Both Adobe 6 and Adobe Classic CC on same computer?

[stephenl42892444]

We have Adobe Classic CC installed on a Macbook Air running 10.12. We also have a DVD installer for a perpetual licensed Lightroom 6 that we previously used before moving to Adobe Classic CC. Sometimes we send photo image files (from the digital camera) in Lightroom format to a contractor to perform bulk image editing. But that editor requires files in the older Lightroom 6 format for their service.

Can we reinstall the old Lightroom 6 and run it separately from Lightroom Classic CC, on the same computer? I realize that the file formats are not the same. After the editor is done with the Lightroom 6 files, we would read them in to and convert to the newer Lightroom Classic CC format to work with them further. The Lightroom 6 would be used only to take original images from the camera to export to the external editor.

Alternatively, would installing Lightroom 2015/CC accomplish the same thing? I have read its file format is the same as Lightroom 6 perpetual. Can Lightroom 2015/CC  be installed and run on a computer that also has Lightroom Classic CC? Can these two programs both be installed and run on the same computer (same question I had about Lightroom 6 and Lightroom Classic CC.

[Theresa J]

Why does your workflow require an export of original images from the camera to Lr6? That doesn’t make any sense. Can’t you just send the raw files to your contractor directly? Your contractor can edit them in Lr6 and save the edits externally. If they convert the images to dng, the edits will be saved inside of the file. If they work with the original raw images, the edits will be saved to a sidecar file. Since you already have the original raw files, they could simply send back the small sidecar files.

I don’t see any reason for you to instal Lr6 for your own use. What am I missing?

[stephenl42892444]

I am not the photographer, actually but she asked me to try to find out how to go about this. The reason she doesn't send the raw files is that for a full day session, that can be over 100 GB of raw files, too large to reasonably send (and she often sends several days worth of images for bulk editing). Instead, she sends what she calls LR "smart previews" which take up 1% of that space and her external editor works with those, and sends smart previews back to her which she can use to apply the editor's edits to the original raw files. If that makes sense -- I might not have captured this process properly. The editor says that using the latest Lightroom CC (Classic) is so slow that it is not worth it for her to conduct her business that way, she needs to work in LR 6 which apparently is much faster.

LR 6 would just be used for compatibility with what the external editor uses, when she uses the external editor. Normally the photographer wants to use LR CC Classic when she is working with images herself directly.

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

Yes you can have Lightroom 6 (or CC2015 in this case, because you do have a subscription) and Lightroom Classic on the same computer. No problem. The only thing I would not try is running them at the same time, because they do share some support files.

[Theresa J]

This workflow makes more sense. Lr6 is used to generate the smart previews which are sent to the external editor (I’m assuming this is a person(s) probably offsite, maybe in another country).

Yes you can have both versions of Lr on the same computer. For a CC subscriber this would be LrCC 2015 (which is the same as Lr6, only with a subscription), and the most current 2018.

If you open the 2015 catalog with the current vs of Lr, a new updated catalog will get created. Both catalogs will point to the same images but edits made in one catalog will not be reflected in the other. So just know that if you do further edits to the images using the current Lr, those edits will not be reflected in the older 2015 version. However this may not be an issue for you.