Question About Lightroom 4 <==> Smugmug Synching After Upgrade from LR3

[NewBert]

In Lightroom 3, I used Smugmug's plug-in to post images from Lightroom to Smugmug. Now that I've upgraded to Lightroom 4, I have questions about how to proceed....

Since no Smugmug plug-in installed automatically with LR4, I've found the latest Lightroom plug-in on Smugmug's site. Before installing it, I want to make sure I know what I'm doing to avoid messing anything up.

So -- After the plug-in is installed, if I click on "Sync Now", will the plug-in simply add every image from my Smugmug Galleries to Lightroom 4 under "Publishing"? Even if it doesn't catch every last image on Smugmug, I just want to make sure that this will not REMOVE any images from my Smugmug galleries.

Can anyone confirm that this is how it works and/or provide me the procedure/settings to follow to insure that I don't lose anything from my Smugmug Galleries?

It sure would have been nice if Lightroom's upgrade routine would have transferred over all Smugmug settings as part of the catalog from LR3 to LR4. It seems to have done that just fine with my small Flickr stream (only 4 photos).

Any help/clarification would be appreciated!

 

[LRogers]

Try going to plug in manager first and making sure your plugin is enabled and working in LR4. Do not Sync if you don't have to. If everything transferred correctly, you should just be able to keep right on truckin'....

Only do the sync if you lost your publish collection information. There is a way to sync an individual set/gallery as opposed to everything you have at SmugMug.

SmugMug plug in should have been installed already with LR4

 

[LRogers]

Thought I would check back in Bert and see how it went

 

[NewBert]

Try going to plug in manager first and making sure your plugin is enabled and working in LR4. Do not Sync if you don't have to. If everything transferred correctly, you should just be able to keep right on truckin'....

Only do the sync if you lost your publish collection information. There is a way to sync an individual set/gallery as opposed to everything you have at SmugMug.

SmugMug plug in should have been installed already with LR4

Thought I would check back in Bert and see how it went

The only Smugmug plug-in listed in LR4's Plug-In manager is Jeffery Friedl's (which I had used for a short time with LR3). Regarding that plug-in (not the one I'm interested in using), I get a prompt to download an upgraded version.

I don't see Smugmug's own Lightroom plug-in listed so apparently it was not installed when I upgraded to LR4. And I've lost the Publish Collection information in the upgrade to LR4, as well.

So, at this point, I have not gone any farther. I guess that I need to download Smugmug's latest Lightroom plug-in, then have it re-sync?

 

[LRogers]

Interesting.

I wonder if perhaps you installed LR4 to a different location or something, not sure why jfriedl's would have automatically installed. Had you downloaded it before? At any rate, no worries. You can disable jfriedl's in the plug in manager.

Then go here http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/121321-lightroom-plugin-update to get the most current SmugMug Plugin for Lightroom. Follow all the instructions for installing it etc.

Just out of curiosity, how many photos did you have at SmugMug. I had close to 10k and believe me, the synchronization process was PAINFUL. I wish Adobe would fix the upgrade process, but too late now, I've moved on.

Once you install the Smug Mug plugin and get reauthorized and all that, then yes, you can start the sync process. If you have a lot of photos, I recommend you sync each gallery as opposed to your whole account. Each gallery can be synced by editing the individual gallery settings and selecting Sync Photos. The whole account can be synced by going to the high level SmugMug Collection, editing that and selecting Sync Photos. The syncing of gallery by gallery was not too intuitive for me, so I mention it here. Let us know how you get along.

 

[NewBert]

Interesting.

I wonder if perhaps you installed LR4 to a different location or something, not sure why jfriedl's would have automatically installed. Had you downloaded it before? At any rate, no worries. You can disable jfriedl's in the plug in manager.

Then go here http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/121321-lightroom-plugin-update to get the most current SmugMug Plugin for Lightroom. Follow all the instructions for installing it etc.

Just out of curiosity, how many photos did you have at SmugMug. I had close to 10k and believe me, the synchronization process was PAINFUL. I wish Adobe would fix the upgrade process, but too late now, I've moved on.

Once you install the Smug Mug plugin and get reauthorized and all that, then yes, you can start the sync process. If you have a lot of photos, I recommend you sync each gallery as opposed to your whole account. Each gallery can be synced by editing the individual gallery settings and selecting Sync Photos. The whole account can be synced by going to the high level SmugMug Collection, editing that and selecting Sync Photos. The syncing of gallery by gallery was not too intuitive for me, so I mention it here. Let us know how you get along.

Thanks again for the info, Lance.

As far as I know, I installed LR4 into the default location. However, when copying the LR3 catalog to LR4, I think that I did specify a different location for it from the default.

Regarding Smugmug -- Before I do the sync in LR4 I want to ask one last question. Worst Case Scenario -- If that sync screws up my Smugmug website in a substantial way, I'd think that I could always restore it from LR3, since LR3 still contains my Smugmug collection, right?

 

[LRogers]

The sync is from Smug Mug to Lightroom. I don't see anyway for it to mess up SmugMug. That said, LR3 will still have your information, the problem becomes once you start using LR4 if you write changes to your XMP files, you will not really want to go back to LR3, you'll be in a sort of tug of war between 3 and 4 not recognizing each others changes, but at the end of the day, yes, you could go back to LR3 for now.

My big thing was I did not want to have to republish my collections with SmugMug. The Sync allowed me to rebuild the LR collections without having to republish at SmugMug. This took a lot of time but for me was worth it.

 

[NewBert]

Much Easier Than Expected!

Well, I finally got around to installing Smugmug's Lightroom Plug-in into LR4. I fully expected that I would have to re-sync all of my Smugmug galleries.

But, to my surprise, as soon as the plug-in was installed, my Smugmug Collections from LR3 appeared in LR4. No re-syncing was required. In fact, I didn't even need to enter my Smugmug access info! Easy-Peasy! :biggrin:

 

[LRogers]

Glad it worked out for you.