Create one catalog, two systems, NAS based image library

[nemophoto]

My wife is a graphic designer and AD with her business. Most of the clients we have are not connected, but for one very large client, I do the photography and my wife is the designer. From over the years, there's a library of over 10,000 images. I'd like to get her to start using Lightroom as a database from which to pull images she needs, as well as create keywording to make find what she needs easier. At this point, it requires a superb memory! ("Do you remember? Did you shoot that tweed hacking jacket in 2010 or 2011?" "Actually, I think is was longer ago. Maybe 2009?"). I do the digital imaging, while she pulls for her needs, resizes if needed, a copy, and maybe even convert to grayscale.

For whatever reason, Adobe tries to ignore that many places (including small studios as well as larger corporations), frequently use a NAS for a library of images. As such, the catalog database can NEVER reside on a network drive. (Unless something just changed recently.)

Does anyone have an idea of the best way to create a Lightroom archive/database of images, of which the images reside on the network, but the database is equally accessible on two computers? (In our case, one Mac, one PC. I believe the database itself is platform independent.)

Thanks for the suggestions.

Nemo

[AFairley]

The closest I have been able to come to this is to have a box.com cloud account, with the LR library in a Box subfolder on each computer, each of which syncs to the cloud (the images themselves are on an NAS drive).

There are two very large drawbacks to this method.  First, what you actually have are two separate instances of the catalog, so they can be opened and altered simultaneously, with the result that duplicates are created in the cloud (Box is clever enough to recognize the situation and creates a renamed duplicate so that all data changes are retained) which then propagate to the each computer.  That means you religiously have to be sure that only one of the computers is running LR at any given time, AND that any changes on one computer have been completely written to the cloud before you open LR on the other computer, and that sync can take a while because of the size of the LR catalog.  This also means that you have to exclude the LR previews folder from being synced, because syncing them REALLY slows down the sync because of the sheer number of images Box must parse to see if syncing them is required.  So each computer install has to generate its own set of previews.

My takeaway from all this is that you're better off putting the catalog on a USB drive that is physically moved from computer to computer.

[nemophoto]

Thanks for the suggestions Allan. I didn't think you could run a Lightroom catalog from "the cloud". Lightroom has always forced me to have the catalog on a so-called local drive. But, that said, I'll try it. Rarely, if ever, would we work on the database at the same time. It would usually be my wife working with images, then saying, can you work on such-and-such an image. Or me shooting some images, then importing the images. since I've worked on many of the shoots as individual Lightroom catalogs (i.e - Holiday 2014, Summer 2013, et al), part of the work may be done by simply importing these into a new catalog and then saving it to box.com.

Thanks again for the suggestions. Anyone else had some sort of solution?

[AlterEgo]

Thanks for the suggestions.

if you just need DAM why do you need LR ?

there are alternatives out there, supporting multiple users and not just "desktop" model - for example http://daminion.net

[nemophoto]

if you just need DAM why do you need LR ?

there are alternatives out there, supporting multiple users and not just "desktop" model - for example http://daminion.net

The purpose is combining the features of a DAM, while also being able to easily work with, tweak, resize, or create a new final image. And to be able to do it rather seamlessly working with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Over the years, I've looked at some very good, cross-platform DAMs, even implemented one (Extensis Portfolio), but found either the companies went out of business, no longer supported the program, or were just plain clumsy and cumbersome.

[AFairley]

Nemo, with Box you are not actually running LR from the cloud.  You are running separate installs on each workstation, and each workstation also has a separate catalog. (That's why, IMO, Box is not really a satisfactory solution.).  What Box does is to backup the local catalog to the cloud and then propagate that backup to the other computer that is synced to the cloud.  But you actually have two "physical" catalogs (both of which have the same name) as well as the cloud catalog and Box is trying to keep them all the same.  So if you modify them both at once (or modify on workstation B before a modification on workstation A has finished syncing to the cloud) what Box is confronted with is two different versions of the same file, so I keeps copies of both.  That means you now have two versions of the catalog neither of which has all the latest changes.  It could be a real pain.  That's why I don't recommend it.

It would be nice if LR had true NAS file support which would involve locking the catalog once it was opened by a workstation so other workstations could only access it read-only.  Plenty of office-type applications can do this, I'm not sure why Adobe hasn't implemented it.

[AlterEgo]

The purpose is combining the features of a DAM, while also being able to easily work with, tweak, resize, or create a new final image.

and that's why more suitable programs like Daminion that supports multiuser work are necessary... LR is a desktop, single user solution... which has nothing in common with the word scalability also.

[nemophoto]

and that's why more suitable programs like Daminion that supports multiuser work are necessary... LR is a desktop, single user solution... which has nothing in common with the word scalability also.

Thanks. I'll look into it more fully. Overall, though, I believe Lightroom offers the operability on the images, but Daminion is certainly worth looking at more closely.

[Phil Indeblanc]

As one mentioned, LR maybe not the best solution...

Besides the fact that she wont be able to see any PDF, InDesign and other files other than JPEG, TIF, PSD, DNG, and a couple other photo only file types. In design there are multiple vector and other file types to deal with. I would recommend ACDSee for such a need. The Pro version allows you to save database and see all the file types needed including PDFs.

[nemophoto]

As one mentioned, LR maybe not the best solution...

Besides the fact that she wont be able to see any PDF, InDesign and other files other than JPEG, TIF, PSD, DNG, and a couple other photo only file types. In design there are multiple vector and other file types to deal with. I would recommend ACDSee for such a need. The Pro version allows you to save database and see all the file types needed including PDFs.

I use ACDSee periodically. So does she, but never really loved it. You are right about the PDFs, etc., but for her/us, it's really about the images. She has her layout files well organized and easily "findable". But for her, she virtually never reuses layouts -- everything she does is from scratch, or with a few recycled elements. But otherwise, it's the image library she needs quick and easy access to.

[Phil Indeblanc]

There is the DAM section here which maybe worth reading through some posts. The other one I would suggest is IDImager Photo Supreme.. It is a solid DAM.

I know what you might mean for ACDSee, although my troubles are with large amounts of images. 10-50k should be pretty easy for it. It's fast and has great edit features and views. Version 8 pro allows for multiple DB to help this. What was it you didn't like about it. Mine just freezes up often, and looks too much like LR and I cant customize the interface.

[nemophoto]

My version freezes periodically as well, or just won't launch. Also, ACDSee 8 Pro added a... I guess I'll call it an extension or a widget ... to Windows File Explorer. When you right click a file -- especially an image file -- half the time the properties of the file will not appear. You have to do multiple right clicks to try to get the properties window to appear. The larger the file, the worse it gets. Probably related to the ACDSee PicaView that was added that pops up on image files. Irritating as hell. I also have ACDSee 7 Pro on my system. Both can be problematic and the reason I wouldn't want to rely on it too heavily. I'll look at IDImager Photo. Thanks for the suggestion.

[john beardsworth]

Why doesn't she just use Bridge? If your catalogue has auto writing of xmp enabled, she'll see your adjustments and other metadata.

[nemophoto]

Why doesn't she just use Bridge? If your catalogue has auto writing of xmp enabled, she'll see your adjustments and other metadata.

To be honest, Bridge can be slow and kludgy. What I like about Lightroom is that it has the ability for both of us to work with it and to catalog the images, whether RAW, TIFF, JPEG, RGB, CMYK, and it's all in one place.

[martinog]

My wife & I have our photos on a NAS and separate LR 5 catalogues on our Macs.
I load the photos on the NAS do all the key wording and we both synchronize the folders as necessary to keep any adjustments in synchrony. It’s slightly slower than having the photos on each of our computers but workable.

[john beardsworth]

To be honest, Bridge can be slow and kludgy. What I like about Lightroom is that it has the ability for both of us to work with it and to catalog the images, whether RAW, TIFF, JPEG, RGB, CMYK, and it's all in one place.

Bridge lovers say exactly the same as you do, but about Lightroom. It shows far more types of files than Lightroom can handle, and it is real time.

You can always put the catalogue on Dropbox or similar, but if she is to see exactly the same as you, you will need to be careful to allow it to sync up from your computer and down to your wife's (see my post here).

You might be able to map a network address to a drive letter on both your and your wife's computers. Not sure if it works, but LR would then think it's not on a network.

[Phil Indeblanc]

Bridge I have had bad experiences with, not only slow, it just doesn't play well with multiple drive, NAS storage. I have not used it in a while. It also leaves 2 files in each folder. Not a big deal if it worked right.

LR might work, but you may find it limiting...ID Imager PhotoSupreme maybe the way to go.

[MBehrens]

If you are bound and determined to do this. On the Windows PC you can use the SUBST DOS command to map a drive letter to a network path where your LR Catalog is located. LR will open the catalog via this drive letter and not complain.

C:\Windows\system32>SUBST /?
Associates a path with a drive letter.

SUBST [drive1: [drive2:]path]
SUBST drive1: /D

  drive1:        Specifies a virtual drive to which you want to assign a path.
  [drive2:]path  Specifies a physical drive and path you want to assign to
                 a virtual drive.
  /D             Deletes a substituted (virtual) drive.

Type SUBST with no parameters to display a list of current virtual drives.

I have only tested this with the catalog on the NAS and the image files on the local disk, performance isn't too bad. However, I do not use this scenario - BE WARNED IT IS NOT SUPPORTED AND COMES WITH RISKS. Having both the catalog and the Images on the NAS could be pretty poor performance. Giga-bit Ethernet will help and I would not try this over WiFi. The network dropping out for any amount of time for any reason is your worst enemy in this situation.

LR doesn't care where you store/link the images so having them on the NAS is no problem.

I don't use Macs, but I found this discussion on how to achieve the same functionality as SUBST on a Mac and there seems to be an answer.
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/84222/is-there-a-disk-volume-substitute-command-in-osx-similar-to-subst-on-windows

If you do use this tactic I would suggest having a rock solid backup plan for my catalogs.

Good Luck