Storing catalog on an SD Card...

Question

Currently my photos are stored on an external drive, as is my catalog. In part this setup started when I was using two different computers frequently, however now I am using just one for the most part. Also my collection of images now spans multiple drives and it would be nice to not have to cary the drive with the images I need and/or saving new images to and whoichever one has the catalog on it. I thought of putting the catalog on the ssd of my laptop, however in those rare cases I am using a different system that would be a problem, also I have limitted space... should have paid for the larger drive, lol.

I have a built in card reader and have been thinking of using it for addtional storage anyway. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or experince storing the catalog on an SD card. I have external card readers that I have run speed test comparisons on and they are roughly the same, so while haveing the built in reader not available when going to import images, it wouldn't be too bad.... and it would also keep me from experinceing one of my major issues with light room, it crashing if the drive with the catalog gets accidently unpluged/cable bumped

cmgap · Answer

Having your catalog on an SD drive won't save you from having to carry around the drive(s) where your images are stored. If you do this be sure to make regular Lr backups on an external drive.

With Lr Classic you can make smart previews upon import or when you know which images you want to continue to work on without being tethered to your EHD's.

Be sure that Syncing is on by clicking on the white arrow next to your name. Once you make and sync a collection in Lr Classic it will make smart previews which you can see, edit and share via a browser at lightroom.adobe.com or via the Lightroom app on a mobile phone or tablet. You can download Lightroom via the App store. When you next open your desktop Lr will update the catalog with the edits you made elsewhere. The interface is different on the web and app versions but it's fun to use and there are great new Learn features that you won't find on the desktop version.

Give it a try with just a few images: make a collection > sync it to the cloud by ticking the box to the left of the collection name > open lightroom.adobe.com and sign in with your Adobe ID. Once there you will see your images > select one and choose edit > make some obvious change and go back into your desktop app. The edits you made will be applied.

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