Workflow \ Catalogue \ Backup Problems

28061

Hi everyone,

I'm a relatively new amateur photographer, who initially got into taking photos of my new twin boys; I wanted some nice photo's of them as they grew up. As I've become more proficient, I've also began doing shooting limited landscapes. Finally, I've also collected several thousand family photographs from all of my family history, and had them digitally scanned and saved on my PC.

In short, I've now got some 10,000  photographs distributed across the following platforms:
Stored only offline on my home PC, catalogued by Lightroom CC ClassicStored only online, catalogued by the new Lightroom CC (Stored in adobe cloud)Stored on my iPhone X and online by iCloudHaving had a recent data loss scare, I need to consolidate these sources into one library, and then ensure a safe backup exists. However, there's some duplication across these devices. I think, there may even be low quality versions of a photo stored in one place, and high quality versions of the same photo stored in another place.

I got into this mess through poor and inconsistent workflows, so I need to take the opportunity to review these also.

I have a windows 10 PC, an 18TB FreeNas server, a Nikon D5200, and an iPhone x, with a memory card to lightning adaptor. I also currently have a full subscription to adobe creative cloud. I'm open to changing the equipment (slightly), or changing entirely the software I use.

So, two questions:
How can I safely consolidate my libraries, minimizing the risk of duplication and without replacing high quality images with lower quality versions of the same?

Do you have any suggestions about a workflow process that will consistently achieve the following:Must have local and cloud based duplication (or vice versa)I'd be open to the possibility of an entirely cloud based platform if one exists and does what I want.Ideally support adding photos via both mobile and desktop platformsIdeally support decent editing of photos via both mobile and desktop platformsIdeally support face recognition (Lightroom CC classic does a great job of this)Ideally support geotagging\mapping (Lightroom CC classic does a great job)It'd be nice to utilise the photo indexing like many of the cloud platforms do now; ie Google\Amazon photo's; being able to search for say "boat", and getting relevant resultsDoes such thing exist?! Thanks everyone.

Leigh

=adrian=

I have recently went through something similar. I invested in NAS and was facing having to either copy all the mess to NAS, or grind my teeth and spend some time sorting everything. I decided enough is enough and it's time to deal with the issue. So I spent a few hours creating a folder system on my NAS in which there are only 3 or 4 of main folders, and then rest branching out. Then copied stuff manually to relevant folders (PITA). To finish things off, I have created an automated backup task (2 levels). When I click on real time backup it backs up all my recent projects to internal drive. Then every hour, automatically, that internal drive gets scanned and backed up to NAS. This way I have all of my issues sorted: mess cleared and auto backup (which I really wanted) created. Overall, it took only a few hours of my time.

28061

Thanks Adrian,
I certainly don't mind investing a couple of hours into this - I expect to have to do so. ~10,000 photo's is going to take me ages, but so be it if needs me. But that's only half my problem. If I manually download all the libraries, and manually sort them into one, neatly organised folder structure on my FreeNas server, what do I do then?

I can easily do a scheduled, or constant backup of those folders to any number of cloud providers, but this would give me a solely local library, with cloud backup. It wouldn't give me the option to add and edit photo's whilst I'm away and don't have access to my PC (which I do often).

As far as I can tell, if the newer, lightroom CC supported facial recognition, mapping and indexing, I could accept an entirely cloud based library and it would work exactly how I wanted to. IE, I'd only have one library, I could add photo's via my desktop or my phone..

Thinking out loud... Maybe I manually sort all my photos. Then add them into a new lightroom CC library. I could then sync the Lightroom classic library with the CC library, and just do the mapping\facial recognition in there...

I'm not sure where LR Classic stores its metadata for mapping etc. It might be stored locally in a database, or it might be embedded as metadata. Will LR CC remove the metadata if it doesn't use it? I wonder if LR CC and LR classic support bidirectional editing...

=adrian=

Well, I am a wrong guy to be asking about cloud backup, as I don't really use any (only for random uploads or to show photos quickly to clients sometimes).

As for not having access to your local library when away, one of the reasons I bought NAS is to have access to my library when I'm away and can't switch my PC on. My NAS have internet access and I can access it from anywhere around the world (as long as I have internet connection). What's more, I can back up my files while I'm away too from my laptop. A bit of round way, but it works. I upload files I want to backup to a specific folder on my Google Drive. This folder is being monitored by my NAS and anything appearing inside is getting instantly downloaded to NAS.

The way I edit photos when away, is I download, let's say, a RAW from the NAS onto my laptop. Edit it there and upload it to Google Drive to back up, which instantly is copied over to my NAS for additional protection.

Sorry, I can't be much help when it comes to LR as I pretty much stopped using it when I stopped photography. I shoot very rarely now, only if money are involved lol I mainly retouch photos now and use solely Photoshop. So we have a different workflows and therefore, different problems

28061

Some good points Adrian,
In principle, I can access my NAS remotely. Unfortunately, We get ~4mb download at home and remotely using any of the resources are hindered by the non-existent upload rates.

Additionally, when I’m away, I’m generally on the welsh coast with no WiFi and very limited mobile data. This is why I generally like to upload the photos from my DSLR to my iPhone, and do the editing on there. Uploading when I get to a WiFi hotspot.

I remain hopeful that someone is using a cloud based workflow for similar!

wysinawyg

I’m searching for similar and increasingly coming round to the idea that the new Lightroom CC is the only real option. But no mapping etc. (yet - waiting for it to appear may be the best option).

If you really want a LR Classic option aren’t you meant to import on Classic and then just “synch to cloud”. That way Classic is your main library but everything is in New for editing on the go. Presumably there is also some form of import from New to CC for when you’ve dropped everything into your phone / tablet?

Personally I don’t really do mapping / faces etc at the moment so I think I will just bite the bullet and go with New LR now and trade off an easier / simpler workflow against fewer features (which will probably build out over time).

28061

I think you may be right.

So, you can do this, but the library management in LR Classic is a bit odd. For example, even though you may enable "sync with CC", LR Classic only actually syncs photos for which you've gone to the trouble to create a specific 'collection' and it still maintains two seperate library databases; one locally and one on the cloud.

If you stay on top of your photo's, this may not be too bad. If you don't, you end up with files imported into classic, but not yet shared with CC. So, they're not backed up either.

This process works much better. Anything you import into CC, is downloaded into classic if you have "sync with CC" enabled. For new photo's, this would work ok via a mobile workflow, albeit missing the mapping and facial features.

I think, importing into LR CC, via either the mobile or desktop platform, having it all sync, and then use the extra features in LR classic is my best option. It doesn't give me the mapping\facial stuff on the web based platform, which is a shame, but I'll keep my fingers crossed for future updates.

Thanks for helping me work through it

28061

Just an update for closure for anyone who subsequently finds this thread.

I manually sorted my folders and consolidated them all in the cloud based LR CC library. It took a day or so to sort them, and then three days for my PC to upload them.

My workflow now is as follows:
Photo's taken with my iPhone are automatically added to LR CC via the LR mobile app into a 'to sort' folder. This includes photo's taken with the DSLR but added to the iPhone via a SD->Lightning cable.

Some photo's are added direct from the DSLR SD card into the desktop LR CC app via my PC.

This ensures all photo's are indexed and stored on the LR CC Cloud.

Then, they're automatically synced to a new, clean, LR Classic library, and subsequently downloaded automatically to my PC. This gives me the ability to utilise the facial recognition and geomapping features.

It's actually not a bad system really. It does everything I wanted it to do, albeit having to use both LR versions for the time being.