Lightroom and multiple computers

I use Adobe Lightroom to manage my photo library. Recently I got myself a new Macbook Pro Retina and would like to have the option to access and edit photos on both the laptop as well as my main computer. Anybody have a good solution?
So far the only option I can find is to keep the photo library as well as the LR catalog on a portable external hard drive and just plug that into whichever computer I use. This whole process does seem kind of redundant and overly complicated though especially with access to the same network and the Adobe Cloud.

The problem is that LR's catalog must live on a local drive so it cannot be shared with another computer. The library can be accessed over a network. So you could keep just the catalog on a portable drive and connect it as needed. You can leave the library on one computer and point to it through the network.

I'll try that, thanks! Is there any benefit/downside to keeping the catalog and the library on the same external hard drive? The only negative I can see is if that hard drive fails, you'd lose everything. Just need to make sure to run daily backups I suppose.

I only need current projects on my laptop and not my entire image archive, but this is how I do it:

If the project started on my desktop and needs to go to my laptop, I export the relevant folder or collection to it's own catalog. I check the box to include smart previews and uncheck the boxes to include originals and to build standard previews. My export location is to a Dropbox folder.

On my laptop, I just go to the Dropbox folder and double click on the exported catalog. This opens it in Lightroom with the smart previews. Smart previews are 2560px on the long size which is good enough for most editing and for small exports. I make edits as needed which are automatically saved back to Dropbox since that's where the catalog is. When I'm ready to get those edits back on my desktop, I choose "import from catalog" in the menu and select the option for metadata only. I may do this back and forth several times for the duration of the project, then I delete the catalog from Dropbox when I am done with it. All pictures and edits still live on the desktop.

If the project started on my laptop and needs to go to my desktop, I will do a fresh import on the desktop from my CF cards or an external drive, then export the catalog from my laptop to Dropbox (metadata only) and import from Dropbox to my desktop (metadata only) to get the edits on there. It's a fairly simple process that only takes about 2 minutes in each direction.

I could just as easily use that same process to keep my full library on both computers (smart previews only or full images), but I have no need for that.

I have my Lightroom catalog in Microsoft's OneDrive. When you install it, it installs like a folder on your computer. I keep the catalog there as well as most other lightroom files (presets, backups, etc), and I can access it from my laptop and desktop. They are always giving away free permanent space, so currently I have 30GB of free cloud storage that I use for my Lightroom catalog.

no issues so far. I've been doing it this way for over a year now.

I only use my laptop for the whatever photos I'm editing at that time. Then I offload them onto the home desktop and backup offline. I rarely need all of the photos that I've ever done with me at the same time.

PLLphotography wrote in post #17305381
I have my Lightroom catalog in Microsoft's OneDrive. When you install it, it installs like a folder on your computer. I keep the catalog there as well as most other lightroom files (presets, backups, etc), and I can access it from my laptop and desktop. They are always giving away free permanent space, so currently I have 30GB of free cloud storage that I use for my Lightroom catalog.

no issues so far. I've been doing it this way for over a year now.

That's cool, definitely works if you don't shoot that often, or shoot JPG! I just checked, my shots from Thanksgiving were 26GB.. 30GB wouldn't quite cut it for some of us.

I keep my catalog/previews in dropbox and my photos on an external hard drive. I suppose you could just keep the catalog/previews on the hard drive as well but storing it in dropbox is nice because I can still access the smart previews to do keywording or minor edits even when I don't have the hard drive with me.

I suppose if you have the room, you could store the photos in dropbox (or whatever cloud storage that keeps local copies you prefer) as well, though the hard drive on my laptop isn't big enough to hold them all which is why I keep the raw files on an external drive.

I've been doing it this way for almost two years now and haven't run into any major problems using dropbox for the catalog. The only thing you need to be careful of is not to open the catalog on both computers at the same time (or while dropbox is still uploading/downloading your latest changes made on a different computer).

PLLphotography wrote in post #17305381
I have my Lightroom catalog in Microsoft's OneDrive. When you install it, it installs like a folder on your computer. I keep the catalog there as well as most other lightroom files (presets, backups, etc), and I can access it from my laptop and desktop. They are always giving away free permanent space, so currently I have 30GB of free cloud storage that I use for my Lightroom catalog.

no issues so far. I've been doing it this way for over a year now.

This may work for multiple machines accessing the same catalog. If you log onto your Microsoft/One Drive account on a different computer it would replicate the entire folder there too. I would think you would have to make sure Lightroom would be shut down on the other computer otherwise the file would still be locked and not uploaded to the cloud. Lightroom would see it as local, and changes are uploaded/updated through the cloud on close. There may be a lag though being able to jump from one machine to the other as I bet the whole catalog file would have to be uploaded and then back down to the other machine.

my main two desktops that I work between are always on and connected, so onedrive is always syncing. The only lag I may run into is if I power up my laptop. Usually my laptop is only for quick edits.

another point is that if you are editing photos from multiple computers, for instance, edit a photo stored on computer A, and then later go to computer B, the photo will show up in your catalog, but there will be an exclamation because it can't find the file (because it's on computer A). This could be remedied if you store your files on a NAS or network share, and both systems access those files through the same share or mapped network drive.

I had the same issue and just bought an extremely reliable and durable portable drive to keep my library and photos on. That way I have access from any computer. I then randomly make backups of it to a external on my home computer.

Seems to be working pretty well.

BrandonSi wrote in post #17306337
That's cool, definitely works if you don't shoot that often, or shoot JPG! I just checked, my shots from Thanksgiving were 26GB.. 30GB wouldn't quite cut it for some of us.

I think the idea is that you store the images you took on an external drive, but the catalog itself is stored on the cloud. This way, when you get home, you only need to sync the laptop and home computer with the cloud, so both are getting the same catalog.
Then you just connect the external HDD to which ever computer you are working on, and you get everything synced up.

I wouldn't want to upload 26GB of files to the cloud on the go anyway

I have a tangential question. I am building a new computer. How do I move Lightroom? Is there an option somewhere in the menu to point to the Library and catalog, or is that done on program install. Can the locations be changed?

If all you want to do is edit photos just have it write XMP files to the directory with the images then import them later.

You can access a catalog over the network but it'll be slower. You can use dropbox and such but it'll take a bunch of bandwidth.

Vcize hit it on the head...be extremely careful about shutting down Lightroom on computer "a" before opening it on computer "b". I Ade's one important step in that I backup my catalogue every time Lightroom closes. Hopefully that way if you do hose up the catalog you will be able to quickly reverse the error with current backups. It takes a few seconds extra, but could save hours of fixing a conflicted catalog that one to,e you forget to close Lightroom.