Lightroom on two Macs.

ShawWellPete

ShawWellPete

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Pete
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I have a macbook pro that I have, until now, used for most of my processing and storing of photos. I use Lightroom and backup everything to an external HD using time machine.

I have just got an iMac and want to use Lightroom on this too, but I will continue to use my macbook as I like to tweak photos on the coffee table as the wife watches rubbish on telly (X factor has started again!).

Has anybody got any tips on sharing a Lightroom catalogue between two macs?
 
Pete

The easiest way of doing this is to have your library on an external disc and use it on both machines, or if you are using something like the BT Homehub you could connect the external drive to that and have it as network drive and use the one library, having both machines using the network drive.

I tend to export the Catalogue that I am working on at the time and import that on my macbook, you just have to remember which is the current cat the macbook or the imac and keep them updated.

Regards

Nigel
 
I would recommend you check out Victoria Brampton's (aka The Lightroom Queen) excellent eBook 'Adboe Lightroom - The Missing FAQ for details on options, it's £14.95 and is packed full of howto's in lightroom.

As Pete says, store the catalog and images on the external hard drive and either swap between computers, share over a wireless network, or use the desktop computer as a base and split/merge catalogs to your macbook using Export to Catalog.

Victoria's book works through these scenarios giving useful tips and settings on pro's/con's of each approach etc.
 
I've often wondered the same thing. Would storing it all on an external drive not slow it down considerably?
 
Foggy said:
I've often wondered the same thing. Would storing it all on an external drive not slow it down considerably?
Click to expand...

I do not see a huge speed difference

Most of my libraries are located on external drives, I do not keep either my Lightroom or Aperture library on the Imac, I find it easier for drive upgrades that way, if the library grows just get a new larger drive and transfer the library or start a new one on the new drive.

I tent to keep the imac clean apart from apps and a couple of games all data is externally stored.

Regards

Nigel
 
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