Lightroom On Multiple Computers

[Kipa Crawn]

While that does solve the problem of access from multiple devices in a seamless and powerful way, it does have some caveats that may keep some people from choosing this option. The first consideration is that every photo must be stored in the cloud when using this Lightroom ecosystem. There is no selective cloud sync. It is all or nothing. If you are not ready to have all of your photos stored in the cloud, this is not for you. The second consideration is cost. There is a Lightroom only plan that costs $9.99/month and includes 1 terabyte (TB) of cloud storage (however this plan does not include Lightroom Classic or Photoshop). You can purchase additional cloud storage at a cost of an additional $9.99 per month per TB. For people with multiple TBs of data, this can become prohibitively expensive rather quickly. If you also need/want Photoshop, then you can add another $9.99 per month on top of the other costs.

The simplest way to use a single Lightroom Classic catalog across multiple computers is to keep the catalog on an external drive, and just swap that drive between computers. The downside of this is that you need to keep that external drive with you, and you would absolutely want to be very diligent in keeping that drive backed up. When it comes to storing your photos in this scenario you have a few options to consider based on your needs and the size of your photo library.

Option 1: Store the photos on the same external drive as the catalog. If your photo library can fit on a single (large capacity) external drive along with your catalog (and its associated preview caches), then this may be the best option. This allows you to have all your work (in the catalog) and all your photos accessible to you no matter where you are as long as you have that drive with you. Obviously, those with a very large photo library may find this solution impractical.

Option 2: Store the photos on a network attached storage (NAS) device. While it is true that we cannot open a Lightroom Classic catalog from a network drive, we can store the photos imported into that catalog on a NAS. As long as you are connected to the network where your photos are stored, any computer you plug the external drive containing the catalog into should see your photos just fine. Your photo library can be as large as your NAS storage needs can handle. The downside of this solution is that your photos will be offline/unavailable when you are away from your network.

Option 3: Take advantage of smart previews in conjunction with either Option 1 or Option 2 (or some combination of the two). Smart previews have been around since Lightroom 5, and were introduced as a way to store a smaller version of the source photo in the same location as the catalog file so that it is still possible to edit the photo when the full resolution source photo is offline. A smart preview is basically a special type of lossy DNG file (which is what allows editing) that has smaller pixel dimensions (no more than 2560 pixels on the long side) than the source file and is also compressed to further reduce file size. While not a true raw file, you can still apply lens profile corrections, change white balance, and choose from profiles as you could with a raw original (assuming the smart preview is of a raw source photo).

For example, by employing smart previews with Option 2 you could take that external drive with the catalog out of your local network and still be able to use the Develop module without being able to access the source photos. When you return to the local network Lightroom Classic will go back to accessing the original source photos with all of your edits intact. Alternatively, you could use smart previews with Option 1 where you have some portion of your photo library stored on the same external drive as the catalog and the rest stored somewhere else (like another external drive or a NAS). Having smart previews built for every photo in your library gives you the ability to edit in the Develop module even when the source photos are offline.

In this scenario you swap out the concept of an external hard drive for a local storage location that is managed by some sort of synchronization service. Dropbox and OneDrive are commonly used examples, but there are other cloud synchronization services as well as software options for creating your own local cloud storage using your NAS.

Option 2: Store the photos on a NAS device. This is the ideal situation for this scenario. You can let Dropbox (or whatever service you choose) handle keeping the catalog in sync across computers while your photos just remain on your NAS that is accessible to all computers on your network. However, just like with the external drive scenario you would lose access to your photos when you were not on your network.

Option 3: You guessed it, use smart previews in conjunction with Option 1 or 2. The smart previews will exist in the same folder as the catalog and will be kept in sync across all computers. If you are on a computer that can access the full resolution originals, then you will use those, but if you are on a computer that cannot access the full resolution photos you will use the smart previews. This opens up creative possibilities for storing your photos in a location that makes the most sense for your workflow and budget. You just need to be conscious of the smart preview limitations I outlined earlier.

The key to understanding how to make any of the above scenarios work is that your photos are always only stored on some drive somewhere (internal, external, and/or network drive), and all Lightroom Classic knows is the path to where those photos reside. That path is stored in the catalog file, and that is what it refers to when you open the catalog file into Lightroom Classic. If the photo cannot be accessed at that path, it considers the photo offline or missing. Your job in each of these scenarios is to make the catalog file accessible to each computer you want to use AND ensure that the path to each imported photo does not change outside of Lightroom AND that the path is accessible to each computer.

Why would you want to do this? For me, I do the bulk of my editing at my desk using my iMac. But sometimes I would like to have a little more freedom as to where I can work. I want the ability to take my Lightroom catalog with me if I am working from the studio, or on vacation, or on a plane. Sometimes, when I am editing a wedding or sessions, I would much rather sit on the couch, turn on a movie or show, and edit in a more comfortable setting. That why I set up my Lightroom to be accessed on both of my computers. There is a way to easily use the same Lightroom catalog on multiple computers using Dropbox.

Before I go on, there might be other ways to do this using the build in sync or other methods. However, I found no way that works more seamlessly for my own workflow than the method I will describe below.

Choose which computer will be your primary computer workstation. For me, it is my iMac. This is the computer where I store all my RAW files (via attached external hard drives). When I come home from a shoot with new files, I load them in to Lightroom using this computer (and only this computer).

In order to get your catalog file up in the cloud, you will need to move you catalog file (*.lrcat) to your Dropbox folder. Once it is in there, Dropbox will begin uploading the file and will sync any changes.

Now that you have your Lightroom catalog in Dropbox you can now go to that folder on your secondary computer. You will see the .lrcat file that you can open with Lightroom as you would on your main computer.

You can see that the catalog will stay synced between each computer. This is the exact same catalog file and any changes you make will be reflected on both computers. That means all edits, keywording, virtual copies, etc. will all be there when you move to your other computer.

This is the most important thing to remember when using this method of syncing Lightroom catalogs between multiple computers. Forgetting this will result in problems such as duplicate conflicted copies of the same catalog or corrupted catalogs that cannot be repaired.

Before you open a synced catalog, you must, must, must make sure that Dropbox has finished syncing on both computers. If you open the catalog before the file syncs, Dropbox will corrupt the catalog file.

You can read more about conflicted copies HERE, but basically you will now have two versions of the same catalog and the changes you just made will not be on both of them. So you will have to compare each version of the catalog, redo all your work on one of the them, and delete the other.

It is not possible to sync images in Lightroom Classic from 1 computer to another computer. Because Lightroom Classic syncs the images a part of a collection to Lightroom Web Photo Editor Online Photoshop Lightroom and these synced images can be synced on a mobile devices but not another computer. However, you can use the same catalog on multiple computers and edit the images.

I realize this is a month old post but I think there needs to be some clarification made. You CANNOT keep a Lightroom Catalog on a Network Drive (NAS). If you are mistakenly calling your actual original files your catalog than yes, you can keep your original files on a NAS (network drive). You CAN keep your catalog (lrcat) on an external hard drive as well as your actual original files and you CAN keep your catalog (lrcat) on an external hard drive or a computer hard drive and keep your actual files on a NAS. By the way, Lightroom will allow you to keep your catalog on the cloud (Microsoft One Drive or Dropbox) as long as the cloud storage is synced to your desktop. My point here is that original files are NOT your catalog. Your catalog is the lrcat file which is a database that contains pointers to where the original files are located and contains adjustments you've made to the original files. It just felt to me that you were confusing your original file location with the catalog because as I said, Lightroom does NOT allow the catalog (lrcat) to be kept on a networked drive.

c80f0f1006