For years I have been converting every RAW to DNG. For me it seems like an easy decision:

1. Saves space (I keep all my files so this makes a difference).

2. No loose .xmp files to worry about - all edits are embedded in the file.

3. Less risk of future compatibility problems.

But it seems like very few people see the world the way I do?

Any other DNGheads out there?

Hi All –

Seeking help from this community.

I need to buy a new machine (Mac) to be able to process my 48MB raw files from my Nikon D850.

I have been looking to buy a used Mac mini M4 pro, but just saw the new Mac mini M6 for less money and I’m wondering if the Mac mini M6 with
12-core CPU / 12-core GPU / 32GB RAM will be able to process an import and workflow of several hundred images off a card without a spinning pinwheel… Or do I have to go back to the M4 pro?

Also – for anybody who has yet to purchase, not sure about renewals, but Amazon is currently running Lightroom/Lightroom classic for $69.95 for a year.

Thanks in advance!

I’m a very casual hobby photographer and just haven’t been able to become proficient in using Lightroom Classic. I’ve actually stopped hobby photography entirely because I find LR Classic so overwhelming and burdensome 😔 Then the price of my Adobe subscription increased 50% and it just seems like a bad financial decision to keep paying for a software I don’t use and don’t like. What if I switched back to using Apple photos for importing my photos like I did 5 years ago when I started photography? I think I only switched from Apple photos to LR Classic because the photography course instructor at a local class wanted me to start shooting RAW. If I switched back to Apple photos, would I continue to shoot in RAW? I don’t have a great understanding of why RAW vs JPEG. I have Sony a7c which is a full frame mirrorless if it matters. I just want to have my photos on Apple photos again so I can text to my mom, email to a friend, save to iPhone favorites, or occasionally print or share on social media. I don’t generally edit my photos too much other than sometimes shadows, contrast, or saturation. Thoughts? I really miss photography. Also, in case ppl are mean since it’s Reddit 🙃, yes I’ve watched many YouTube videos and even took an actual class on LR Classic. It’s just not intuitive, and I don’t use it frequently so it’s like learning it all over again when I go to use it. I have very limited free time as a single working parent which plays into this too. Thank you!

Since the new DaVinci Resolve 21 dropped and added photo editing support, I’ve been wondering if DaVinci can now be a great substitute for Lightroom, if not even better. Since DaVinci is an industry staple in the color grading and Lightroom is the go-to app for photo editing, which one is better? (Sorry for my bad English it’s not my main language)

Hey! My dad (67M) is having trouble finding a workflow for lightroom and was hoping people might be willing to shsre adjustments/their work flow.

Right now he transfers photos via memory card to an external hardrive, puts them into DXO raw, then transfers them onto lightroom.

He says "there has to be an easier way to do this" lol and would love to help him find one but i'm not familiar with lightroom / editing

Hello! I'm new to this sub and I volunteer at our church for the media team. Do you guys use the AI feature of Denoise when post-processing? if not, why? if yes, why and are there times where you dont? like when are you using it?

EDIT: Thank you for the replies, my friends! Appreciate it. I am currently using sony a6700 + tamron 17-70 f2.8. I've tried using denoise even if my ISO is only 3200, minimum of 1000. Still gives me good results. Since, idk, maybe my eyes is sensitive(or maybe its just my thing) that I can see even the tiniest noise of my image even if its not visible to others).

Question now is: what results are we actually looking for when using Denoise and what is it's difference from not using it? I mean, I know of course it would be less noisier but if you guys could show it to me visually, it would be very much appreciated! :) God bless everyone.

Hi folks,

I just came back from a long trip and now have around 10,000 photos sitting on my card. I’m not a pro photographer, so I don’t really have a structured workflow to deal with this kind of volume.

For those of you who’ve done this before:

• What’s your technique or workflow for culling quickly?
• Do you use any specific software or shortcuts?
• What are the first things you look for to immediately disqualify a photo (blurriness, bad exposure, duplicates, etc.)?

I’d really appreciate any tips to help me get a speed boost and not drown in the process.

Thanks in advance!

Hi, I used to edit photos on Lightroom Classic (I remember it used to store all of your edits into one folder), but I think I've lost all of my older edits after resetting my computer over the years.

I want to use the newer Lightroom, but I would prefer to store my edits and photos locally rather than Adobe's cloud storage.

My photos are backed up across several drives and are not on my PC. As you can store edits locally, is it best to: * Dedicate a drive for photos and edits * Dedicate a storage on my PC for photos and edits * (If possible) put the edits into one separate folder on my PC

Thanks for your help!

Hi, I was just wondering if anyone can give me some expert tips/advice on being more efficient with my workflow. I recently came back from a trip in Asia and after transferring my photos to my Mac, realized I had over 2000 photos to scroll thru. I uploaded my photos to LR and have been scrolling thru them 1 by 1 and deleting all the blurry and unusable photos… please tell me that there’s a better way…

Appreciate any tips/advice.

Do you have presets that you use or do you edit from scratch? Is there a specific place or setup you use for your photo editing?

I use LR mobile only and I’ve used Nikon, Canon and now primarily my iPhone only, considering getting a Canon again though.

I want to remove distractions in photoshop first and then apply style changes in Lightroom, but realized I lose the raw file and its dynamic capabilities afterwards. I don’t want to use photoshop for style changes. Any tips for a non destructive workflow?

ETA: another question, how destructive is it if I edit in photoshop first then in Lightroom?

The latest update moving all enhance functionality into the "detail" pane is a nightmare.
One of my primary workflows is to bulk-apply RAW Detail and Denoise to photos, which now doesnt actually seem possible.
I can copy and paste the specific settings across photos (which is way more annoying) but then every one of those photos needs AI Settings Update performed on them to actually apply the denoise/raw detail settings with no obvious way to do this in bulk.

Why destroy a perfectly good workflow in favor of this mess 😣

I’m a headshot photographer. I do about 4 shoots a day, and have a turnaround time of a fully color graded gallery for each shoot by end of day.

The color grade is simple - I have a preset which means all I have to do is adjust skin tone with white balance for each look and I’m done. What bogs me down is exposure. Because I shoot natural light, there tends to be small, yetsignificant changes in exposure across sets. Right now I’m doing all of that manually, which is tedious. “Match exposure” in Lightroom doesn’t really work.

Im curious if anyone knows of any software, either native in Lightroom, a plugin or AI, that is able to match exposures correctly across an entire gallery that would speed up my workflow? Cheers!

Was previously using the built-in Intel graphics processor. Finally decided to upgrade. Got the MSI RTX 5050 with 8GB RAM.

Denoise processing time went from about 5 minutes (you could make a cup of coffee and catch up on emails) to ~10 seconds (Z50 II 20mp nef files) to ~12 seconds (Z6 II 24mp nef files). PC is Dell Precision 3660, i5-13500, 16GB RAM. Installed the NVIDIA Studio driver.

Best upgrade ever. Got it from Walmart for $299 plus tax.

I've got twenty years of photos, some half a million, and I was sick of duplicates.

This morning, I built a Lightroom plugin that does two things:

1. Strict deduplication — finds files that are 100% bit-for-bit identical (e.g. IMG_1234.JPG and IMG_1234-2.JPG that got imported twice). Uses SHA-256 hashing so there are zero false positives.
2. Derivative deduplication — finds cases where you have the same photo in multiple formats (e.g. a .CR3 raw and a .JPG export). It matches by EXIF timestamp and keeps the highest quality version (RAW > Lossless > HEIC > JPEG).

Everything runs from inside Lightroom via Library → Plug-in Extras. It's fast too — scanned 3.2 TB in about 30 seconds.

Safety was key:

• Nothing is permanently deleted — in-catalog dupes are flagged as Rejected for you to review, and not-in-catalog files go to trash.
• A CSV is written before anything happens so you can audit every decision
• The catalog is only ever read, never modified by the script
• You get a confirmation dialog before any action

It cleaned up about 100 GB for me. Hope it helps others: https://github.com/jammastergirish/lightroom-deduplicator/

This may have come up before but I haven’t found anyone mentioning it, so I wanted to drop it here in case it’s of use to anyone else.

I primarily edited my photos using Lightroom Mobile on my 12.9 iPad Pro, until I realised I could use LrC on my iPad (via the Mac) using the Apple Pencil.

You’ll need your Mac and an iPad. Then, it’s as simple as sending the LrC window to your iPad, which is essentially either extending or mirroring the Mac’s display.

To my surprise, the Apple Pencil works flawlessly for all controls and brushing. Better still, it works across the MacOS too! Keyboard shortcuts work if you have a case, or you can use the Mac keyboard. Or, pull-up an on-screen keyboard.

The Magic Keyboard trackpad doesn’t work to move the mouse around and touch doesn’t work either.

Either way, it’s awesome. Best of both worlds!

I tend to turn my Mac display off completely, using the Lunar app, but I’ve also found it useful, if it’s nearby, to use as a ‘secondary window’ to show my photo catalogue while I’m editing on the iPad.

Happy editing, folks.

LrC on iPad - Image 1
LrC on iPad - Image 2
MacOS on iPad

I built a tool for Lightroom Classic catalogs that might be useful to some people here.

You open your .lrcat file and it gives you stats and charts around camera/lens/aperture/shutter speed/focal length usage, ratings, patterns over time, etc.

It runs locally in the browser, no login needed, and your catalog doesn't leave your computer.

I made it mostly because I wanted a simple way to inspect my own catalog data and figured others here might want the same.

It's 100% free, no monetization at all. Since all the logic runs in your browser, it's practically free for me to provide :)

photostats.app

After many years of using Lightroom on different computers and trying different workflows, I think I’ve finally found the perfect workflow for me.

I’m sharing it here in case it might be useful to anyone in a similar situation.

My biggest problem had always been managing terabytes and terabytes of photos across my laptop’s internal drive, cloud-synced folders, and the long waits involved in downloading old files, often only to discover that the photos I was looking for weren’t in that folder.

TL;DR

I keep my Lightroom catalog, recent photos, and active projects on my MacBook’s SSD. Once I finish a project or need to free up space, I move its photos to the NAS from within Lightroom Classic.

I sync collections with Adobe Cloud so I can select and rate photos from my phone, and I use Google Drive as an off-site backup for both the photos stored on my MacBook and those archived on the NAS.

My situation

• Approximately 3 TB of photos dating back to 2010.
• I use Lightroom Classic as my main application.
• I don’t spend much time at home, so I want to use my time in front of the computer mainly for editing rather than searching for, downloading, or selecting photos.

Setup

• MacBook Pro M2 Max with a 1 TB SSD for the catalog, recent photos, and active projects.
• UGREEN DXP4800 Plus NAS:
  • 12 TB 7200 RPM WD HDD for archived photos and projects.
  • 1 TB Samsung 970 Pro NVMe SSD for Docker and applications such as Immich, Paperless, and Vaultwarden.
• Smartphone with Lightroom Mobile for selecting and rating photos.
• Google Drive with 5 TB of storage for off-site backups.

How I distribute my files

Each system has a specific purpose:

• MacBook: Lightroom catalog, recent photos, and active projects.
• NAS: older photos, completed projects, and catalog backups.
• Adobe Cloud: Smart Previews from synced collections for working in Lightroom Mobile.
• Google Drive: off-site backup of the photos stored on both the MacBook and the NAS.
• Smartphone: its photos are automatically uploaded to the NAS once a day.

The overall structure looks like this:

MacBook Pro/
├── Lightroom catalog
├── Recent photos
└── Active projects

NAS/
├── Archived photos
├── Completed projects
└── Catalog backups

Adobe Cloud/
└── Smart Previews from synced collections

Google Drive/
├── Backup of MacBook photos
└── Backup of NAS photos

Lightroom catalog

The main catalog is stored locally on the MacBook’s SSD for the best possible performance:

MacBook Pro/
└── documents/
    └── lightroom/
        └── catalog_in_use/

Lightroom creates weekly backups of the catalog:

MacBook Pro/
└── documents/
    └── lightroom/
        ├── catalog_in_use/
        └── backups/
            ├── catalog_2026-01-01/
            └── catalog_2026-01-07/

The backup folder is synced to the NAS once a week:

NAS/
└── backups/
    └── lightroom/
        ├── catalog_2026-01-01/
        └── catalog_2026-01-07/

The active catalog always remains on the MacBook. I never open it directly from the NAS.

Photo organization

As a general rule, I keep recent photos, active projects, and any folders I want to have available while away from home on the MacBook.

Once I finish a project or need to free up space, I move its folder to the NAS, regardless of which year the photos were taken.

This means that, within the same Lightroom catalog, I may have photos from the same year split across both devices:

MacBook Pro/
└── Photos/
    ├── 2025/
    │   ├── 2025-01-01 Event 1/
    │   └── 2025-05-01 Event 2/
    └── 2026/
        ├── 2026-02-01 Event 3/
        └── 2026-06-01 Event 4/

NAS/
└── Photos/
    ├── 2025/
    │   └── 2025-08-02 Event 5/
    └── 2024/
        ├── 2024-03-01 Event 6/
        └── 2024-07-01 Event 7/

My workflow

1. Copying and importing

I copy new photos directly to the MacBook’s SSD and import them into Lightroom Classic.

The original files remain on the MacBook while the project is active.

2. Syncing with Adobe Cloud

I add the photos to a collection synced with Adobe Cloud.

Lightroom Classic syncs Smart Previews, so I can view them in Lightroom Mobile without having to upload the original RAW files.

3. Selecting photos in Lightroom Mobile

From my phone, I make the initial selection, assign ratings from 1 to 5, and flag the photos I plan to delete once I get home.

This is the part that has improved my workflow the most. I can use small pockets of free time away from home to complete the more mechanical part of the process.

By the time I sit down at my computer, the selection is already done and I can focus directly on editing.

4. Editing

I edit in Lightroom Classic using the original files stored on the MacBook’s SSD.

This allows me to take full advantage of the internal drive’s speed.

5. Archiving on the NAS

Once I finish a project or need to free up space, I move its folder to the NAS directly from within Lightroom Classic.

It is important to do this from Lightroom rather than Finder. This way, the catalog automatically updates the file locations and I don’t have to relink the folders afterwards.

6. Backups

The MacBook’s photo folder is synced with Google Drive.

The photos archived on the NAS are also backed up to Google Drive once a week.

Catalog backups are first saved on the MacBook and then synced to the NAS.

Working with older photos

When I’m at home, I connect the MacBook to the NAS using an Ethernet cable and mount the NAS folders via SMB.

From Lightroom Classic, I can search, view, and edit photos stored directly on the NAS.

In my case, loading and editing work without any problems, and I don’t notice any significant slowdown or lag.

Advantages of this system

• I can select photos from anywhere.
• I use most of my time in front of the computer for editing.
• Active projects benefit from the speed of the MacBook’s SSD.
• I can still access all my older photos from the same catalog.
• I don’t have to download entire folders from the cloud just to find a specific photo.
• I can move projects between the MacBook and the NAS without losing their edits or Lightroom organization.
• Both my photos and Lightroom catalog have copies stored outside the main device.

Things to keep in mind

• The main catalog is stored on the MacBook, not on the NAS.
• Adobe Cloud is used to sync Smart Previews, not as the main storage location for the RAW files.
• I currently use a single HDD in the NAS, so I don’t have local redundancy. My off-site copy is stored in Google Drive.
• My decision to move photos to the NAS depends on whether the project is still active, not just on how old it is.

I don’t think this is the perfect system for everyone, but for the way I work, it has eliminated a large amount of time previously wasted searching for, downloading, and selecting photos.

To clarify this only applies to imports of a large-ish number of photos. Typically 500+ images. If I import 100 images off a cleanly formatted CF Express or XQD card I will have zero issues.

The issues start if you’ve got a card with a few thousand images on or a card with both Photos & Video files on it. Lightroom will start importing and then just stop after a few hundred. This is the case with a 16GB 2TB M4 iPad pro aswell as a completely clean 8GB 256GB M4 iPad Pro. Multiple card readers have been used and multiple cards. The issue persists. I’m unsure if this an iPad or a Lightroom issue but it’s so frustrating and the reason why despite being such a nice editing process I use my Mac most of the time.

The one thing that was slow enough on my OG Apple Silicon Mac (MBP, M1 Max) to make me think about a faster machine, AI denoise, is now twice as fast with the new LrC 15.4.1 as it was before. 24 Mp .CR3 files dropped from 15 seconds each to 7. WhooHoo!

Hello everyone,

I recently realized that there is an issue with Adobe photography suite that uses different EOTF depending on the app.

Here are important perquisites that we are comparing apples to apples:

• monitor has internally calibrated 1D LUT for D65 whitepoint along entire grayscale with dE less than 0,5
• monitor has internally calibrated 3D LUT for P3 colorspace with 63^3 cube
• target gamma is 2.2

All of these are double checked with various software and manual patch measurements, so rest assured that the display is showing exactly what is intended to be shown.

The issue is with EOTF used internally by Adobe apps. Let me remind you that we do not use ICC profile yet.

When measuring manually 0-100 IRE patches, the Photoshop perfectly follows power gamma of 2.2.

Same patches opened in camera raw filter within Photoshop perfectly follow power gamma of 2.2.

The same patches displayed in ACR, LR or LrC follow sRGB curve with much brighter shadows.

For quick evaluation, you can use this pattern, but make sure that it is displayed with 1:1 pixel mapping: https://monitory.mastiff.pl/temp/rzeznik.png . With gamma 2.2, it should be perfectly black to white. Lower gamma shows CMY colors, while higher gamma shows RGB stripes.

Test this on any Apple device and you should always see it as black to white gradient.

Now back to Windows: how come that without any ICC profile ACR based apps assume that the monitor is 2.2 gamma and display content with sRGB curve?

Next step - creating ICC profile with displayCAL and tone curve of gamma 2.2. Profile is created and applied in Windows.

What works great is gamut mapping - ACR, LR, LrC, Photoshop, the test patterns show exactly that red, green, blue, cyan, magenta and yellow are exactly where they are supposed to be in XY terms on CIE diagram.

I was quite surprised to see that again - even with ICC profile applied, LrC, LR and ACR follow sRGB tone curve.

Take this pic from the link and open it with Adobe Bridge:

- when opened from ACR, it follows sRGB tone curve and shows the same in Photoshop

- when opened exactly the same picture, but straight to Photoshop without ACR, it renders in 2.2 gamma

- the same picture opened with 2.2. gamma in Photoshop then opened in ACR filter shows as 2.2 gamma.

Another check - every single color managed app on my PC, be it internet browser, photo browser, video editor or any other app - shows 2.2 gamma.

To make sure that I'm sane, I also checked in on a Macbook and M2 Studio with Studio Display XDR. No matter what I use, every single app opens this file with gamma of 2.2.

So summing it up:

- within Apple ecosystem, every device and every app, Adobe or not, use 2.2 gamma to display images

- within Windows, every color managed, calibrated and profiled app/device combo use 2.2 gamma except ACR based apps like ACR, LR and LrC.

I assume this is intentional, but is there any way to change it to use gamma 2.2?

Thank you guys for reading this wall of text, hope some of you have the answers.

Hi all,

I have two images I want to open as layers in Photoshop. Since the last update of LrC this seems to be broken. Photoshop will open, but then nothing happens.

LrC 15.6

PS 27.10.0

I’m trying to simplify my Lightroom workflow.

My idea is to keep all my RAW files on a fast external SSD and use Lightroom in Local mode. I would use the same SSD on my Mac Studio at home and my MacBook when traveling, so I can continue editing the same files without syncing anything.

The problem is the iPad. I’d also like to edit photos on it sometimes while traveling, but I don’t want to rely on Lightroom Cloud because internet connections can be slow or unavailable.

Ideally I’d like:

• RAW files stored on one external SSD
• Edit them on Mac Studio / MacBook directly from the SSD
• Occasionally continue editing on iPad
• Keep edits when moving between devices
• Avoid duplicate files / complicated catalog management

Is there a good Lightroom workflow for this, or is the iPad basically incompatible with a fully local/offline workflow?

I usually use Imagen AI for culling but recently tried the ai assisted culling in Lightroom classic just to see what it was like. So far it hasn't really saved me much time as it takes so long to actually rate entire weddings and the rating system didn't feel very intuitive.

For people that have been able to integrate Lightroom's culling into your workflow:

- what is your workflow with lrc's ai assisted culling and how is it working for you?

- Any tips that you recommend to get better results?

Hi everyone,

we’ve been working on Lumapress, a free plugin that connects Elgato Stream Deck with Adobe Lightroom Classic.

Until now, controlling Lightroom with a Stream Deck usually meant buying a third-party plugin or setting up a combination of Midi2LR and additional MIDI tools. Lumapress connects the two applications directly, without a MIDI layer in between.

You can assign Lightroom functions to the buttons on any Stream Deck model. On the Stream Deck + and Stream Deck + XL, the dials and touch strip can also control development settings such as exposure, white balance, contrast, HSL, Color Grading and mask adjustments. Pressing a dial resets the corresponding value.

The download includes the Stream Deck plugin, the Lightroom Classic plugin and example profiles for every current Stream Deck model. The profiles are only a starting point. You can change the assignments or build your own setup from scratch.

Lumapress is available for macOS 13 or later. A Windows 10 and 11 beta is included as well. It requires Lightroom Classic 15 or later and Stream Deck 7.1 or later.

The plugin is free, including professional use. You do not need an account or a newsletter subscription to download it.

Download: https://aftersnap.io/lumapress

There is also a separate free icon pack for anyone who wants to customise their profiles.

Lumapress is made by the team behind aftersnap. If you try it, we’d genuinely like to hear what works, what feels unclear and which Lightroom functions you would like us to add next.