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

Hi Victoria, thanks for your suggestion. I've posted the topic here:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/851835
Hope that helps.

Sven, drop by one of the Lightroom Forums www.lightroomforums.net or http://forums.adobe.com/community/lig... and we'll look at that in more detail. There are a few possibilities that I have in mind, a corrupted preview cache being one, although you could be right about it not updating the previews correctly. It'd be worth investigating separately anyway.

I agree that there is a need for a catalog setup that can be used on at least a desktop and a laptop.
Currently I use a "master" setup on my desktop, and a copy of the catalog on an external hard drive which only has access to the previews (not the originals). This I use mostly on a laptop. Apart from the fact that Lr it is much slower than on an internal drive I have the problem of keeping the previews on both computers up to date. I have a feeling that Lr not always detects all photos that need a preview refresh when choosing the menu command "Previews - Render standard size". After developing some photos on my desktop, copying the catalog to the external drive and rendering the previews from there I do get some "grey cells" (instead of previews) later when I have disconnected from the originals indicating that also the previews are missing.
Does anyone have any experience with that?

Do you know about File > Export as Catalog, and File > Import from Catalog ? These are what you are asking for.

Do you know about File > Export as Catalog, and File > Import from Catalog ? These do what you are asking for.

II would like to be able to have my files in a database or other file system on a NAS or a server.
That could be backed up centrally.
I would also like to be able to export a part of the database to a laptop and work on it and then later re import the pictures back into the database.
Likewise I would like to be able to be on location and download pictures from my camera to my laptop, when I return back home I would like to be able to add these to the database.

I think Brett meant "the best way today" ;-}

You can also use the 'Store Presets with Catalog' checkbox in preferences to store the presets on the external, and you can install your plug-ins located on the external too.

I do agree though, all of the current options are workarounds, and hardly ideal. Externals are also generally slower, and more risky as they can become detached, corrupting the catalog. It's not a great solution. It needs work, because more and more people are using multiple computers and home networks.

Lee Jay, there is now a tab on the photoshop facebook page, that acts as an interface to this site. See: http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshopdotco...

This is definitely A way to do it, but I completely disagree that it's the best way.

The best way would be for multiple computers to be able to access the same catalog and image files over a network, with file and/or database locking to prevent problems with multiple users at the same time. Unfortunately this isn't available at the same time.

The second best way (for me) is multiple computers that access the same files over a network using a catalog that gets automatically synced on a regular basis. This method definitely runs the risk of issues due to the catalogs being out of sync, but for a low number of users (or for a very rigorous workflow) it works quite well.

Another method would be to use a portable hard drive, which is just plain annoying to have to transfer from computer to computer. This method is a distant third in my books...