Has anyone worked out a seamless solution to having one LR catalog but two devices?
I'm troubleshooting with my friend Marty to sort out where his LR Catalog should be. I know many of you face the same difficulty and have, no doubt, come up with a solution that works for you. Here's the scenario...
Right now, his LR Catalog, Previews and Smart Previews reside on his MacBook Pro as he uses it most of the time BUT he also wants to be able to use LR on his iMac desktop computer. His original files are on a USB portable drive (backed-up to an external drive). This makes sense as he uses the MacBook more often for LR.
The most logical solution is to put the catalog on his USB portable drive as it could be plugged into either device, BUT we are trying to avoid that, as the read-write times are slower than on an internal drive. Also, he would always need to be plugged into the portable drive which reduces the inherent freedom of using a laptop.
So, if he keeps his LR catalog on his MacBook, what's the best way of making it available for use on the iMac? He could copy it over each time, but the catalog with previews and smart previews runs to GBs of data, which takes time to copy over and back again.
I know this is long-winded, but each time we come up a solution, it has drawbacks. Has anyone worked out this out successfully? If LR had a "Synch" function, the problem would be solved, but it doesn't. So... what to do?