Adobe’s cloud solution is a fine thing in many areas. It simplifies collaboration with partners and customers as well as sharing content with friends (to name just a few). But there’s one thing the Californian creative cloud doesn’t really want to do: store and sync files exclusively with Lightroom Classic CC.

Everything from the Cloud

Adobe is in the process of moving all (?) apps into the cloud. Instead of ‘Lightroom’ there is now ‘Lightroom CC‘ which accesses data in the cloud and processes images on Adobe systems. If you have the “old” Lightroom on your hard drive, you will now launch ‘Lightroom Classic CC’. But ‘Classic’ is still classy, because many functions are still missing from the cloud version. A change to ‘Lightroom CC’ is a bit hasty – at least that’s my opinion.

Where to save the data?

Every hard drive is full at some point, especially if it’s a notebook that travels with the photographer. So there’s usually also a stack of external hard disks, which are intended for backups and external stored data. Adobe Lightroom Classic CC is handles different storage medias with ease. If files are sometimes not available because a hard disk is not plugged in, the folders are marked and the smart preview data (if available) allow even “absent” images to be edited.

So far so good. But what about the Adobe Creative Cloud? Couldn’t one now come up with the idea of moving all the original files into the cloud instead of saving them to a bunch of hard disks and simply saving locally only what is needed? And to make editing just as easy, smart previews would also be available locally.

No, this idea is really not far-fetched. But Adobe thinks differently – at least until today. Because Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic CC don’t want to get involved in the deal, to always store originals in the cloud and only optionally local.

A solution

As mentioned Lightroom Classic CC is very tolerant and doesn’t make a big deal about unavailable original files. So why not use this feature and just get the cloud service somewhere else? You may miss out on other advantages and functions, but let’s leave it at that.

Well, new cloud, new luck. I am a Microsoft customer and use their Office365 solution. The Redmond software company also offers data hoarding clouds with large capacities. So why not save my photo sources there? Because Microsoft’s OneDrive or SharePoint offer the possibility to synchronize folders optionally. The selection can be controlled conveniently and easily via the OneDrive App.

Of course it doesn’t have to be OneDrive or SharePoint. Any cloud service that offers the option of switching synchronisation on and off at directory level can be used here.

This approach works very well for me. My OneDrive has been storing around 3000 files on a trial basis over the last few months. Sooner or later – I hope – this “variable, local storage” will probably also be possible with Adobe or Lightroom CC has taken over all functions from Lightroom Classic CC. Until then I will combine my services and carry a little less hard disks through the countries.