Hi all. I woke up today and had a realization about my email yesterday.
I totally screwed up!
See, I sent out an email with a pretty bold message about saying goodbye to Lightroom Classic. But in the same email I talked about a mini course I had about Evolving with Lightroom (not Classic). I realized that there was a group of people that would get confused by that because the idea of evolving doesn’t really fit with a cold turkey “I quit LR Classic” message.
In reality, I can’t say goodbye to LR Classic just yet. Anyway, I recorded a quick 7 minute video that talks a little about this. So if you found yourself a little confused, please give it a quick watch. Thanks!
PS: There’s a little gear icon in the playbar of the video. Feel free to speed me up 🙂
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
Thank you for the explanation
Matt, sorry this may have been answered already, but I’m not seeing how I set my colorspace preferences for when sending a file to Photoshop. Is this missing in Lightroom (non-Classic version)? Thanks.
Hi Don. There is no feature for this.
Hi Matt,
I purchased your Evolving Lightroom course and was excited to use it versus Lightroom Classic. My enthusiasm was dampened a bit when I was not able to delete any photos that I marked as rejected. Let me start out by saying all my photos are stored on a Synology NAS diskstation with 4 – 4 Tb drives. The only way I could delete photos was to exit out of Lightroom and delete the files using the Windows 11 operating system. I spent hours browsing the Internet and Photoshop/Lightroom forums looking for a solution. I thought, possibly it was stemming from user rights or some other technical problem. Fortunately, I got lucky and found a thread on the Adobe site that addressed the exact problem I had. Matt, you must have persuaded a lot of your followers with Synology NAS to switch to Lightroom (LOL). One of the users was persistent enough to have Adobe look into it and ultimately Adobe admitted there was a bug !! As of now there is no fix but they will update Lightroom as soon as they correct the bug. I’m happy it wasn’t a hardware problem and am hopeful that Adobe will solve the software problem. So, until then I will use my own work around because I’m hell bent on using your workflow. Like you, it’s the editing workflow I was hoping for – I never liked Lightroom Classic’s organization model.
I’m going to continue using PhotoMechanic to cull my photos, rename my files and use keywords. Then I’ll import them to my NAS to use your Lightroom workflow.
Sorry for the long email, but I wanted you be aware of the problem, in case there are any of your NAS users encountering a deleting problem. Thanks for all your work – I’m EXCITED again !,
Great course Matt, really appreciate the insight. I’ve watched almost all of the vids, and have played around with LR on a couple recent, small photoshoots. I think I’m going to really like this workflow, as I always struggled with the need for a catalog in LRC.
One question though – in Lesson 13 you discuss using the album feature on the cloud side of LR. I love your idea, but Adobe is stating: “Creative Cloud Synced files are being discontinued. Starting February 1, 2024, Adobe will begin to discontinue Creative Cloud Synced files for all free and paid personal users not associated with a Creative Cloud for Enterprise or a Creative Cloud for Teams business account.”
Is “Creative Cloud Synced files” different from the “cloud” option inside of LR? Apologies in advance if this is an ignorant question.
Hi Paula. If you search up that email you received you’ll find plenty of articles written about it. In short, what they’re saying has nothing to do with Lightroom and cloud photos. Thanks
Hi Matt, this has maybe come at a really good time for me. My computer crashed early this year and I’ve spent time as allowed to recreate but better organized and renamed folders. Does this means that using LightRoom, I can now browse those newly created folders, select a photo and immediately use the Lightroom Panels for editing?
That is to say, I do not have to go through the laborious process of Importing etc.. before using the Develop Module?
That’s correct Carol.
For me LR has a number of issues at present. It has very limited metadata/keywording capability so it requires going to Bridge – a separate application to deal with that aspect. Worst of all is that Bridge 14/01/137 appears to be unable to import images as there is a problem with the photo downloader. Importing images into LRc may be clunky but at least it all works and within a single application. I think Adobe has a long road to travel before LR/Bridge combo or standalone LR is ready for serious use and becomes a viable a replacement for LRc, which is unfortunate as it does have a lot in its favour.
I have been using LR for just over a year instead of LrC, I really like that I can choose not use the Cloud for every photo and find your tutorial really increasing my skills with the entire program. Money well spent. The one thing that I used often in LrC an d can not find a way to do in LR is go form LRC to edit in Luminar, Topaz or Aurora from the photo tab and then have the changes available in LrC. I have searched the internet help programs to no avail. Others have asked about the same issue. Any ideas?
I wondered about that. I will have to continue using LRC until Adobe adds subfolders to LR search. Right now it searches only the current folder. I have 41,000 photos all organized by year/month/day using numerals. I’m not changing that organization much. The limited search is…well, limiting!
So I will continue to use LRC to import photos because it automatically organizes by date for me. LR will be useful though.
So Matt – I just purchased all the other Lightroom tutorials a couple months ago….. I’ve not got to start them due to surgery and was going to start in January but now if that all for nothing? Like are those tutorials you did on Lightroom in the past no longer relevant?
I have installed Lightroom to see if it will work for me. Even if it is to do a quick review and cull and then just import those I want into Lightroom Classic. There seems to be one very important feature missing. In Classic I have auto advance so that as I go through the images I can rate a photo and it will automatically advance to the next image. I have checked all the menus in Lightroom version 7 and can’t find it anywhere. As that is such a big part of quickly going through potentially thousands of images it defeats the purpose of this new version of the software. If not available I will be staying with Classic.
Oooh, I’ll bet I know why they switched “Pick” from P to Z! It’s right next to the X. Watching your workflow video (thanks!) and just had to make that comment somewhere, haha.
Hmmm. Never thought of that but it makes sense!
Thank you for mentioning the recent update to lightroom. Where are the edits stored? Are they in a folder I created next to the raw file as .xmp or are they stored in a lightroom folder somewhere else? I recently started using Bridge and Camera Raw because I didn’t want a catalog file in Classic. Having the edit file next to the raw in folders that I create and organize just makes more sense to me. Please tell us how and where it stores the edits.
Yes, edits are in the XMP file.
If that is the case, why is there a Lightroom library file elsewhere? And where does it reside? And should we make a backup of lightroomlibrary as we do for lrcat?
Put differently, if LR obviates the need for a catalogue why does it need a library?!
This has not been adequately explained by Matt, at least not where I have seen.
Thanks, Matt, the Evolving course was perfect – answered most of my questions and, as always, your teaching style always makes it easy and fun to “evolve.” I’m convinced, and I’m just working through in my mind how I want to move forward. But I’ll definitely be using Lightroom.
Here’s a little interesting note: I had a couple of questions that I didn’t want to bother you with, so I engaged a live chat agent on the Adobe site. The chat agent had absolutely NO CONCEPT of the “Local” versus “Cloud” tabs in Lightroom. The concept of the Local tab being a browser and allowing Lr editing without any import was new to him. He kept telling me my first step was to import all my my images to the cloud. Using what I’d learned from your first several videos in the Evolving course, I walked the chat agent through the workflow and he finally understood. Needless to say, he wasn’t able to answer the questions I had, but he was very gracious about having to be taught about the app he was supposed to be supporting.
My two favorite things about the new workflow is no import process needed, and no missing or mis-matched files. Just those two things will save me a lot of time and headache.
Thanks, Again!
Sorry – I just saw how long my post was. Hope that’s okay…..
I have been thinking a lot about this Lightroom discussion.
I have followed Matt for many years. He’s a great teacher – clear, concise, and easy to follow and listen to. Even his apology was well done and honest and it shows he cares. Everyone “screws up” (his words, not mine) now and then, but he’s a class act in my view.
I have used Lightroom (called “Classic”) since it was first released. I use the Catalog for location info, history, keywords, printing and have over 60,000 images. I have toyed with using separate catalogs (to make each smaller and for multiple machines), but since I often look at images that are years old and by type (Collections save me), I’m better off with one large catalog for searching and editing. And I don’t want to do anything more than the button-press for History to remember what I’ve done with an image.
I also teach Lightroom Classic. I used to do group workshops, but now only for one-on-one situations. The “import” button has always been the biggest question from users who wonder where the photos are IN Lightroom (Classic). In many situations I suggest the rather simplistic, but less promoted approach, of copying what’s on the card to a folder and then pointing to the folder in LR. And if one adds images to that folder at a later time, the sync folder function is a pretty nice and easy way to have all images in the folder available to LRC. And just about everyone loves Collections.
Since I have computers in different locations, my photos are on external drives (full updated backup copies with Carbon Copy Cloner). I have multiple physical drive backups and in the cloud.
UPDATE: as of 12/11 with Matt’s workflow video. Nice explanation, as always. For me, however, I won’t leave LRC. I suppose I might open Lightroom (not Classic) as a browser type solution for some things, as there’s some value in that, but I don’t see a major move to a hybrid solution.
MATT: You always do a great job for people that follow you. Please keep it up. I think you have so much to offer to those in every group. One thought: Maybe if the LRC, LRC/LR combo, LR-ony decision continues to be unclear for some, how about offering your excellent courses based on user-types (example):
(1) LRC users that are comfortable with their current LR Classic usage and don’t have enough reason to adopt Lightroom (not Classic).
(2) LRC users who don’t care about the Catalog and who aren’t pleased with some of the things they have deal with (your situation, I think). And they are okay, for now, with having 2 parts to their workflow, and
(3) Those who are new users, and/or only want Lightroom (not Classic) for some of the reasons you’ve explained.
ADOBE: Maybe change one of the product names to reduce confusion? See how many times I had to clearly identify each product! Also, maybe figure out another name for that LRC “IMPORT” button? 🙂
Anyway, my slightly more than 2 cents. Thanks to Matt for going the extra mile on this one!!
I watched both videos and my wife bought the course. I had hopes, but not being able to (or at least I not found it) use an “edit in” to Topaz Ai ….. only Photoshop. Also, as others have noted p, the need to reopen and embed my adjustments before re-editing my image means I’m still tethered to Lrc. And now additionally LR. The more I look at it, the more it kind of looks like a Lightroom Jr. Sorry but, this looks like a big step backwards right now. I suspect this is the platform that will eventually replace Classic….. but it really has a long way to go, IMO.
Hi Matt,
Really appreciate your putting focus on the evolution of LR. Being a long-time LRC user it has always been the best of times and the worst of times. Our workflows have evolved based on the architecture of LRC and it is time to simplify and streamline. Everything that has been added to LR is a step change in functionality and gives it a roadmap forward. There are workflow things that will have to get re-thought (collections & plug-ins [Topaz] for example).
Because Adobe LRx is a confusing product set, it is hard to know what their end-game is. I think we have all had them issue a revision that has killed our computer due to mem or GPU without so much as a warning. I hope they are thinking it through. BTW, this could still happen with the ‘new’ LR because it is a local app using local resources.
Your putting light on this new product release really helps us crawl-walk-run into our next gen of workflows. Keep shining the light.
Hi Matt,
I love watching your tutorials and am enjoying the ai presets I bought.
Can you please advise if the following will work for my travel photography? If I upload my images from SD cards to portable hard drive does this mean I can do edits and culling and rating and keywords etc in the new Lightroom without actually importing into Lightroom Classic as I currently do? Then when I get home can I then transfer the images kept with edits etc into Lightroom Classic on my desktop computer so that I have access to presets etc?
I do like to back up my catalogs at home so that I can always refer back to them if needed.
Matt, thanks for the information. I, too, was avoiding Lightroom as it was cloud based. But the change to allowing local files changes everything regarding my feelings toward Lightroom as opposed Lightroom Classic. So it is not time to explore and determine whether this is something I want to learn or perhaps migrate toward. Time will tell. But again, thanks much for the information.
I watched the first video with great skepticism. Between the two videos and various FAQ I can now say I am NOT going to give up LrC… ever, (I use 10 of the 12 features LrC has that LR does not), BUT I will load LR on my work computer so I can do edits on work related images that will never see my LrC catalog. So, I THANK YOU for clarifying the differences between the two. It never occurred to me that LR might be of great use to me in my work environment for simply editing without the “frills”!
I believe files saved as .dng will show up in lightroom with all the changes showing.
Matt: Isn’t the Lightroom you are describing much like ON1s newest software? On1 was and is a great browser but now has much of the same editing ability of Lightroom. Perhaps even more editing abilities considering all the new AI functions.
As a former IT exec, there’s no way I will abandon Classic. But I have a friend, a painter, who wants to use LR to play with images she wants to paint. The non-classic version will work for her.
What’s irritating to me -when I want to edit a one-off that I’m not going to catalog- is this version of LR uses Photoshop keyboard shortcuts, not Classic shortcuts! Deal breaker.
How can you incorporate a new flow when you state, “you can’t go back and forth”. If that is true, what’s the benefit. That’s what you should have said is the “why” for the new flow, but you didn’t. I’m not sold.
I bought the Evolving With Lightroom, not Evovling with Lightroom LrC to Lr. Is it one of the same thing?
I am quite confused by this now but I will sort it out. But, for now, I have one question that came up in your original “I am saying goodbye to LR Classic” video. If I went to LR from Classic, will I be able to access the images that I keep on an external drive that is attached to my Mac or would I need to bring them back onto the internal drive? I do this so I have lots of space on my internal drive…..my Mac is getting old.
Sorry Matt, but I feel a little bit like you assume we all understand the vast array of functions and behind-the- scenes workings of these various Adobe products. There must be some people who, like me, routinely use a very small percent of the programs, and routinely organize, export, and back up our photos in one (probably pretty basic) way. I guess what I’m saying, is that amongst all the lingo and rapid fire explanations, some of us need a more basic overview when you’re covering upgrades or, in this case, new programs. The way it feels right now is that I’d have to really roll up my sleeves, and spend hours trying to figure out which videos to watch, then what classes to buy, (or is there an upgrade in a class I currently own), then following a class I might not even need, and reviewing a whole lot of functions that I vaguely know exist, but have never needed. It feels very discouraging!
Not really. If you watch my course, I don’t suggest or push any of this. All I show is a super simple workflow using Lightroom. If you choose to use LRC with it then things will get confusing which is why I don’t suggest it. I just suggest using LR going forward and open up LRC when you need to get to your old stuff. Thanks.
Very good explanation Matt. Its crystal even for the dullest among us. As a side bar, of minor interest, I used LRC from its inception. Hardly ever went to Photoshop. In the past 3-4 years I have been using my iPhone more and more, and my workflow has changed accordingly. I have been using ACR and PS almost exclusively. But I will buy your LR course only to retrieve about 30, 000 photos out of those damn catalogues, and put them into more accessible files. Thanks for your commitment to educating us.
Adobe drives me crazy from a productivity point of view. Every time I use their programs it’s no, wait! we have a new update for you to install. And then a bunch of info screens about it. I waste way too much time with Adobe needing actions from me that do not make productivity easy.
So, with Lightroom being as it is, what does Bridge offer that would compel me to use it? Seems it’s almost the same, not exactly the same, as Lightroom.
Matt, I understand completely what you’re saying, but many of us want to have all of our photos in one spot to search with keywords or to organize by date. Although this new method is handy and fast, to then have to fire up LR Classic and add the photos in the appropriate place in the library, sync the folder to update the catalog to incorporate the new photos from the .xmp sidecar files, etc every time I do a photo shoot, is not saving me a lot of time. I’d rather just import all them in LR Classic, delete the photos I don’t use and retain the good ones. It’s simpler to use one system than two, especially when the menus differ. If I hadn’t invested so much in my current method over the the last decade, it probably wouldn’t matter. The new method is quick and powerful, like a candy bar in the blood stream, but without the catalog updates every time, a year from now I might be sorry I have gone down this new path for the past year.
Also, I know it would cut into the sales of the whole program, but a 2-minute video introducing the new system and how you can go to a folder and work instantly might be good. We’d all have questions like how to flag the edited photos and delete the rejects in the folder, and we’d have to purchase the program from you then anyway.
Thanks for all you do–I’ve purchased many of your tutorials but I just sometimes don’t have the time to relearn something that has minor time improvements in the long run.
Hi. If you’re some one that needs constant access to your old photos then this may not be for you. I don’t, so this works perfectly for me. Thanks.
“If you’re someone that needs constant access to your old photos”? WHAT are you saying? Of course, the value of a catalogue program is exactly this. Are we to assume that Lr is now only a browser? I know you’re trying to do a difficult job here but this is looking more like an Adobe marketing scheme than anything else. Also, what does a “simpler” work-flow mean? What editing features are Adobe eliminating? I’m re-entering Lr after a few years hiatus and want to upgrade from Lr 6 to Lr Classic. I’m already uber confused and this new change is almost enough to send my business elsewhere. However, I really want to continue with Lr Classic if possible and also look at the new Lr. But, I need a bunch more clarity than I’m getting. Sorry if I sound critical but I’m anxious to start using a new mirror-less camera. If you cannot provide more than a ten word reply, can you refer me to someone who can, or will? Thanks, have followed you for many years.
Will it work if you do not have access to internet?
That is what I am wondering as well. I gave LR a go yesterday. I have no issues with it, or accessing the photos, but it did seem that I needed to use the internet to use LR.
2.Also, by saving the metadata to our already part edited shot files, wouldn’t we be creating a very large file? 3.
I am currently following your advice to place the Denoise files on a collection, publish them and then delete. Can you do this in LR?
Hello, I am new to Photoshop & Lightroom. I’ve used Photoshop Elements. Could someone recommend what course to buy? I was going to get the PS&LR bundle. I really like Matt’s videos. I’d like to get my order in while they are on sale. Thank you.
Matt,
Is there a way to have Lightroom look inside subfolders like we can LRC? I would need that capability to search keywords in my subfolders to make this work for me, otherwise I’d need to stick with LRC.
Hi,
I am not sure I would want to change from classic, I do see the advantages but I use Jeffrey Friedl’s “Folder Publisher” which I cannot see how to add that to lightroom and I also use a camera that does not have GPS but I like to add that information using the “geotag photos” app on my phone, I do not see a way to do that either. Maybe I have not looked hard enough to find it.
I keep all of my photos on external hard drives (do not store on my MAC) and with LR vs LRC I get an error message that tells me I don’t have permission to see the photos that I store on an external drive? What am I missing?
I received a similar message at first. My message included an offer to give that permission. But then no pictures appeared. That turned out to be because of how I store the files (year/month/data). Once I realized that it was simple to get to my folders. Once I gave permission to use the folder, the message disappeared.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the two videos! I tried Lightroom CC yesterday just to see what’s there, what’s different or the same as Lightroom Classic. The biggest difference for me (aside from the “look” and positioning certain tools) is the lack of the parametric Curve in Lightroom. Curves are a big part of my development workflow now in Classic, and I find the sliders in Curves are much easier to use than using Points, and apparently LR CC only has a Point curve. That alone is a deal breaker for me, but there seems to be less control with Saves, Exporting, Plug-ins, etc. Anyway, thanks for the videos.
While the integration between Lightroom and the iOS versions is awesome, now that you can just edit and organize on all of the platforms, I can never give up LR Classic for three main reasons:
1) The size of the legacy library (100K) images
2) Ability to do round-trips from LR to Luminar/On1/PS and other plug-ins – Lightroom doesn’t offer that, which makes it very hard to to HDR edits
3) The ability to print from Lightroom — can’t do it. There is no print module. I print from LR much more than from PS, and the Epson software (that you mentioned in the first video) does not work with older Epson printers.
So probably not going to leave LR Classic anytime soon.
I have always converted my photos to DNG on import to LRC. I prefer DNG because the “Sidecar files” are imbedded so I don’t have to keep track of both the raw and xmp files. The only way I see to do this in LR is to convert the files to DNG using the Adobe DNG converter application. This requires two steps, transfer the files from my card to my mac and then do the conversion. Thus there is no advantage over the LRC convert to DNG import.
Hi Matt
I tried Lightroom and I think it’s brilliant no more sleepless nights wondering how many photos in
lightroom classic would have question mark on them I am 91 now so anything to make life a bit
easier is O.K. by me I purchased your lightroom course and it’s very good
Tom Garland
Hi Matt,
In yesterday’s tutorial you mentioned that you didn’t use Lightroom Classic to print your photos but used your Epson Printer.
I have a Epson Printer and whilst I can print using it, it has no editing options so this has to be done in Lightroom Classic.
So I am confused and ask that you clarify this for me please.
Newer Epson printers can use Epson’s Print Layout app. Older printers cannot. The x000 series, the x570 series both can make use of this newer software.
I loved the video, it made sense to me, as I really didn’t like Bridge. Now, I have the folders I want right in LR, (not classic), don’t have to worry about importing photos into LRc, and it works and handles just like the ‘old’ Lrc. Been playing with it all day yesterday, about to delete LRc from computer to give me back some space–catalogues take up so much room. Thanks for the great video
This video was very confusing. It’s probably better to plan out exactly what you want to say and get across before you actually post a video. I’m really not sure now what the way to go is!
I tried lightroom but found it was very slow showing images compared to bridge or lightroom classic.
Thank you for your thoughts on Lightroom.
“You can not use” Please note that it’s up to Adobe to add the possibility of integrating third-party plugins into Lightroom Creative Cloud. Once they do that and allow third-party plugins, we’ll make sure to be compatible.
This video was more confusing than the first one.
Hi Matt,
While I make pictures during my walkings I alway record the track in a gpx file and use that to Geotag my photos in LRC module Map. I understand that is not possible in LR or is there another solution to use the gpx file?
And how can I continue with my LRC edits in LR? Is is possible to set the LRC edis from the catalogue to an XMP file which can be used in LR?
Hi Matt,
Yes, it was a bold message. I can only understand that if you don’t care much about the organization and retrieval of images.
I have more than 30 years of images (some digital, some that I digitized from old family photo books).
In my opinion, LC is not the future and I’ll never quit LRC. Better than this LR would be a Bridge with CR. But this also will have to be imported later to my catalog to keep things organized.
LR will also create a lot of XMP files or force me to use DNG, which is not my preferred option.
With that said, and if you just want to limit yourself to the CR and very little Metadata Info that LR handles, I can understand your choice. But if you are a PS user and have a lot of additional resources at your disposal, LR will not be an option in my opinion. For me, LR is a photo toy for phone images or a pre-edit, at a hotel room, for images that will be treated differently when back home. LR, in this current version, will never be my option to handle and organize my images.
Hi Matt,
I read and watched your email “Answering Your “Goodbye Lightroom” Questions (+ personal message from me) ”
I agree that it’s confusing and it’s not for everyone. That it’s more than clear.
But digging a little bit more I was curious about how can someone edit an image and keep the original intact(this is LR’s most important feature (not to touch the original) and contrary to what you say about getting reed of catalogs, I found a new catalog under c:\users\username…\AppData\Adobe\lightroom CC\Data\.
Under this path, and maybe it will be different for every person, there will be a new directory. In my case, it was “dd6956abc1aa4aeea108c2e58ce50e8d”. Inside is a catalog, similar to LRC.
Also, there is a directory ” c:\users\username…\AppData\Adobe\lightroom CC\Data\FolderSourcePreviews” where you find the edits of your images.
From this, I can answer my question of where are those edits saved, and surprisingly it is a hidden catalog structure that is created instead of the old LRC structure.
That also means that you will have some problems if you change/upgrade machines or if your system drive fails. (Windows always fails from time to time and you have to reinstall, don’t know about Apple problems).
The only advantage would be a lighter catalog, but I can’t affirm that yet.
In your case, you clearly said, you don’t want to waste time organizing or you don’t need to have all those metadata info that you don’t use. I partially agree, this is your workflow, and if you feel comfortable with it, please go forward and use it. I need some metadata and I do export my images to external places like Smugmug and Zenfolio. I don’t use all of those Exif, XMP, IPTC, But some of them are useful in my case helping me sort and classify my images.
The integration with other devices, phones, tablets, and so on is only possible if you upload your images to Adobe Cloud, no? This can be also done with LRC if you want in both ways.
I’m happy that you found the solution for your dreams with LR and that the new course is a success.
I’ll not stop watching/buying your web products because of your workflow and your preference for LR. Your way of teaching, experience, and solutions are independent of the tool that you use and will be always welcome.
Mark,
why not use the global option og using xmp fuld in LRC?
Then you CAN switch back and forth…?
..Anders
Thanks so much for this update. For me Lightroom (local) will be the way to go forward. After saving the metadata to the files from my LRC catalog, I can browse and edit everything in Lightroom local.
One thing I can’t find out yet is how the browse and see the content of folders and subfolders (plus number of images in each subfolder as in LRC or photo mechanic)
I have tried to understand the different versions of LR several times over. Also have tried video teaching programs for some, but I never succeeded in mastering the techniques. I think one of those courses was yours.
2 comments: Is Lr the way to go for one who is trying again to master a version of Lr?
And the other is (as exemplified in your video explaining your possible misconceptions), is that you and others who try to teach these programs, speak far too quickly, hop around all over the screen areas with which you are so familiar, and leave your students confused. As an educator, I have to emphasize the importance of “repeat and summarize”.
So: Should I subscribe to LR and buy your course?
As a file browser, I like it.
Personally not worried about books, slideshows or printing.
I really use the keywording, metadata, the editing and love the idea of the DAM and catalogue.
The ability to maintain the structure of the DAM, from the very beginning, import and add keywords, change the naming structure etc, keeps the data organised so well especially as one of my collections has over 430k of images in it.
With facial recognition and attribute features, collections etc, it is certainly the way for me to find my images quickly.
The Lightroom you showed, and a great intro video by the way, is certainly cool, for me though it is more of a windows replacement image browser.
In my personal workflow I use DNG and save my metadata to the DNG, the space saving and useability of the data in the DNG is an important part of my own workflow.
If we had all these in this cloud based version I would be tempted, my logical brain would be asking, where are my settings kept? with the database I know where they are and can back them up easily, with this my photos could be all over the place.
Keep up the brilliant work, I love the way you show all sides and your passion to educate and evolve.
Be well stay safe.
I haven’t looked at Lightroom but there a few things I like about Lightroom Classic.
First is that I can click on a year and see all the images in every sub folder in that year. Digging through folders for something doesn’t work and I don’t shoot projects where I could name a folder and put images in that.
I thought Adobe was moving towards Collections and this too is something I use a lot.
I also convert all my RAW files to DNG on import so I wouldn’t copy the RAW images.
Like you mentioned, I’ve been using Lightroom since version one so I’m very comfortable with Lightroom Classic. The whole Catalog thing is a bit of a pain when upgrading computers but it seems the latest versions have done a better job of that.
As someone who regularly digitizes film, the inability to use tethered capture in Lightroom is a deal breaker for me.
Never thought about, I would miss that.
Matt,
Does this new workflow mean that any image on LRC that has been edited and not exported to a hard drive would only be available in LRC via its catalog? How about sync with LR Mobile, which I use extensively. Those images are available via the cloud, aren’t they? I think I noticed that the Cloud file format is the same as the Local format, but Local lacks edited images in LRC. Doesn’t that mean I would have two data bases, the old LRC catalog and any newly imported files to my hard drive that would be edited in LR?
I wasn’t confused, but I found Lightroom/Local confusing. At first glance I couldn’t see how to do even the basic thing I do in Lightroom Classic.
Thank you for this since I was one of those who was confused. I am one of your students who is just becoming comfortable with LR Classic. I still don’t know what you mean by a “file browser”. It might be a good idea to define some of the terms that some of your users take for granted. I enjoy your courses. Thanks again.
EVAN
So how do we get this “new” Lightroom?
It is in your Creative Cloud app. Look for the black icon with the blue ‘Lr’ in it.
Matt
I am a big user of LRC Collections to keep track of projects that I am doing at the same time, etc. And, I use them within projects to collect photos for sub topics.
I don’t understand how to get the same functionality with the new version of LR.
A brief video comparing Lightroom Classic, Lightroom and Adobe Camara Raw would be helpful. Sounds like in terms of editing all three have similar capabilities. But I am sure each has some unique features, positives and drawbacks.
hi Matt,
I’m still confused. What are the advantages of LR as opposed to LRC? Why are you changing your workflow? You mentioned that there are a couple of things you still need LRC for. What are they?
I can see LR might be better for traveling, but not necessarily. You can always carry a HD with you and then integrate the photos into LRC when you want/need to.
I really like the organizing capabilities of LRC. It’s a great program.
I have several of your courses and have always found you super clear, but not this time.
Looking forward to your answers.
Thanks,
Kathleen
I have a travel workflow in LrC which has been working well for me. I create a new catalog when I start a trip, and do all my editing and culling there; when I get home, I import that catalog (and the photos) to my real desktop catalog (and have LrC make a new copy of the image files), and I can continue editing and culling seamlessly from that point on the desktop – all my edit history is preserved. The catalog and images on the laptop are unnecessary once I’ve done the import, so I can throw them away and start over for the next trip.
I played a little with LR after watching your video and I can’t figure out how to replicate the workflow; I couldn’t find where LR stores its edits, nor could I find a way to get LR to export an XMP with the photo.
I’d love to move to a simpler system for travel, but unless I’ve missed something, I don’t think LR is going to do it for me – any thoughts?
I will watch your vid on new workflow. I don’t ever edit when traveling (or after 39.5 years of marriage I’d be divorced). I use collections on almost every shoot. It helps me effortlessly organize uploads to my website and for creating photo books. I doubt I will convert after spending $$$ and more hours in training than photograhing in learning LRC. That said, I am nervous that Adobe may discontinue it. I am also an f64 member. Hit a brick wall hearing of using Bridge and ACR/PS one photo at a time. Concluded that I learned LRC first and I’ll stick with it. If Adobe drops LRC I’ll likely go w Bridge, ACR/PS one photo at a time as painful as it would be. Benefit is all keepers would have edits included. You made me think again about my work flow.
Thanks Matt. That does clarify things. I was struggling to see how it would work well with my gazillion photos in LRC.
Hi Matt. Based on your excitement I installed LR yesterday. It seems woefully inadequate for my purposes. I rely heavily on the organizational capabilities or LRC – keywords, color labels, metadata – and the filter grid with a number of presets for different views. I rely heavily on other presets – import, develop (applying to all on import), metadata, export, file naming. These are either missing or not as powerful. Depending on who I’m sending my files to, I have different export presets that set file names, sizes, watermark (or not), target folder. I have a couple dozen of those. One of the really critical things is to be able to export with the photo title in the file name. There doesn’t seem to be a way to do that, let alone save that as a preset. I’m a marching band photographer, so I come home from a shoot with 5,000 images of 30 different bands. I need to be able to get through them quickly, so I thought the file browser idea would be good but if I can’t do all of my mass edits, selections and outputs, it’s really not an improvement.
This is Alicia Hoegh and I to diving into this topic ?
Hi Matt,
It is very easy to move catalogs with thousands of photos between computers in LRC. How easy is it to move groups of photos with edits between computers in LR?
When travelling, I use my laptop to screen and start the photo editing process. When I get home, I move the travel catalog to my desktop, integrate it into my master catalog and continue the edit process.
Thanks
Lightroom “Classic” has always been the best designed software I have ever used. I find “Lightroom” unacceptable. Why did they change so many things? “Z” to Pick?! The Catalog is a brilliant organizational tool and so are Import and Collections, all gone. Bah!
Matt,
Great job of expanding and clearing up fundamentals. Yep, for clean editing workflow the “Local’ and “Cloud” now require some thought since your description of a Browser, catalog, organizer with an integrated high powered editor is now crystal.
Some thought will have to go in to how to deal and, if possible, integrate such things as Collections and Smart Collections.
Like one of the previous commenters how to handle captures from the iPhone Pro series will also require some drilling to sort out. If one uses the Lightroom Camera vs. the Apple Camera there will be some process considerations on where, and how to move, copy, consolidate images. All should be fun to explore but carefuly.
Some paralleling will be smart initially to understand the differences and work arounds that will be needed. That way we can figure out what works best for each of us.
Your caveat on not going “cold turkey” is a good caution to lean on your course title “Evolving.”
With 70K image catalog will walk this trail attentively.
Thanks,
Rick H.
This sounds awesome. In lieu of the import module, what would you use to import photos from an iPhone to your Mac hard drive?
I appreciate the mea-culpa. It is somewhat suspicious that both yourself and Terry White released videos within hours of each other highlighting a move or clarifying Lightroom over Lightroom Classic. My first impression is that you are both signaling that Adobe will soon abandon Lightroom Classic. Although I have tried Lightroom over Lightroom Classic I feel that a couple of key items for me in Lightroom Classic that I am dependent on appear to be missing from Lightroom. Clearly that is the organization and the print model. I agree that printing the the Epson tool is fine but for creating various layouts that I relay on the Lightroom Classic Print module for is critical. The other issue that have is with the “Browser” in Lightroom. For me it is quite cumbersome and does not off simplicity of drag and drop and reorganizing. So my perspective is that you and Terry White have started to signal an Adobe move away from Lightroom Classic to Lightroom. I concluded that may be the reason for the Mea-Culpa. So someone that watches much of your contact and have been for many years I find that disturbing.
yesterday there was a sample video and course outline but it’s not there today…any way to see them? thanks
Good job as usual!
Matt, I watched this video first and then went back to your first video. Although I need to understand more clearly what you’re describing as a new work flow, which I will do, the one glaring concern for me was that you never mentioned iPhone photos. I’m hooked on the 15 Pro Max, as are many of my camera friends, and only took it on a 3 week trip to Japan. The quality was superb. Many professional teachers and photographers on line are also touting the virtues of the new 15. So it really is my go to camera now and I’m assuming, because you only used the SD card example that the iPhone photos do not work in this new work flow as your described it, ie a direct import to LR. Is this correct? Thanks.
My 2c:
I believe that over time Adobe will kill off LrC: it makes no sense to maintain two versions of the same software (3 if you count Camera Raw), and who would bet against software being more cloud centric over time?
Until Adobe figures out how to provide full (and I do mean full) feature parity between the two versions, I fear the confusion will continue, and folks with extensive photo collections that make the move risk paying some painful school fees.
I think Lr makes most sense for those new to the game with no photographic “baggage” linked to LrC’s cataloguing and local storage abilities.
Personally, I’ve tried a setup that involves plugins that replicate collections which are synced, and I can now see all edits made in LrC with my Mac, on Lr on my IPad. It sort of works, but the dream of bidirectional editing on the iPad or the Mac and just having the edits show up everywhere is still just that. I’ve lost too many edits made on iPad, and had too many cold-sweat catalogue funnies on LrC to trust this.
I feel Adobe is still relying on us users to stick the two versions together with bubble gum and tape, and what should really happen is a proper roadmap to get us out of catalogue world.
Cheers,
Mark.
I started yesterday using LR. However, when I click on some images on my hard rive to work on, an error message pops up stating that the image is read only and can’t be edited in LR/ What to do?
I installed Lightroom, and spent a half hour with it, and it left me with a really bad impression. First of all the user interface has all sorts of useless junk you can’t turn off. Like if I don’t want the cloud at all, why should I have to always choose local every time I fire it up? Not only that, scrolling through images using my arrow keys is horrendous. Not only is there a not insignificant delay, but touching the arrow key once sends it scurrying over 8 to ten photos.
All I can say is I can see the benefits you mention, but the user interface is just terrible.
I can see the benefits of the new workflow if one has very small library or for people who find it hard to use the LR Classic catalog.
I am not sure I see the benefits for people with larger libraries, that know how to handle the catalog like yourself. Why would YOU change to the new workflow?
Hi, I guess that I maybe in the confused ‘Middle’ group?
Wanting a ‘Browser’ (i.e. Bridge) in the same place as ‘Develop’ (i.e. without the faff of ‘Export’ and ‘Import’) basically because of the ‘Printing’ functions in Lightroom, being more straightforward (soft proofing and sharpening for papers and stuff) than in Photoshop.
I currently use Lightroom Classic just for an ‘Output’ Catalogue (excuse me being English!) with finished images saved, usually, as Tiffs, and finished for the required output from there.
Now, I’m really confused
Hi Matt:
I greatly enjoy your masterful editing skills and the clarity with which you present new Lightroom features. When new LR features are introduced, I appreciate how you describe their purpose and how to implement them to the best advantage. For the first time, I have to take exception to your opinion – namely migrating from LRc to LR. I think that decision is very personal and a lot depends on how you track your images. I know that the catalog(s) of LRc are sometimes a problem but it does allow for ease of moving images from multiple devices onto a hard drive with a consistent numbering pattern within a given folder and also helps in creating a logical mechanism for arranging folders. Much easier than trying to do it manually using other tools like Image Capture on a Mac.
I have over 50,000 images that I track by year and then a combination of month and location. LRc also has an easy mechanism for loading SmugMug with the best images that basically form my extended portfolio. I just don’t see how LR makes tracking of photos very easy or logical and although you don’t usually talk about organization I think you are doing a disservice to your loyal followers by not addressing this aspect of your migration from LRc to LR.
Thank you for everything that you do to educate other photographers
Best regards
Simon
Thanks for clarifying, Matt.
Like you, I have a lot of photographs (100,000+). I’ve been a photographer since my time as a combat photographer in the sixties. My film shots have been scanned and I’ve stored these based on Key Words so I can find them when I need to. Moving over to LR may not give me an easy way to find the picture I’m looking for. I may have stored the shots under the year I shot them. That doesn’t give me an easy way of finding the shot or shots I’m looking for.
Bought the course and viewed a number of lessons. I believe that by concentrating on local and ignoring cloud you miss the needs of a group of photographers like myself, older and often having left the expensive (heavy) camera and lenses at home, happy playing with their phone, iPhone 13 Pro in my case. For us cloud storage opened a new world of possibilities: take images on the road, view at home on my iPad via photos, maybe use Lightroom to edit, save the big jobs for the iMac and Lightroom, the image is already there because of the cloud, Cloud storage makes everything much easier , chose whatever device handy to show and edit, print from another. This seems to be my future , I’ll still keep my 50K photos in Lightroom Classic on local hard drives, but Lightroom will see the bulk of my new work.
I got the course and gone thru all 20 vids. Very nicely done. The one question. How does one specify the Lr folder for transfer of LrC photos? OK, one more comment. In order to print one needs to transfer to PS or export a TIFF or JPG for use by a third party app. Did I get this correct?
Enjoy the journey …
I’m happy with Lightroom Classic and really appreciate the file organization and keywords as well as the print module. I do use Lightroom mobile and do like that the Lightroom camera photos come into Lightroom Classic. But I’m not jumping on your bandwagon. And I’d never want to store my images in the cloud. I’ll check back to see your presentations, but right now I’m very happy where I am… I hope Adobe doesn’t try to move people into Lightroom.
For me LR is still missing too many features of LrC, and I like the organization of LrC. I have a lot of family history/genealogical photos where keywords and metadata are important to me. Moving from hierarchical keywords to flat keywords is not something I want to do because I moved from a flat keyword list to hierarchical to make keywords easier for me. I use plugins that manipulate metadata, and I don’t believe they are available in LR. I also don’t think smart collections and publish services are available in LR. A lot of things to think about before using LR more.
My current use of LR is to sync collections from LrC to it for review, and I’m looking for other ways to use LR. I’ll probably get the course just to learn more about LR and see what I might be missing.
Matt, I can clearly understand the confusion. Not only with Adobe’s product naming, but with your positioning as well. Without going back and rewatching the video from yesterday, it seemed pretty clear to me that you were ‘evolving’ (per the title of your training), which implies moving on / moving onward. I personally like my Lightroom Classic workflow and have no interest in changing – so yes, I’m in that camp. Since I’ve always enjoyed your training videos, I’ll still tune in to see what you’re up to.
Thanks, Mark
It seems like Lightroom doesn’t pick up the ratings and edits from the images that have been done using only Lightroom Classic (non-RAW, like TIFs seem to have the ratings at least) If that’s possible I’d love to know how.
Oops, I just watched this new video. I work in DNG, so I assumed all my adjustments were already in the files and I wouldn’t need to export the metadata. (they didn’t seem to show in Lightroom though) I have about 300K images, so it would take quite a while to do all of them.
Lightroom didn’t seem to be any quicker at flipping through images to rate them than LRc, so that’s not a plus for it. Possibly even slower/more laggy sadly. That’s a main thing I use LRc for. Rate and tag images. Though I don’t recall seeing any “processing” of the image when I was flipping through so maybe that makes up for the pauses sometime when LRc needs to render an image.
I think Lightroom will be good if I ever need to process some images in the field for some reason.
Thanks for the update. I felt after watching most of the videos and jumping into Lightroom you maybe rushed some of the content. Some areas you could have gone a little deeper. I’ve been a Lightroom Classic and Photoshop user from the beginning. It’s hard to switch, yet I’m open to change. One thing, you stated no imports, yet if I open Lightroom and plug in my camera the dialog at the top right actually says import? Another thing that puzzles me, if I use Lightroom to browse and edit photos, then want to import to Classic all my edits come over. Yet, from Classic to Lightroom you have to manually embed the meta? Not sure where I stand yet.
Wondering if I misunderstood.did you say that you no longer use plug ins in LRC? I thought it was beneficial to use Topaz AI on raw from the drop down menu. Could you please clarify? Thanks!
Thanks for the attempt at clarifying your position on LRC and LR. Your frequent use of the word “probably” seems to muddy your clarification. As you continue to try to clarify you position and our our use of LRC and/or LR I’m still not certain that you will continue to develop LRC courses.
For now, I will stick with LRC. Thank you.
Hi. I’m curious… what could I teach in either program that would negate the other. I don’t teach organizing and the editing is the same. So regardless of the program would it matter?
Now I’m confused …. everything in your first message (yesterday’s “Goodbye …”) seemed great. However, now I note that perhaps one of the absolutely best features of Lightroom might be disappearing. Please tell me again how my collections and smart collections are preserved…. Thanks
What, really, is the overarching advantage of LR vs. LR Classic? If I’m fully comfortable with LR running locally on my Mac, and storing my images locally, why move?
Thanks, Matt. I was a little confused, but that’s not unusual for me. Your courses are easy to follow and down to earth. I’ve learned so much and I have so much more to learn. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
I was disappointed with the video. It was more of a bunch of snippets of lightroom features than a workflow.
Also did not realize lightroom does not have a Print Module your advertsiing for the video stated all the features in LRC were available in LR. I think you should have made clear the important differences. Finally, I find that working directly with files and being able to delete them directly from disk is dangerous. At least in LRC if you work from collections and delete something, the original file still exists untouched. Just my opinion but your presentation is now more like a marketing guru with the “buy one, get one free”, “but wait, theres more”.
My main concern isn’t that you have developed a different work flow with Lightroom rather than Lightroom classic. My concern is that adobe is eventually going to phase out lightroom classic. I have in excess of 500,000 pictures in my data base going back to 1972 and they have been carefully named and key worded and geo tagged. Finding a particular set of pictures in that group can be very difficult in the Window’s file browser but is relatively straight forward in Lightroom classic with it’s multiple search functions. I also find the collections very helpful for cleaning up a large group of pictures and keeping straight which ones I have done. I have not used Bridge in several years but the last time I used it, it was clunky and limited compared to Lightroom classic. Once again, I don’t have a problem with changing work flow, I just don’t want to lose the photo management functions of LR Classic.
Hi Matt,
I understood you very well and also say good by to LrC. Like you, I find LR much clearer. Thanks for the tip.
Cheers
Norbert
Where I’m confused is collections and publish services. I can’t seem to find that those functions are in the “new” version
I downloaded Lightroom (not Classic) this morning just to see what the Local workflow looked like – I was intrigued by your video yesterday. There were lots of little things but two big ones that ruled it out for me. 1. No dual monitor support; 2. Its bizarre file handling if you open in Photoshop to do more edits. I tried this twice as I didn’t believe what I saw. A DNG (Apple ProRaw from an iPhone 14 Pro) edited in Lightroom opened as a TIF in Photoshop. When I selected Save As to make a PSD file in a different directory the PSD was saved in the same directory as the DNG. No error messages, no warnings – just file chaos in the making.
“THIS IS THE LIGHTROOM WE’VE ALWAYS WANTED!”
I disagree. I have 10,000 images that are stored by date and collected without regard to date.
Putting the “old” collections into “albums” is a massive task that I’m not real excited about doing.
My hope and expectation is that Adobe will write something that will read .lrcat files and produce
whatever it is that LR-CC uses for local albums.
Still no response on my Adobe forums missive:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-ecosystem-cloud-based-discussions/i-m-considering-using-lightroom-over-lrc-but/m-p/14284968#M86127
I am still very confused as to what Adobe is doing with LR. If there is no catalog, then where does the metadata and edit information reside? I have all my photos heavily keyworded and captioned so I don’t need a browser and a bunch of folders to find what I am looking for. I try and keep it simple by having only 3 folders (Import, In Process and Finished). All the photos that I am keeping end up in the Finished folder. I have sufficient metadata to enable me to find anything in seconds using the standard LRC text search. As long as Adobe is supporting LRC, that is what I will be using. I have had issues with the catalog from time to time but I am technically savvy enough to deal with it. Keep it simple, that’s my motto.
The biggest challenge I have with your suggested evolution is duplicate photos. I often leave images on my memory cards for a while. I could have a series of shots from several days on one card. I often import images into LR Classic and put the card back in the camera without deleting or reformatting. I don’t worry about the older images when I import the latest set of shots, because as you well know, LR Classic grays out the duplicates. I am probably one of the subsets of LR users that won’t change. I can shoot 50,000 or more mages in a year. I need the digital asset management that LR classic provides. I can’t see any real advantage to my workflow other than the time I spend waiting for imports,
Thanks a lot for explaining that some more Matt. Before I started following you few years back. That is where I started, and moved over to LRC. But I understand what you are saying now !! Thanks again and Happy Holidays to you and your families!!
I have all my photos in one file. I have 1 catalogue . I don’t use collections, subfolders, folders by date etc. If I want to find a photo I search for key words. It’s that simple. If you were to issue a supplementary video covering responders’ comments you might increase sales? If I could bin LRC and move to LR I would.
Hi Matt! I was trying to use LR and tried searching by keyword. I couldn’t figure out how to do it? I had the keywords entered in my old LRC work flow – by adding them right after I import them. So, they are part of the meta for the photo. But, when I open the photos in LR, and try to search by the keyword, I wasn’t able to do it? Do you know how?
Hi Matt. Excellent course as ever, and I am only three lessons in. However.. (you knew that was coming didn’t you, sorry!)
A word of advice for anyone having issues if their external NAS drive (connected via wifi) does not show up on the list of drives on the left hand explorer panel.
My list of drives was limited to the “C” drive on the laptop and I could not find a way of adding the NAS to the list of drives. However by opening an individual file on said NAS drive, by using the “open” button next to the favourites and browse tabs on the left hand side, this brought up the “breadcrumb trail” above the photo, which also showed the location of the drive, which I was then able to right click and add to my favourites.
I hope this wasn’t a pointless ramble and helps someone else who maybe suffering the same issue, unless this was just a me problem.
Thanks again, I know this is your job, but your teaching style hits the spot and it’s so useful having the advice on hand for when I encounter a “can’t remember how to ….” moment.
Hi Matt,
Thank you for the recommendation about LR. I bought your training course on it and just finished it. An excellent set of videos. I will definitely give LR a try. I got really excited when you first mentioned that the LRC catalog is gone from LR and that we could just look directly at files wherever they are. In my case they are on a NAS, an external drive and my hard drive. That is one of the things I really like about ON1 and Luminar Neo. Working with LRC’s catalog is such a pain! However, there are a lot of things I do in LRC that will require more effort or are missing in LR. Examples are plug-ins (more effort). No collections in LR (no ideal workaround either). I have nested folders of photos. I would like to be able to see all of my 2023 photos. Unfortunately, LR shows nothing in that folder because it only contains other folders. So I have to click farther down in my tree to see nothing in Vacation and then I finally get to see photos in North Carolina Waterfalls. I have the feeling that I will have to stick with LRC for now, but will definitely keep an eye on LR and experiment with it from time to time. Please continue to keep us up to date on your progress with LR.
Happy shooting, David
If I do switch to LR from LrC do I then have to keep all the images on my Mac hard drive or can I still store them on an external drive as I have always done with LrC.
Local use of LR-CC will see whatever your Mac has access to. I use an external RAID-5 over USB and it works fine.
Thanks for your email Matt. Apart from having a file browser and editing on the same page in Lightroom I don’t see how Lightroom is better than Bridge and ACR. The latter is fairly seamless. Maybe a short video,comparing the two might help sales?
I have only watched your 2 recent videos, but I do use collections in LRC. Is there something similar in LR, or will I have to go back to LRC? If it is like bridge (don’t use), I don’t see where collections would fit.
It’s not you Matt that is confusing…. it is adobe. seems to be Lr became Lr Classic but they created Lr to mess with us cloud vs desktop … like I really need ALL my images in one place on my phone and iPad… really? Now they realize their mistake how many years later and now messing with us again? I personally have been having lots of catalogue error issues and do not like bridge to have to open a gazillion folders…. so now I will be interested in seeing what you are talking about/ thanks Matt.
Hello Matt, Was very confused yesterday… Today I am only sum what confused. Still not sure what you are selling, and I don’t use the term “selling” in a negative way. Are you selling a “Course” that will teach me a new way to go about using LRC or have you developed a “program” that would or could replace LRC.
I have purchased your LR and PS courses and have found them to be invaluable.
I thought your first video was hilarious! You’re experiencing all the thrill and excitement that Bridge / ACR users have been enjoying for years! Since Adobe’s ‘Grand Unification’ (when LR & ACR presets were supported identically), files could be moved from one to the other seamlessly. LrC reads the .xmp and .acr files and sets the LrC sliders appropriately; Ctrl+S in LrC writes these so the file opens correctly in ACR. As near as I can see, Lr-Local IS Adobe Camera Raw.
The fact that Lightroom will only search one folder at a time is a deal breaker for me. I have keywords that are scattered over many folders. Maybe they will fix this in a future update.
Thanks for the apology – you had me almost switching but my workflow is shoot, select, edit, create collection, publish and share. Also if a photo makes 5 star (very rare but…) then I publish to my smugmug using the plug-ins. I’m guessing I cannot do all of this with LR and so I will stay with LRC becuadse all my tools are there in one place
Well for me Lr is like using Camera Raw Filter in Ps. Is not complete. LrC is the most complete but I would have loved LrC without catalogs, yes for sure, oh boy I really hate those catalogs. That’s why I still don’t understand why Adobe keep separated both, But if I have to use something lighter and quicker without importing in, there’s always Camera Raw and Ps. I’m sure some people will love using Lr as an editing evolution.
I have been using LrC since Lightroom original first became available. I did a “test” drive today with Lr. I agree direct link to folders is a lot better than catalogs. I never use the import function but instead I set up my file structure to just do Synchs to get the images into the catalog. Catalog matches my file structure exactly as if I was just accessing the file directory. Maybe it’s just my workflow but I do use star ratings and Color codes in my flow. I could not find anywhere as to how to import ratings from existing photos and I’m sure i’m missing something but did not see any color coding. Guess I could get by without the color coding but I hate to go back through all my images to recode. Additionally I do not see an “Export to” for further processing in other software other than Photoshop. Are theses items covered in your course ?
Seems to me that your suggestion to start anew maybe the best option to start the transition. However not having an option to export to other processing software is a concern. Am I missing something ?
Matt, I’ve been listening and watching your video for some time now. What I heard you say this morning in your “I screwed up Yesterday” was what I was wondering about listing to your video yesterday, and that is what about all of my collections. I certainly don’t want to lose them. I too have over 100,000 + photo in LRC. I don’t believe I’ll be switching for some time to come.
Thanks,
Van
I have been using Photoshop since the first time that layers were introduced and feel very comfortable. I have started and stopped using Lightroom since it became Lightroom but never felt like the catalogs were something that I could do, I am too scattered. I love Bridge and have enjoyed using it. My question is that I would like to use DxO PureRaw that does not work with ADR soooo would Lightroom be the answer as opposed to Lightroom Classic?
You most certainly can use PureRAW with Bridge and ACR. I do it every day with my Fujifilm RAWs. You just need to use PureRAW in stand-alone mode and save the resulting DNG file to the same place your RAW file resides. Then, both files will show in Bridge. Since Lr does not support plug-ins, this will be the same workflow you will use with it. That is why I see no advantage to Lr over my Bridge/ACR/PS workflow that I use. I am not about to go back to any Lightroom product because I always end up in PS anyway. YMMV.
I thought your comments in the intro video yesterday and then throughout the course were pretty clear…you think this is the way to go for many or most, with a clear explanation for your reasoning, but that everyone has to decide on their own. I went through all 20 videos yesterday and despite your thorough intro to LR I will be one of those who sticks with LRC. I organize everything in my photo library, containing images from way back in 2001, in collections. In my workflow folders are used once, to import the images, and then pretty much forgotten. I agree the whole catalog system is too complex, but I’ve gotten used to it. If I could port over my collections into LR’s albums, or whatever they’re calling them there, maybe. A hybrid system? That just terrifies me. So, thanks for your clear explanations, but, no. In the back of my head I can’t get rid of the idea that in three or five years there won’t be two programs, just LR, just as soon as Adobe can figure out a way to easily hopefully painlessly get rid of the catalog system without offending too many of their users.
So I had to watch this video to see what I was supposed to be confused about. Happy to discover that I’m okay after all. I’m in category number 1, already purchased the evolving course and can’t wait to get started with it. I love LRC (have avoided LR for multiple reasons) but my catalog(s) are in a mess. [Multiple catalogs seemed like a good idea at the time.] I have purchased your other course on cleaning those up, but I still haven’t gone through all the steps. There’s always something more fun to do or learn. Now I can just move forward with LR and if I decide to revisit the past, I can deal with that then. Thanks for all you do!
Hi Matt,
If I could change only one thing about Lightroom it would be the crazy confusion of re-used names! I still have something called Lightroom 6 on my hard drive. This was called Lightroom from the first day. Now I have and use the program Lightroom Classic. And lo and behold, here is a new something called Lightroom (again.) I also have Lightroom Cloud and recently received an email from Adobe saying LIghtroom Cloud was being closed down. I don’t use Lightroom Cloud, really, but I paid for it as a result of buying a “package” from Adobe when I got LR classic. I appreciated your video above, because I was one of the people who read your email and had a heart attack, believing that Adobe was introducing a replacement for Classic and having no idea what the heck was going on. One question I have about the new LR is do you have to have an IN connection to even use it? That one fact would tell me if I should get on board. Thanks, Matt, for your help. You are an amazing teacher!
“One question I have about the new LR is do you have to have an IN connection to even use it?”
No, not if you are using it in ‘Local’ mode as is Matt’s workflow.
It appears that I will be one of the few who is sticking to Classic. I a. Primarily a hikers, but I always have my camera with me for nature photographer. U make heavy use of hierarchically keywords for animals, birds, wildflowers, etc, I also add my GPS tracks to my photos. I makes it easy to tally, through my history, which specific wildflowers, birds butterflies, etc I have seen in different months through the years. I can see advantages for others in using your new workflow, however it is not for me.
Adobe had no choice but to put “Local” into Lightroom. More and more amateur and professional photographers are switching from Adobe to ON1 Photo Raw (2024 Max) and Luminar Neo. Both of which reference only the photographer’s own computer files for photos. If Luminar Neo ever decides to put a browser module into its editing software Adobe will have some real competition on its hands.
Matt;
I have a lot of photos i have used Topaz AI, Luminar Neo, Nik Silver Effects, … as part of my workflow within Lightroom Classic. I often stack these photos in the Classic catalog. How can I bring these edited photos into Lightroom?
I have lived two horrible examples of Murphy’s Law: If something can go wrong, it will.” Both examples relate to catalogs and both baffled the experts.
The first case is that my Apple music catalog that managed over 50,000 audio files got corrupted. That was a HUGE loss. The good people at Apple could not explain what happened and there was no way to fix it. I now use a different program for audio file management.
The second and more recent example is that my Lightroom catalog got corrupted. I lost images. “That can’t happen,” I heard from Adobe and from the Adobe support community. It did, and Adobe had no fix for it. And my backup programs had overwritten the uncorrupted files. My bad on that one. I now ensure a LONG time archieve on backups. But still, I don’t trust the Lightroom catalog.
I am going to start using LR and eventually stop using LrC. When I’m comfortable with that, I will eagerly give up the Lightroom Catalog. I am familiar with inductive logic and know that the one-time corrumption, that even Adobe could not fix, may not happen again in the life of the universe, but once was enough to me
By the way, I love your approach to teaching. Keep up the excellent work.
Hi Matt,
I think that you were more than clear that each user needs to evaluate for themselves and you helped that process in this course. There is always old-muscle memory that makes such a switch difficult, and some features have not made it to Lightroom that should, but it is clear that Adobe is moving this way and much of the legacy issues will either go away or be addressed. This is more Adobe’s issues than yours, but I can appreciate that some might get confused or hope for more, and count me in the latter column. That said, Adobe has made some remarkable changes across its offerings in the last year, so I do understand that it cannot all happen immediately. As always, thanks for the clear content and communication.
Hi Matt, the power of your message yesterday reached across the Atlantic and I decided to shift to Lightroom (keeping LRc in a dark corner). Whilst it’s not perfect or an easy choice I kind of sit in that camp that says surely Adobe can’t keep both versions going for ever. Don’t feel too worried about your message yesterday, I can’t imagine anyone jumps versions without a lot of thought, the responses certainly suggest that. I’m an enthusiastic amateur but had some time over the last 24 hours to do a bit of extra research over and above your videos. Your message still seemed strong even if it wasn’t quite what you intended. Keep up the great work.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the 2nd video to clarify your message re: LR. You got me looking into the new LR yesterday. I’ve always stuck with Bridge because of the ability to move the panels around and size them as needed. I’ve always kept the preview window large so I could see more detail quickly while editing and searching. So far, I don’t see a way to do this with LR. Is it possible? And if so, is that something you cover in your new course?
Thanks for your continued work,
John Gallagher
Hey Matt:
I really do appreciate this little video clarification that you produced up above on the page I’m leaving this comment on. It’s a consummate professional, who is willing to go to his followers, and admit that he made a screwup in his comments to a certain group of his followers. I think that for the most part I fall into that group. Not entirely as I did follow where you were going with this, but really did panic when I first read the lead in line about saying goodbye to Lightroom classic.
This clarification video makes a lot of sense And I’m glad you put it out there to us.
No more catalogs would be great. Direct photo folder access, great. No print module ends any consideration of making the change
Matt, you are way off on this one. Dumping collections, printing, book module, catalog for a file browser that allows editing? Maybe for the hobbyist who doesn’t understand or use all the parts of LR, but no way for anyone with a serious image library. Please just call this a file browser and skip the bs on dumping LR.
How do you get photos into Lightroom, without importing some where?
You mentioned more than once – “no need to import photos”
You save your photos to your hard drive like any other file. Then see them in the browser. Simple.
Some of us rename on import (particularly for client shoots) – without some sort of import process, just copying from the cards leaves us with whatever file naming convention our cameras use.
True. But, the question was about how one gets photos into Lr, not extra processes like renaming.
No more catalogs would be great. Direct photo folder access, great. No print module ends any consideration of making the change
Hi Matt, good that you made this clarification. Indeed, I was quite confused with your initial statement and subsequently disappointed by your course.
Thank you for your honest apologies 😉
Edouard
You didn’t confuse me , at least not this time. Your video motivated me to play with LR after which I concluded that eliminating the need for a catalogue is a huge benefit.I also concluded that I would be utilizing both LR and LRC for a while. Your timing is great as I can stay with LRC thru year end and begin the new approach/new filing system on 1/1/24.
Until I watched today’s video, I was concerned about bringing selected files to LR from LRC without all metadata. Today you hit that point spot on.
As always I can’t thank you enough for the time and effort you put into sharing your knowledge.
Good for you making this little explanation regarding your continued use of LRC and why. I just finished lesson 4 though really want to jump to lesson 13 as publishing Collection Sets to the cloud for sharing with clients using only smart previews to save cloud space is something I use all the time. I will check in again at the end of this “evolution” course and let you know how I feel.
Eric
Skip away! The course police will forgive you! 😉
It still seems that the only way to save cloud space is to sync from a collection in LRC. Only the smart previews are synced to the cloud that way. LR puts the entire file in the cloud when working with Cloud. Am I missing something, Matt?
You’re not missing anything – while there is now a Local tab in LR, there is nothing that duplicates the Smart Preview feature of LrC that I’m sure a lot of commercial photographers (like me and, I assume, you) use in exactly this way. This is the part where “it won’t cost more money” falls down, as managing which client images are currently synced, along with my catalog of past shoots and portfolio images, would become a huge headache with the 20GB plan, where the LrC workflow makes it a non-issue.
Thanks for your confirmation @Rick Baumhauer!
I received this mail a while ago which informs us that this part of our plan is stopping.Dear Creative Cloud User,
We want to let you know about an upcoming change to your personal Creative Cloud account. Adobe is modernising the Creative Cloud storage experience and will begin discontinuing Creative Cloud Synced files on 1 February 2024.
How this may impact you:
• Files saved to Creative Cloud Files folder on your computer will no longer automatically sync with assets.adobe.com.
• Files that are uploaded directly to assets.adobe.com or the Creative Cloud Mobile App will not be automatically copied to your computer.
Recommended actions:
• If you do not save assets to the Creative Cloud Synced files, no action is needed.
• Ensure your assets are properly backed up locally or to third-party cloud storage.
It is important to emphasise that there will be no change to Creative Cloud Documents functionality. You can still save files as Creative Cloud Documents via applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator; these files will remain in sync across devices.
Regards,
Adobe Creative Cloud Team
I am new to photo editing, I was bombarded with lots of programs, and was very confused. I ended up buying about 6 photo editing programs! I was moving to using Bridge, Camera Raw and Photoshop. I was planning on canceling the other programs. Now, for me, this is perfect! I can focus on Lightroom, go into photoshop as needed and have the perfect workflow. (I keep all my photos on external hard drives, never made LRC Catalogues, so I like this much better.)
I use a PC, and it has been hard to upload to Instagram, I had to email my Jpgs, then get them in my ipad, then was able to load them to IG. With this, I can just do right to IG from lightroom. Thank you, I for one and very happy to make this move.
Matt, thanks for correcting yourself. I binge watched the lessons and they were straight forwards. I also appreciate your suggested work a rounds. One thing I was disappointed with Lightroom was the inability to print directly from Lightroom. I know you don’t advocate printing from Lightroom but printing from the software associated with the printer. unfortunately the Canon Print Studio Pro is not a free standing program. My work a round has been to move an image from LIghtroom into Photoshop and use the Print Studio Pro plug in.
Thanks for producing the class, not 100% sure if I will process images all the time in Lightroom but I’m going to give it a try with new projects.
A sticky wicket no doubt! I bought the course and it helped clear up what can and can’t be done. Worth the money for that alone. The “local” button was what most of us were looking for. At least I was. We in The Villages wish you continued success and look forward to seeing what you develop in 2024.
Hi Matt: Thanks for creating and sharing this video. QUESTION: How does Lr handle Keywords. I have applied keywords to all of my images via LrC and these keywords are contained in a Structured Keyword List. I have seen where the keyword appears within Lr and I can see how I am able to add a new keyword. Is there a way to see the Structured Keyword List within Lr so I can place or edit the new keyword in the proper branch of my Structured Keyword List? Can I see the Structured Keyword List that is being used within the Lr application. Thanks, Keith
There are no structured keywords in LR – apparently, those of us dinosaurs that have used them for 15 (or more) years are just going to have to live with the notion that “nobody uses them”, and that those of us that do, should just get over it.
Thanks for clarifying what I thought was the case as far as no structured keywords. Besides photography, I am an artist and weaver and have massive amounts of family photos going back generations (genealogy). I use structured keywords extensively. One photo of a piece of art will have multiple levels of subcategories for ‘type of medium used’ (oil, watercolor…) – and even a sub-sub category for brand (as they vary a lot from each other), ‘style’ (abstract, landscape…), ‘fibers used’ (cotton, acrylic…), ‘type of weave’ and on and on. So it is much simpler to do a filtered search – ex. abstract and oil – to find pieces.
And I do ALL sorts of ‘hobby’ photography (macro, floral, landscape, wildlife…), and have done so all of my life. And this is where I use structure keywords extensively. Several years ago I made a monumental effort to create a keyword structure and applied all appropriate keywords to every one of my images (> 30,000 of them). Some of the structure may go 3 – 5 layers deep: i.e. Animals > Birds > Woodpecker > Downy Woodpecker > Juvenile Downy Woodpecker. (And don’t get me started with “flowers and plants”!!!)
And, now, it is quite simple to apply keywords every time I ‘import’ new photos. I can visually see my structure in the right hand panel and click on all keywords that apply to single images or multiple images. And it is extremely easy to find any image I have in mind! The hierarchy system of keywording is invaluable to me. So I’ll be staying where I am for now.
I wasn’t at all confused. I AM scrapping Lightroom CC. I just needed someone whom I respect (you) to give me the push. After more than 10 years with Lightroom CC, I’m more than ready to let go and to take the plunge!
Thanks for the clarification Matt, but I feel like a hybrid approach is not simplifying my life. When I have an opportunity to convert all my existing LRC images, and use one “system” to access all my images, then I’ll be sold.
Thanks for the clarification but I do wish it had been clearer at the beginning. I was excited by the ability to use the app for local photos and that would also be great for organizational purposes after your initial comment of switching. After spending some time trying the new app I learned to my disappointment that albums and stacks can only be used if uploaded to the web so all my items in collections or future desktop filtering would not work in Lightroom non-classic. So it was a frustrating morning yesterday when I took your comments verbatim.
Matt,
Love your site and your courses. I played with Lr and yes I agree that in the editing section Lr and LrC and identical. I was contemplation switching but I find one major problem. Lr does not support dual monitors and I like have 2 monitors and for me that is a deal breaker
Hi Matt Doesn’t lightroom (not classic) create an .xmp file every time you edit a photo? I was wondering how much of a buden this is to space on your hard drive. Love this version of Lightroom. It’s a wonder Adobe don’t see the benefits and make it easier to migrate collections and the like to the one version and ditch Classic
Best wishes, have a great xmas , Shane
Have you ever looked at the size of an XMP file? That will answer your question.
One question that I can’t seem to find an answer to… As an LrC and heavy LR Mobile user, If I migrate to Lr going forward, will Lr integration with Lr Mobile be as seamless as it is with LrC? And will my LrC back catalog continue to be available in Lr Mobile while integrating with Lr?
Thanks in advance.
Great info as always matt! In my LRC usage, I make extensive use of collections throughout my workflow. I didn’t see much related to that (collections), but I assume (and you know the definition of assume), that collections are not in the equation with LR. Is this addressed in your new course?
Albums.
For once, I have to disagree about LR (not LRC). I still prefer Bridge plus Photoshop/ACR. It really irks that one cannot print from LR!
You know, Matt, there are going to be plenty of people resisting this change. But for me, it’s going to be perfect. I use Photoshop extensively and always used Camera Bits Photo Mechanic to do all my culling, because I just wasn’t comfortable using LRc. For forty bucks I think I’m going to give Lightroom another chance. All my files are organized in sub-directories under a main directory of PHOTOS that are located on a Synology NAS disk station, so I’m hoping that this could be the perfect solution for me. I’m actually a little excited about using Lightroom now.
Thanks
Hi Matt,
So I may consider myself to belong to the group of very confused followers.
Although I actually belong to quite progressive users, i.e. I am definitely open to a new approach, this time I was very much left wanting to get started myself. Not least, I find LR’s UI (user interface) to be nothing compared to LRC; but that may be a subjective thing.
My biggest concern was migrating the thousands of photos I have in my catalogue following my own structure. I have already spent a whole day today grumbling and fussing because there is no way to start; firstly because, according to the Adobe articles, you have to go via the cloud anyway, so I don’t want to do that. Moreover, I am then suddenly stuck with “duplicate” originals; which I don’t want either.
Apart from the fact that this would take hours and hours if not days. Fortunately, I had experimented by putting some folders in a new (mini)catalogue.
Until I just saw your video above and concluded: ay, so the tempered enthusiasm is not so strange among many of us.
It may indeed be interesting if you are new/starting up, but if you already have a routine in LrC, you are not going to create a new one in LR on top of that. In short, if Adobe does not come up with a very decent migration from LrC to LR (i.e. without going via the cloud, without extra originals, without too much fuss) then I see no added value for myself. The catalog concept has never bothered me, the only thing that bothered me is that you can’t put a catalog on a network volume and that you can’t share it between two computers; that would have been a meaningful added value for me.
I appreciate your new video post in which you have reframed your earlier – rather bold – assertion.
It did cause me a day of annoyance, but fortunately it stopped there.
Thanks
Keep in mind in every video I talk about this that I never say to migrate. It’s not something I did or recommend.
One thing I think you glossed over is for people newer to photography who know and use LrC, but don’t use Photoshop. These people may not know what xmp files are or how to deal with them. Getting rid of the catalog is nice, but the tradeoff is xmp files. If you move an image on your hard drive, you have to remember to move the xmp files with the raw file. If you don’t remember to keep them in the same directory, it can appear that you lost your edits and it can be challenging to re-sync the xmps and raw files. Your apology video is clearer on this, but if you want to move your edits from LrC to LR you have to take the extra step to create the xmp file. I think you are assuming that all LrC users know what xmp files are. However, for a class of people who came directly to the original LR and never used PS, they may not even be aware of xmp files. They only know the catalog.
For me, I use most of the features you list in the still missing category. This will keep me from moving to the newer LR until Adobe has added all the LrC features, or at least have simple workarounds. Thanks for the videos, I think removing the save on the cloud requirement is a huge deal and wouldn’t have been aware since I don’t keep up on changes to LR, only follow LrC. Someday we may get back to one version of LR.
And my course covers it all. Remember my course was never about migrating. It’s not something I recommend.
Even if I had a video I’m not sure people would have watched something on XMP files
But I’ve put that information into the course at the point where some one would need to know
Thanks
But if I switch to LR, I am going to want to migrate the best part of my collection of photos. Why do you not advocate migrating? Looks like in your apology video you showed how to do it. With LR closed, while in Lac, save the meta data to file, then save. So when you go to LR, your files are compete with all your work – flags, stars, keywords, edits. Then, be careful to move them within LR, else you do not include the metadata file. (is this a sidecar?) Slightly awkward and slow but sounds doable. Am I missing something?
Hello Lee , I actually made a similar point above before I read your comment. Mine was regarding space but a bigger issue is the process you have queried. ie transferring both files when you move an image. Cheers Shane