystem is?

Tim’s Quick Answer: When I say “Lightroom ecosystem” I’m preferring to all the products that have access to Lightroom cloud-based storage, which includes two desktop applications (Lightroom and Lightroom Classic), the Lightroom app for mobile devices, and the ability to access Lightroom in a web browser.

More Detail: When the term “Lightroom” comes up, I imagine most photographers think of one of the two desktop applications that (confusingly) share the same basic name. Lightroom Classic is the desktop application focused on local photo storage and employing a central catalog to manage the information about your photos. Lightroom (without the Classic in the name) had previously been focused exclusively on cloud-based storage of photos, but now also supports browsing local photos as well.

Lightroom Classic can synchronize copies of photos to cloud-based storage through the use of collections that have synchronization enabled. If you add photos to Lightroom (rather than just browse them locally) the original images are moved to cloud-based storage and access via an internet connection (and local cache).

In addition, there is a Lightroom app for mobile devices, which enables you to work with the photos that have already been saved to the cloud via Lightroom or Lightroom Classic, for example, but also allows you to add photos that are already on your device or capture new photos via the camera feature from within the Lightroom mobile app.

You can also access cloud-based photos using Lightroom in a web browser (https://lightroom.adobe.com). This approach provides you with an interface that is very similar to the Lightroom desktop application, allowing you to organize and optimize photos stored in the cloud.

With all these tools in the Lightroom ecosystem, any changes you make to cloud-based images are synchronized to the cloud, and therefore updated everywhere. For example, if you convert a color image to black and white through Lightroom in a web browser, the next time you browse that photo in either Lightroom desktop application or the Lightroom mobile app you will see the updates reflected.

In general, I recommend that photographers use only one of the desktop applications, choosing either Lightroom or Lightroom Classic, as I explained in my webinar presentation yesterday on “Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, or Bridge?!”, which can be found on my “Tim Grey TV” channel on YouTube here:

[https://youtube.com/live/BwpneG4y0nQ]

In addition to one of the two desktop applications, you can then supplement your workflow with the Lightroom mobile app and with Lightroom in a web browser, to take full advantage of the Lightroom ecosystem.

Today’s Question: You referred to the cloud version of Lightroom not having the issues with a catalog the way Lightroom Classic does. But Lightroom does store an “lrlibrary” file on my computer. Isn’t that a catalog? Shouldn’t I be backing it up to protect my data?

Tim’s Quick Answer: The Lightroom Library file for the cloud-focused version of Lightroom is a local cache, not a catalog. What amounts to the catalog and your original photos for cloud-based storage are stored (and backed up) on Adobe’s servers, and there’s not really any need to back up the Lightroom Library file.

More Detail: Much has been made of the use of a catalog in Lightroom Classic, and understandably so. Because the information about your photos in the context of Lightroom Classic is stored in a central catalog file, it is important that all updates related to your photos be made within Lightroom Classic. If you were to rename or move photos or folders outside of Lightroom Classic, the catalog would no longer be connected properly to all your photos, and you could have a big mess on your hands very quickly.

With the cloud-focused version of the Lightroom desktop application there isn’t a central catalog. For photos stored in the cloud you can’t get to those photos outside of the Lightroom ecosystem, so there’s no way to end up with missing photos, since they are being managed in the cloud for you. For photos stored locally and managed with Lightroom, the software is behaving as a browser that does not employ a catalog, so you can make changes both inside and outside Lightroom without any problems.

The Lightroom Library file (which has a filename extension of “lrlibrary”) is simply a local cache. It enables you, for example, to browse and work with cloud-based photos even if you’re not online. The next time you do get online any updates will be synchronized back to the cloud. If you were to delete that file and then launch Lightroom it would simply be built for you again. The only way you would lose any data is if you deleted the Lightroom Library file after making changes while working offline in Lightroom. But assuming you’re connected to the internet while using Lightroom, the risk of losing any data due to a damaged or deleted library file is extremely small.