Have LR5 - Just purchased CC - What do I need to know?

I just finally jumped on the CC bandwagon for the monthly subscription. I already had LR5 and PSE 11. If I download LR6, what am I getting myself into? Will my LR catalog be in the cloud? Will I be able to revert to LR5 if I want to? The same goes for my PSD files. I understand that not all the options are available in PSE 11 but I can still open PSD files. Anything that would prohibit me from doing that in the future?

Thanks.

the difference between Lr5 and Lr 6 is minimal from all practical applications. . Your catalog stays in the same location. Lr6 is a separate installation, so you can have Lr5 and Lr6 in teh same machine. I dont know about PSD files. I only work in raw/tiff. I had no issues

There are cloud storage options with Adobe, but I've never touched them and have no idea what they're really like. (I have other services I was already using)

Your LR5 catalogue will be copied and converted for use in LR6. Don't think you can convert a catalogue to work with an older application, but I've never had need to try.

Really the only 'cloud' thing you have to worry about while using CC products is that you download them through their service application and then run them on your local machine. You can use their service application to check for and install updates as they roll out new features to you. It will also need an internet connection to check your subscription is still up to date every month (or two?) and it has been very painless in the more than a year I've been using is now.

You don't have to store anything in "the cloud" if you don't want to.

You CAN set up cloud sync, to flag certain collections to sync with Lightroom Mobile on your table or smartphone. As a whole experience, I've found Lightroom Mobile to be too slow and cumbersome to be practical, but perhaps in future versions (or with a more powerful mobile device and faster data connection) it'll be better.

[edit: but you could do this with LR5 too]

You will need to log into adobe CC to download PS and LR CC.
You may find that having done this LR will not run, my upgrade did not despite having the desktop icon and the programme installed.
In my case I had to log out of adobe CC and log back in, then everything worked fine.

Thanks all for the help. I think I will skip the cloud services for now as well as LR6. I used dropbox to store my lightroom catalog now anyway that way I can access it from my laptop when I am not on my desktop. I really just wanted the additional functionality of PS so I think I've accomplished my goal.

NewCreation wrote in post #17530988
Will my LR catalog be in the cloud?

Only if you want it to. LR CC is installed locally on your machine in the same way that the stand alone LR is. The only difference is that it has optional cloud/online elements (such as LR mobile).

No and Yes.
Yes you will be able to go back to using 5.7 but it will not be able to access/read your LR6/CC catalog so edits done in LR6 since updating won't be accessible. More precisely I believe you can still output images that were edited in LR6/CC as TIFFs (with the edits included) but you can't load the RAW files with LR6 edits into LR5.7 for further editing.

Thank you. This helps a bunch. I currently keep my lr5 catalog in dropbox so my desktop and laptop have access. I think I will keep it that way for now and skip the lr6 option unless I use it for a separate catalog for some of the newer features.

Be careful keeping it in an auto sync service like dropbox, and remember that lightroom won't play nice if it is open on both machines at the same time.

I have found that LR6 runs noticeably faster when switching between photos on their initial load and because of that it is proving better for sorting larger collections. May not matter too much to you depending on the volume of photos you're working with, but I'm fairly sure I would jump on the upgrade for that alone if I wasn't already on CC.

Good luck with your work, and remember to backup your catalogue often.

Luckless wrote in post #17531968
Be careful keeping it in an auto sync service like dropbox, and remember that lightroom won't play nice if it is open on both machines at the same time.

I have found that LR6 runs noticeably faster when switching between photos on their initial load and because of that it is proving better for sorting larger collections. May not matter too much to you depending on the volume of photos you're working with, but I'm fairly sure I would jump on the upgrade for that alone if I wasn't already on CC.

Good luck with your work, and remember to backup your catalogue often.

What do I need to watch out for with using dropbox?

I'm the only use so I should be ok for not running both machines, but I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. Yes, I back up often.

Luckless wrote in post #17531968
Be careful keeping it in an auto sync service like dropbox, and remember that lightroom won't play nice if it is open on both machines at the same time.

I have found that LR6 runs noticeably faster when switching between photos on their initial load and because of that it is proving better for sorting larger collections. May not matter too much to you depending on the volume of photos you're working with, but I'm fairly sure I would jump on the upgrade for that alone if I wasn't already on CC.

Good luck with your work, and remember to backup your catalogue often.

I notice my LR CC runs noticeably faster now due to graphics card utilization.

And my catalog is now in a zip file...is that normal for LR6/CC?

NewCreation wrote in post #17532252
What do I need to watch out for with using dropbox?

I'm the only use so I should be ok for not running both machines, but I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. Yes, I back up often.

Really you just have to be very careful about making sure Lightroom is closed on one computer, and that the changes made on the first one have time to upload to Dropbox and then sync to the other computer before opening Lightroom with that same catalogue.

Dropbox doesn't have the nicest interface for out of sync writes, and as far as I know just does a simple push of the 'newest' file edit to all systems. (At least that is what it appeared to do in all my previous tests) So if you make massive changes to a file on a system that is offline, and then edit it on a second system before the file from the first makes it there, dropbox just looks at it and says "Yep, file on the second system was edited last, time to push that out to everyone, and we'll ignore the minutes/hours/days/wee​ks of work that went into that other 'old' copy from the first system." I've never seen it throw an error or warning about edit conflicts in any of my testing. (However if anyone knows how to enable that, or if it has changed since I did actual tests awhile back, that would be great to know.)

Lightroom seems to be good at pushing a stream of constant small changes out to the catalog file as it is running, so it is unlikely that you'll do much damage even if you have both computers in front of you at the time you exit out of one and load the other. Where you're most likely to get into trouble is with an unusual event such as having issues with your network or internet connection. Something like having a long power outage where you're on your laptop making edits for awhile, and trying to switch over to the desktop as soon as the power comes back on without realizing that your network is still down or trying to launch Lightroom while dropbox is still syncing the catalogue changes.


I have Lightroom setup to make backup copies of the Catalogue to different folders on an online drive depending on which system was running it at the time. Desktop backups are distinct from the backups created on the laptop, even if they're technically the same working file. Usually try and write a backup every time I exit Lightroom, but so far I have yet to need to resort to them.

I'm also really liking the new face detection system. Still waiting on the backlog of old photos to get processed, but I generate thousands of them shooting sports. Looking like this may prove very useful when someone contacts me and asks if I can send them photos of a player for some special event.

Thanks. The info is very helpful. I rarely bounce between machines. I only use the laptop when meeting with a client . I'll keep the pitfalls in mind though.

DisrupTer911 wrote in post #17532299
I notice my LR CC runs noticeably faster now due to graphics card utilization.

And my catalog is now in a zip file...is that normal for LR6/CC?

Yes, that is one of the updates in this version.