P: Allow Catalog to be stored on a networked drive.

Then let me disagree 🙂 LR is primilarly a cataloging/organizational software. The editing features are relatively limited, basically the same as Camera Raw. Ok for some type of photography but the main objective of LR is to offer organizational features (similar to Bridge and more) oriented for the photographer workflow. People started to use it as a photo editing software and that is fine but that is not the only goal. In reality, it is a "replacement" to Bridge and Camera Raw and I don't see why Adobe would go beyond that, that would mean hitting the PS market...

Starting from that premise, there should be better features for sharing and backups. If it aims at providing a complete photographer workflow, like it is says on the marketing material (that does include PS), then it should have that for the professional photographers, period. Backups, asset management, collaborative tools are a very important parts of the workflow.

I don't see your point about more corruption issues, etc. It is what databases are for and there are great solutions out there, managing immensely larger databases properly and for decades. I worked for many years in the software industry and there are so many good database solutions out there, that is not a valid point to say that Adobe should not invest time in sharing and backups. To the contrary, continuing with SQL lite and a single user design may eventually mean more support and "corruption issues" as people will grow with LR, end up with 1000K+ image libraries and start complaining that the software does not cope.

There are backup solutions outside of LR for sure. But none of them are photographer oriented and understand the operations I do in LR. I would like to be able to move and rename files and see all my computers and backups updated. I would also like to be able to "check out" parts of my master catalog onto a laptop easily (now done through export as...) and be able to resynchronize properly afterwards, on all computers, without having to resort to third party solutions that do not know about my photo metadata, etc. The current solution for synchronizing catalogs is very basic and not properly suited for serious work. So none of the "software out there" will do a better job of a backup solution internal to LR, purposely designed for photographers.

You seem to think that adding functionality there will necessarily mean less new functionality elsewhere but in reality, if more professional move to LR because of these new functionalities, it may mean more dev and a better solution overall. This is business and managing my photos is mission critical and definitely part of what you call "photographic centric tools".

It is a bit annoying, to tell the truth, that this very interesting and valid point is being questioned by people that don't need it. Why would you care if you have all you need already?

LR is great for managing, cataloging and organizing photos, but lack so much to become a great tool for professionals and teams...

It is, very true. I use it for that one simple reason. For all the other stuff you find other software that is more up to the job. Or you hope Adobe implement it and in the meantime are scared to death you will loose work because of it's shortcomings.

Buy more CF cards, keep shoots on the cards and don't delete them until you have the images you need, or have given the client the job. You then have your RAW files backed up on very portable media.

Ingest onto two sperate drives, then back them up. Do the same for the catalog folders, hey even drop your catalog folders onto your CF cards that hold the RAW files. Simple is better, leaving you more time to worry about the creative side of your work

in my opinion, that would just open up too many support issues and corruption possibilities, less redundancy and more importantly, would be focusing on the stuff we don't really want a piece of photographic software to focus on.

I want LR to concentrate on giving us photographic centric tools, not to concentrate putting in workflow that is already out there and working. If LR starts to put it's R&D time into technical back end that doesn't actually enhance the UX for the photographer, then I would look seriously doubt it's intentions.

Yes I agree, we all need back up and replication etc etc, but there's software out there that does it far better

Axiom, I fully agree and if people don't need that functionality then should just keep out of the discussion...

There is no reason why Lightroom could still have the "simple" internal database option + a proper SQL server option. There are a lot of deficiencies in LR in terms of sharing, backups and replications that would partially be solved by using a proper SQL solution. I would add that it also needs a master file replication solutions to have a full backup option from within LR (this can be done outside of LR but it would be nice that LR replicates file/folder changes on mirrored catalogs + master files).

LR is great for managing, cataloging and organizing photos, but lack so much to become a great tool for professionals and teams...

When shooting professionally or as a very productive enthusiast, managing multi 10k+ images in LR gets tedious when you add the backup and multiple computers in the picture (no pun intended). I think this thread is specifically for advanced usage, which is not very well handled in LR.

I still just looking for basic functionality from Lightroom. I'm a single user.
All photos are on home network, that I can access from multiple computers, laptop and desktop.

Adobe Revel or the endless other cloud storage photo services. If you're working with JPG, then that's by far your best option.

Would be a good improvement and may be a step forward in fixing the missing/poor replication/backup features. Lightroom is great to organize and catalog images but designed around the single computer environment (strangely, the database architecture opens a lot of option here but not used much).

I am happy to see people talking about moving to a proper SQL server (optional) as this would opened a world of possibilites in terms of features AND performance. A proper SQL server would improve performance immensely and allow for multi-user, multi-computer and proper backup solutions.

Lightroom would still require a master file backup/replication feature but that would be a great step ahead...

See my idea about backups. It may not look related at first, but if you think about the whole issue at a high level, it is pretty similar...

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

I still just looking for basic functionality from Lightroom. I'm a single user.
All photos are on home network, that I can access from multiple computers, laptop and desktop.

I just want to store Lightroom catalog on my network drive with photos.
This way access LR and photos and backups are easy.

Having to have Lightroom catalog on a portable drive and carrying it back and forth and doing separate backups is a pain.

I'm not a techie. I love a simple solution. Today my simple solution is I user Bridge much more than LR. I would not upgrade LR. The basic concept of a database is great. Databases sit on networks. I'm not a techie and I know this.

This is basic functionality. Have multiple users access LR simultaneously, is a different and more complex issue. Business need that for sure. The hobbyest like me, that way overkill.

Try adding a collaborative environment where you have multiple editors trying to manage a client production, and you're simply out of luck - without bizarre and overly complicated workflows - so you're limited to harassing one guy on one machine.

I work with these guys

http://www.squarebox.com/

This is based on whatever flavour of SQL you want. It's fully server compliant and users query a DB with shared catalogs. Metadata can be added to the already 'baked in' metadata with the option to add 'user fields' to catalog tabs. It's mainly video workflow but does support XMP.

I guess it's about trying to keep a develop workflow up and running without having to publish