Comments on: Sharing a Lightroom Catalog http://blog.wildvista.com/sharing-a-lightroom-catalog/ Treks · travels · landscape photography · general randomness Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:09:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Paul http://blog.wildvista.com/sharing-a-lightroom-catalog/comment-page-1/#comment-54 Paul Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:17:36 +0000 http://blog.wildvista.com/?p=172#comment-54 Thanks for the advice and the link James. Indeed, the options available with the catalog export and import functions are what I needed to look into. Given the "working catalog can't be on a network drive" limitation, I'm simply plugging my external drive (which contains the master catalog and image files) into whichever machine I want to use the Lightroom client on. If I want to work on my netbook, away from home (and thus without access to the external drive), then, depending on exactly what type of work I want to do, I can export the catalog (or part of the catalog), along with previews, or even image files (or "negative" files as Lightroom calls them) if I want to make use of the Develop module in addition to updating metadata. An import back into the master catalog on the hard drive is then all that's needed to incorporate any work done away from home. I'll be posting about this shortly, in a little more detail. Still lots more to learn, but it's making more and more sense as time goes on! Thanks for the advice and the link James. Indeed, the options available with the catalog export and import functions are what I needed to look into.

Given the “working catalog can’t be on a network drive” limitation, I’m simply plugging my external drive (which contains the master catalog and image files) into whichever machine I want to use the Lightroom client on. If I want to work on my netbook, away from home (and thus without access to the external drive), then, depending on exactly what type of work I want to do, I can export the catalog (or part of the catalog), along with previews, or even image files (or “negative” files as Lightroom calls them) if I want to make use of the Develop module in addition to updating metadata. An import back into the master catalog on the hard drive is then all that’s needed to incorporate any work done away from home.

I’ll be posting about this shortly, in a little more detail. Still lots more to learn, but it’s making more and more sense as time goes on!

]]> By: James http://blog.wildvista.com/sharing-a-lightroom-catalog/comment-page-1/#comment-38 James Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:36:11 +0000 http://blog.wildvista.com/?p=172#comment-38 I've been looking into the same sort of thing you are doing, I think the answer to your preview image predicament lies in the export catalogue options. http://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1151023 It appears you can just export the database and keep the previews without copying all of the fullsized pictures. There still is the matter of syncing the catalogue after, I don't plan on doing too much on my laptop anyway so I probably won't have an issue with that. I just wanted to be able to have photos on external drives without LR freaking out if they weren't connected ;) It appears LR2 has better support for removable drives which I didn't know about. I’ve been looking into the same sort of thing you are doing, I think the answer to your preview image predicament lies in the export catalogue options. http://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1151023
It appears you can just export the database and keep the previews without copying all of the fullsized pictures.

There still is the matter of syncing the catalogue after, I don’t plan on doing too much on my laptop anyway so I probably won’t have an issue with that. I just wanted to be able to have photos on external drives without LR freaking out if they weren’t connected ;) It appears LR2 has better support for removable drives which I didn’t know about.

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