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

Well, it now has been nearly 2 years since I formally submitted a long list of suggestions to Adobe about future software. Primary among them was the suggestion to go to a multi-user networked version of Lightroom. Apparently, now that LR 4 is out, we see that Adobe has ignored all of those suggestions.

I work in a large commercial studio with 7 retouchers and 2 to 3 shoots going on simultaneously every day. We process tens of thousands of images a year in several different product categories. It's long past the point now that a single session, single workstation workflow is feasible. We are reluctant to move away from Lightroom simply because of the amazing feature set and great UI, but it's increasingly frustrating that we can't even share a catalog over the network.

The first step would be simply to make Lightroom network aware, not allowing concurrent connections but at least able to open the catalog on different workstations without physically copying the catalog file.

Adobe, please address this. We are on version 4 and it's the year 2012!!! Dedicate some resources to this, slap a fat price tag on the networked version, and sell it to your corporate clients that require this functionality or one of your competitors will.

I think that there is a third case:

- Home NAS with a single user

These things are becoming more and more common. I understand the imperative to keep the system operationally simple, just enabling network access to the database would lead to people who have been trying to use it as multi-user software complaining vociferously that they were innocent victims of Adobe when they corrupted their databases but there should be support for common high-end hardware configurations. Locking need only be done at the file level and imposed by the application not the database, no finer granularity is needed, but from discussions above it looks like the locking APIs are a mess.

Our home network uses Gigabit Ethernet connections, N wireless, and at the center is Microsoft Home Server...so there are customers out there that have the power to use networking and a centralized, shared catalog.

As others have said, it is time for Adobe to wake up.

Great examples Christian, Eric, and Rodney, of the need for a multi-user catalog. Let me add my request. Our marketing department is using Lightroom to manage our photo collection but it is a pain sharing the catalog among us. We are an Adobe shop, using InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc. and would be so much more productive if we had a multi-user LR catalog.

Adobe, your customers are telling you the time is now for a shareable, networkable, multi-user Lightroom catalog. It's not a revolutionary idea.

I think our wishes are important for Adobe and I know how easy it is to say "you guys should do this and that" vs actually make it happen in a foolproof software.

but my 2 cts is nowadays, it's all about mobility. i have a VERY capable laptop, but let's face it =

1) I don't want to lug my Pegasus R6 with me on a trip to be able to satisfy one of my customer while I am abroad by carrying all my latest job with me, and it will never be able to fight against my MacPro on SAS

2) today is all about collaborative work around the planet, and cloud working .

3) this could help very disabled person to work in image production without having to be on the field.

4) internet connection are going faster and faster every year so why not starting to think about being able to work everywhere.

5) After five days of holidays, I start feeling guilty sitting on the side of the pool... what a relief it could be if I could use that time to do a little clean-up of my image bank instead of being grumpy with my family....;-)

6) Yesterday, while working with another photographer, I spent 12h transferring files via fire wire 800 hard drive before figuring out that my new 1Gb network was actually 2 time faster.... network speed is up and ready for the fight now.

7) Doing a very capable "base station" is actually not that expensive = 1 MacMini server with 2 SSD+1 pegasus-R6 12Tb+ a good 1 Gb switch, and you are ready to rock under 3000$ - and it could allow you to make that laptop last a couple of year because you don't really need computing power anymore.

Christian Van Hanja makes excellent sense for professional photographers and it is about time Adobe starts paying attention.

I have several times earlier made the case for the same need but at the advanced personal rather than professional level. I am involved in the photographing of large numbers of aircraft, spacecraft and aerospace artifacts. I need the cataloging available for access from my laptop while travelling, from our home computers when editing, and on locations when travelling.

The multi-user, networked shared catalog makes sense on so many levels. It has now been years since many of us suggested this capability, yet judging from the Lightroom 4 beta, Adobe is making excuses rather than giving their customers what they need.

here are the main person involved in picture workflow in the way they should be =

-Photographer (shooting photo+transmission).
-photo editing desk (editing and light postproduction+captioning+transmission).
-Art director/graphic designer. (heavy-postproduction+final delivery+transmission)
-final customer.

here is how it works in reality =
-photographer (shooting photo/editing/postproduction/transmission)
-photo desk/art director
-final customer.

why this? because photographer have gained the ability to process pictures by themselve with digital era.

back in the day I will shoot 60 rolls of velvia, give it to the lab, have the slide printed with my copyright and the name of the event, do a quick edit to remove the junk, and then give it to the agency. job done. and this was because there was no way to do it another way.

know i spend 5% of my time behind the camera and the rest doing editing/captioning/post-processing/transmission.
that is why I have an assistant to help me to do the annoying part such as importing the cards, scan the junk, organize the files, prepare the catalogues, and do the final export and transmission

I am a photographer and I have to manage a pool of photographers on some of the jobs. that mean that i also have to make sure the guy shooting with me are doing the same thing....

so yes if there was a remote/intranet/internet/sharing option that allows every one to do his job on the same catalogue with a customised restricted access to certain function at the creation/opening of the catalogue that would be so efficient.
and It would allow to have MAJOR saving on plane ticket not having to ship everybody + equipment on location.

I could have a main catalogue accessible thru the network, hosted on a very strong machine and "x" clients who have a restricted access to what they could do on a daughter catalogue hosted on their machine. when they would press the "send the UPDATE" to the mother catalogue, it would prompt a screen off all the user saying " user X have requested to upgrade the catalogue please press OK" when other user would press OK, the main catalogue would do a backup of the current status, and then accept the modification.

like this i could create a catalogue on my workstation at the studio from my laptop at the other end of the world, and start dumping my card in the laptop who would send the low def jpeg to the workstation first to make the picture available for my assistant to start organizing the files, and would then upload the RAW file if I wanted.
A photo editor could start doing is edit remotely on this catalogue, while someone on another computer could do the captioning on each picture he have chosen because he would only see the pictures that the editor have selected .
the graphic designer would only see what is edited/captioned and would work on final images and so on with as much phase of modification/approval.

final customer would only see the final selection on his catalogue and then get back to the photographer and this network to give his feed back.

I would like to be able to focus more on my job = pressing the shutter release button and setting up some lights.

It is an answer, it's just got a different purpose than what you have in mind. What Brett is doing here is saying "this is the option you have that works right now" not "this is a great answer to multi-machine workflows" which I don't think he had any intention of implying.

So some kind of sophisticated sync feature that involves networking could be a far better "answer", but for somebody trying to figure out how to get by until that's implemented, Brett's answer is more practically useful.

An external hard-drive is NOT an answer. Full network support is. Wow. I can't believe an employee posted a comment like that. It still amazes me that a product that is this mature, and in a post 2010 world, can be so completely network-unaware. This is a feature that should have been in 3.0.