Synching two macs

[rcarca]

Does anyone have a really good/foolproof approach to keeping LR up to date on two computers? I am now the proud owner of a MacBook Air, and an iMac (a present from my partner for the New Year!!!), and would like to keep just one LR catalogue and all my working photos (i.e. those I have not yet archived) available on both machines without much manual intervention.

I used to export and import catalogues from time to time, but that is a bit of a faff! Any ideas gratefully received... For non photographic stuff I use DropBox and sometimes iCloud. I also use Google Docs for sharing with work mates, but for photos it seems a bit daft to upload everything to Dropbox... (not to say it also begins to cost more - and I am always looking for the most cost effective as well as efficient approach!!!)

Thanks

Richard

[Guest]

Re: Synching two macs

Does anyone have a really good/foolproof approach to keeping LR up to date on two computers? I am now the proud owner of a MacBook Air, and an iMac (a present from my partner for the New Year!!!), and would like to keep just one LR catalogue and all my working photos (i.e. those I have not yet archived) available on both machines without much manual intervention.

I used to export and import catalogues from time to time, but that is a bit of a faff! Any ideas gratefully received... For non photographic stuff I use DropBox and sometimes iCloud. I also use Google Docs for sharing with work mates, but for photos it seems a bit daft to upload everything to Dropbox... (not to say it also begins to cost more - and I am always looking for the most cost effective as well as efficient approach!!!)

Thanks

Richard

I'm no tech expert but a NAS would probably be the best option, it's how I sync my machines (although I'm using PC's) the theory is the same - or time machine maybe? you would need the same versions of LR on both machines (so I'm led to believe?)

[djguk47]

Re: Synching two macs

Richard,
A NAS box is the way to go as has been suggested. You can drop Dropbox as you will have your own cloud setup.
Have a look at the QNAPP NAS box using Western Digital Red Drives.

[tesarver]

Synching two macs

The way I do it is to export as a catalog onto a portable drive from the laptop, then import the catalog onto the Mac. I do it this way because the adjustment you do on a image is stored in the catalog, which is stored on your local hard drive

Tom

[Colin]

Re: Synching two macs

Definitely a NAS drive it is what I have with my Air and iMac.

[Tigger]

Re: Synching two macs

I looked into this a while ago and never found a just easy "click here" option - I did think the sync button would be an easy option but its not..

The only way I found was the same as you to do it the manual way by copying the catalog, which is annoying as I have a macbook pro and would like to sync between my desktop and laptop, not so much so that I could edit on the laptop, but have another back up and easy access to all images

So interested to see what options for you find / others post

[tesarver]

Re: Synching two macs

Definitely a NAS drive it is what I have with my Air and iMac.

So how does this NAS drive work between your Air and Mac, especially when you travel with your air? Do you keep the working catalog in the NAS Drive?

[rcarca]

Re: Synching two macs

The way I do it is to export as a catalog onto a portable drive from the laptop, then import the catalog onto the Mac. I do it this way because the adjustment you do on a image is stored in the catalog, which is stored on your local hard drive

Tom

Where do you keep all of your CR2 files Tom? This was the bit that became irksome for me doing this, I would have the catalogue but not the CR2. I guess I could use offline thumbnails for processing.

[rcarca]

Re: Synching two macs

I looked into this a while ago and never found a just easy "click here" option - I did think the sync button would be an easy option but its not..

The only way I found was the same as you to do it the manual way by copying the catalog, which is annoying as I have a macbook pro and would like to sync between my desktop and laptop, not so much so that I could edit on the laptop, but have another back up and easy access to all images

So interested to see what options for you find / others post

I cannot understand why Adobe has not come up with a one click synch since they obviously want/expect us to use two computers. Perhaps they want us to buy their cloud storage, but then we have the problem of needing a local copy when we are without WiFi.

[rcarca]

Re: Synching two macs

Dobedogg and David - thanks

Richard,
A NAS box is the way to go as has been suggested. You can drop Dropbox as you will have your own cloud setup.
Have a look at the QNAPP NAS box using Western Digital Red Drives.

David, can you point me somewhere that I can actually see how to set this up???

[Tigger]

Re: Synching two macs

So how does this NAS drive work between your Air and Mac, especially when you travel with your air? Do you keep the working catalog in the NAS Drive?

surely using a NAS drive still means your back to just exporting the catalog ? the drive is just the storage device ??

[rcarca]

Re: Synching two macs

You might need to have an Adobe sign-in for this, but I thought this was an interesting contribution to the debate:
[Edit: the URL is ridiculous, google this: "Sync LR Catalog between 2 computers but not master files"]

A few people discussing using DropBox to keep their catalogs and files in synch. Presumably using NAS is just doing the same thing locally in house, and can be done over WiFi as well...

R

[Alan_H]

Re: Synching two macs

Just watching some tutorials on you tube and came across ( how I back up my images by Anthony Morganti 28 mins) looks like this could be for you as he uses an I mac and Mac book pro

Alan

[tesarver]

Re: Synching two macs

Where do you keep all of your CR2 files Tom? This was the bit that became irksome for me doing this, I would have the catalogue but not the CR2. I guess I could use offline thumbnails for processing.

I leave my current working files on my laptop. When done I transfer them to an external hard drive for storage.

[Robert Scott]

Re: Synching two macs

Perhaps I have misunderstood the question, but why not store the Lightroom catalog and images together on an external drive? It is what we do at EOS magazine for our photo library (20,000 images+). Then just plug the drive into whichever computer you are using.

We are currently using a WD My Passport Ultra drive which is powered via the USB cable - no mains supply needed.

The first drive is synched to a second external drive from time to time using software called SuperDuper.