Lightroom 1.1 Unofficially officially announced

only the HSL are a little sticky , and don't respond quickly , for the rest ok

have u noticed the same behavior HSL are a little sticky ? yeah i 'm bored

OK, this didn't quite make sense, but maybe I can just show my IT guy this post and it'll make sense to him, but..........with the new update, say I have 6 workstations with an XP 2003 server, if the library is stored on the server, can I use this technique to have LR installed on all 6 workstations, viewing the same database?

And say I want to import photos from any of those workstations into that library using LR on that workstation? Will that work, and all images imported from any workstation will be viewable on any other computer once LR is opened?

Or am I just fantasizing? This really is the only thing holding me back from implementing LR as my exclusive image library database at my office (dentistry).

pxl8 wrote in post #3299822
I did post a solution in another thread but here it is again.

First you need to have a single folder that contains your photos - they can be organised any way you like inside the folder but having a root folder for the photos is key to this method.

For the sake of example lets say the folder is d:\MyPhotos

On the machine with the photos you now use the subst dos command to create a virtual drive letter such as:

subst p: d:\photos

You'll now have a new drive listed, p: which is just a shortcut to d:\photos. If you create a text file with the above command, save it as a .bat file and put it in your startup folder the virtual drive will be created automatically when you boot up.

The next step is to share d:\photos on the network then on any other machine map the share to a network drive and assign it p: as the drive letter.

At this point any machine on the network can use p:\ to access the photos so the final step is to copy your lightroom database to p:\ and then open it on a network machine. The first time you do this it won't find any of the photos but once you tell it to look on p: for them everything will be updated and the changes saved. From then on any machine can open the database and edit photos on p:\ with no more work on the users part.

Hopefully that all makes sense, if it doesn't just shout...

Yes, but and it's a big but - you can only open the database on one machine at a time. If it is opened on more than one machine at best whichever machine saves last will overwrite the changes on the other machines - at worst the database will be fried.

As a solution for a single user with more than one machine it works pretty well. But multiple users on multiple machines is just asking for trouble

Bummer........I would definitely need it to be usable on multiple machines at once. Wonder if they'll ever resolve that?

Chip Payet wrote in post #3506790
Bummer........I would definitely need it to be usable on multiple machines at once.

Be interested to know why you DEFINATELY need this. Perhaps using exported sub-catalogs would work?

EOSAddict wrote in post #3507579
Be interested to know why you DEFINATELY need this. Perhaps using exported sub-catalogs would work?

I'm a dentist, and I photo-document virtually ALL my work. LR is a perfect complement, because by using a lot of keywords relating to materials, techniques, follow-up time frames, causes of failure, etc., I will be able to MUCH more easily track my work over time. What I'd LOVE to have would be a tether for each treatment room to which I could just connect my Digital Rebel or 30D on entering the room, setting the folder, and auto-importing as I shoot.

I also love the simplicity of the LR slideshow feature, so I'm putting together Before/After catalogs to "showcase" my work for patients. However, if I can't have the database open in all rooms at all times, my team and I are unreasonably limited in that regard.

Perhaps I should look into the ACDSee Pro? Can that do what I've described?

Do you need the raw processing of LR or can you shoot jpg?

If jpg is ok then maybe just using the Windows Gallery in Vista (or similar) with a shared folder might be the way to go.

I currently shoot everything in JPEG, but I have considered shooting everything in RAW and converting to DNG. With XP Pro, can the Windows Explorer view Thumbnails of DNG files?

I can't upgrade to Vista (from all the complaints I've heard, I don't want to do it!) regardless, because most of the practice/business management software currently available does not support Vista yet.

Chip Payet wrote in post #3507706
However, if I can't have the database open in all rooms at all times, my team and I are unreasonably limited in that regard.

Perhaps I should look into the ACDSee Pro? Can that do what I've described?

I am running two computers on a network; both have LR 1.1 installed.

I can load and view the same image on each computer at the same time.

I have even adjusted the image one one machine when the other was running LR.

I've had no problems.

In your case, I doubt that you'd be constantly editing the images; unless to make some teeth whiter.

PS EDIT: I have never converted an image from RAW, except to send to someone else via e-mail. In LR, there is no need to unless an image must be exported. In your case, that wouldn't likely happen too often with patient's files.

Chip Payet wrote in post #3507706
What I'd LOVE to have would be a tether for each treatment room to which I could just connect my Digital Rebel or 30D on entering the room, setting the folder, and auto-importing as I shoot.

You would need the Canon software to run the tethered shooting, but then set it to save the files to a folder, and set LR up to use that folder as the watched folder, to auto-import them into your database.

You can't have the database open on all machines, full stop. It's just not viable with the SQLite database, and it would have to be on a network, which gives risk of corruption.

That said, there are a couple of alternatives you could consider....

1. Do you actually all need to be working on the SAME database at the same time? Could you have a database for each room, and then use the import/export catalog commands to merge them into a reference catalog at the end of each day?

2. Make use of XMP files and the Synchronize command - have a database for each room, which all auto-import from the same networked drop folder. Set Automatically Write to XMP Files (there is a performance hit though), so XMP files are created alongside the raw files whenever changes are made. Turn on the badges in the preferences, to show when changes have been made to the xmp data externally (i.e. on one of the other machines), so you can update the local database, and use the Synchronize command every hour or two to sync the metadata.

I'd go with option 1 personally.

Victoria Bampton wrote in post #3508230
You would need the Canon software to run the tethered shooting, but then set it to save the files to a folder, and set LR up to use that folder as the watched folder, to auto-import them into your database.
Which Canon software would I need? This is starting to sound a little more realistic, and it would be far more convenient that having to use the memory cards all the time. On only a couple occasions, I have forgotten a card while documenting a particularly interesting (to dentists, anyway ) case, and i was so mad at myself.
Can you only set the software to import to 1 folder, or can you create a new folder in Windows (by patient name and then date of treatment, for example) each time?

You can't have the database open on all machines, full stop. It's just not viable with the SQLite database, and it would have to be on a network, which gives risk of corruption.

That said, there are a couple of alternatives you could consider....

1. Do you actually all need to be working on the SAME database at the same time? Could you have a database for each room, and then use the import/export catalog commands to merge them into a reference catalog at the end of each day?
This is definitely possible. I guess I could then have my personal office workstation have full access to that reference catalog.
I guess I could then also export the Before/After slideshows to each database, so that they could be watched in each room as needed?

2. Make use of XMP files and the Synchronize command - have a database for each room, which all auto-import from the same networked drop folder. Set Automatically Write to XMP Files (there is a performance hit though), so XMP files are created alongside the raw files whenever changes are made. Turn on the badges in the preferences, to show when changes have been made to the xmp data externally (i.e. on one of the other machines), so you can update the local database, and use the Synchronize command every hour or two to sync the metadata.

I'd go with option 1 personally.
Yeah, #2 sounds WAAAAAAAAY more complicated.

MUCH appreciated, Victoria!

Try this tutorial Chip http://photoshopnews.c​om …ed-shooting-in-lightroom/

You might also want to have a look in your camera's preferences - there's usually a setting to prevent you shooting without a card, save those kinds of accidents!

Once again, thank you Victoria. I have bookmarked that page, and I'll have to check into the Firewire connection. Admittedly, having a cable would be really inconvenient given the location of my workstations in relation to my treatment chairs, but it does seem to be a lot faster than with the memory cards.

My old Digital Rebel doesn't have the option to "not" shoot without the card, and that's what I use for dentistry. My at-home 30D has had that option checked for a while!