Compatibility between Lightroom 6 and Lightroom Classic CC

[stephenl42892444]

My daughter is a professional photographer and she sometimes contracts out large numbers of photos to an "editor" to do batch editing for her. They used to both use Lightroom Classic CC. However the editors (there is apparently an entire industry built around such "editors") claim that Lightroom Class CC has become so slow that their businesses cannot utilize it, and her regular editor has switched back to Lightroom 6. The question my daughter has, is: can a Lightroom Classic CC catalog be exported in some way so that the editor using Lightroom 6 can import it, so she can continue to use Lightroom Classic on her computer while the editor uses Lightroom 6 to do batch editing for her? Presumably one can receive a Lightroom 6 catalog and image files and import those into Lightroom Classic, but is there a utility or procedure to go in the other direction (Lightroom Classic CC => Lightroom 6)? I don't use Lightroom myself much but she asked me to help her research this question. I assume the catalog has to be read in along with the photographs? These are collections of several thousand RAW photographs from high resolution digital cameras.

[dj_paige]

The question my daughter has, is: can a Lightroom Classic CC catalog be exported in some way so that the editor using Lightroom 6 can import it

No, it can't.

You'd have to write the edits to XMP, and transfer the edits that way. Some edits that exist in Lightroom Classic CC but not in LR 6 cannot be transferred to Lightroom 6 at all.

A better solution would be to fix the cause of the slowness of Lightroom Classic CC, which unfortunately happens for some people, but it is fixable in many cases.

[JP Hess]

A Lightroom 6 catalog can be upgraded to be compatible with Lightroom Classic CC. However, there isn't any way to go back. Assuming that the images will all the raw images, the only alternative would be to write changes to XMP files and return the images with the XMP files. Then the original photographer would have to read data from file in order to get the changes applied to the images after they have the XMP files added to their collection.

[stephenl42892444]

Thanks for your reply. I understand now that the new Lightroom Classic CC catalog cannot be (fully) imported into Lightroom 6. Another related question: is it possible (on a Mac computer) to have both Lightroom 6 and Lightroom Classic CC available for use? For instance, she could use Lightroom 6 (which might be the same as Lightroom CC 2015?) to import image files from her cameras when needing to send image sets back and forth to her editor who uses Lightroom 6, and otherwise could use Lightroom Classic CC when not needing to work with someone who is using the older version?

[JP Hess]

To be clear, a Lightroom Classic CC catalog cannot in any way be imported or made compatible with Lightroom 6. It just simply cannot be done. I have never tried it. But I suppose it is possible to have both Lightroom 6 and Lightroom Classic CC installed on the same computer. Different programs, different catalogs.

[dj_paige]

Yes you can have both LR 6 and Lightroom Classic CC on the same computer. This could cause the human user to be confused and make mistakes, as the graphic user interface is nearly identical on both.