Multiple Accounts/Users Using LrC to Access the Same Photos Stored on a NAS

[EricWEImpact]

Hello all, here's some context, then my question.

In the company I work for, there are three photographers that take photos for clients and then store them on a NAS at the office.  We then edit those photos in LrC by adding the folder from the NAS into LrC.  We do this on three different computers, thus creating 3 different locally stored Lightroom catalogs that are pointed back to the same original files on the NAS.  About 20 Other employees at the office also have access to these photos on the NAS and use their own Lightroom account primarily to locate the photos and export them to be used on client web sites.   

Till running into problems, we photographers assumed that when we edit, changes are saved as XMP for RAW images (we set this to happen automatically) or saved to the image itself in the case of DNGs.  Then, we thought anyone else that imports/synchronizes the folder that contains those images would be able to see our edits.  But we're having consistent issues because even if we "save metadata to files", it seems like the person on the other end (even after clicking "read metadata from files") isn't seeing all my edits or metadata.  They are seeing the incorrect number of 5-star photos, not all edits are showing, etc.  There seems to be a particular issue with AI edits like AI remove and AI masks.  

Some clarifications:

• I understand that we cannot store one master catalog on the NAS.
• Therefore, by accessing the photos from different devices, I believe everyone is automatically creating their own Lrcat file (catalog) when they import photos from the NAS.  
• Lightroom saves devlop settings and metadata into each individual catalog until we manually "save metadata to file" and/or save an XMP file (RAW files only).
• We use Mac almost exclusively with one PC user that happens to be one of the primary photo editors.

So my question is basically can multiple users/adobe accounts/devices access the same raw/negative photos on a NAS and seamlessly read/write all devlop settings and other metadata?   The goal is for our team of 3 editors to edit photos, save the changes to the files or XMPs, then have other members of the team access those photos and export for publishing to the web/social media.

Is the problem that we aren't all looking at the same LrC catalog? 

Is the problem that not all changes are saved to the files/XMPs?

Is the problem that there's an issue with the sequence in which we write/read/synchronize, etc?

Any help is appreciated.

[dj_paige]

LrC does not allow multiple users to access the same catalog. There are multi-user catalog software made by other companies.

Multiple users can access the same RAW images and edit them independently and save the changes to .xmp. But what happens if person 1 creates an .xmp file for an image and then person 2 wants to create an .xmp file also for that image. This is where the problem lies. I think you'd be better off finding software that is designed to allow multiple users to work on the entire collection of photos.

OR

Use Lightroom (not Classic).

[EricWEImpact]

Are you saying that even if I had the catalog on an external hard drive, another adobe user couldn't open that on their device?  

Also, with the NAS system I talked about, is there a reason that (at least for DNGs) the develop settings (saved to file) couldn't just be viewed by anyone that imports that original image?  What does or doesn't save to the file?

[dj_paige]

Are you saying that even if I had the catalog on an external hard drive, another adobe user couldn't open that on their device?

You need 3 legal Lightroom Classic licenses to do this. In that case, then you have the ability to have one user make some edits, close the catalog, and another user could then open the catalog in his/her legal copy of Lightroom Classic (not the first user's legal copy of Lightroom Classic).

But as pointed out, you need strict manual controls on who does what, to be sure there are no conflicts; and don't make a mistake or work can be lost and perhaps even catalog gets corrupted. And if user 1 makes edits and then user 2 makes edits on the same photo, these will over-write the .xmp file from user 1. Which is why I say you are better off obtaining software this is designed to be multi-user.

[JohanElzenga]

What you describe should work, but only if you are 100% sure that at no point in time two people are working on the same image at roughly the same time. If that happens -and I don't think you can be sure it never will- then when somebody writes metadata to a file, he might overwrite metadata that somebody else wrote to the same file. Here's the scenario that is almost impossible to avoid:

1: You start working on an image, so you first use 'Read Metadata from File' to make sure you will see the latest edits.

2: A coworker does the same thing.

3: The coworker is only doing some quick edits, so he is finished before you are.

4: The coworker writes his edits to the metadata of the file.

5: You are still working on that same file, so you don't see what he just did.

6: When you are finished and write metadata to the file, you will overwrite what the coworker did.

[Conrad_C]

The short version is, Lightroom Classic was designed as a single user application using local storage. There are various workarounds to try and get it to work in a team/NAS environment, but Adobe does not support those scenarios for Lightroom Classic, and so it’s not recommended. Of course there’s nothing to stop anyone from doing it, it’s just that it’s very much an “at your own risk” kind of thing, and risky enough that a business should probably not rely on that.

Lightroom (not Classic) has some features along those lines. If you find that Lightroom group sharing fits how your team works, one thing that would be non-negotiable is that sharing photos through cloud Lightroom requires storing the images on Creative Cloud servers, not local NASs. Cloud Lightroom recently added a Local tab that allows Adobe Bridge-like editing on your own local storage, but I think the sharing/group features only work with images stored on Creative Cloud servers.

There are some other solutions specifically engineered for reliable multi-user access, and they tend to cost a lot more. Adobe has one called Experience Manager Assets (which might or might not be quite what you are looking for), and there are others.

Another possibility is the new integration of cloud Lightroom with frame.io, which is very much designed for team-based access and editing. But that is more of a fast turnaround camera-to-cloud-to-editors workflow, and again, it depends on the photos being stored in the cloud.

[EricWEImpact]

Thanks, this is super helpful!