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cainerd
cainerd
Participant
February 27, 2019
Question

Dropbox, Synology Server, and Creative Cloud

  • February 27, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 4381 views

Hello LR Fam,

This will be my first post in the forum, so please bear with me

I've tried avoiding the pitfall of not reviewing previous threads, and I'm sure I've missed some really useful posts, yet I can't find a relevant answer to my situation.

Scenario:

  • A library of 500 GB of Raw+JPG images for our small company.
  • A mix of Studio and Lifestyle photos to be used on Instagram, and on our website and landing pages
  • The current Lightroom Classic CC library keeps growing, and I only have 500 GB on my laptop.
  • Multiple users should be able to access the photos
  • We have a synology server, dropbox professional account, and a creative cloud account
  • Currenlty, I upload photos, select the appropriate ones (i actually do this in "Photos" on my Mac as it seems more straight forward) and upload them to our office Synology server.
    • The server is synced automatically with Dropbox. We like to have a back up system in place

My goal:

  1. To browse around the entire library, and to have the option to preview all photos easily, without having to download all of them to my computer, just the ones I'm interested in.
    1. Ideally keeping the edits downloaded on my computer for a few days or so
  2. Find a way where I can easily share my edits with team members, and also allow them to edit
  3. Back up my work along the way

Sorry if this is a very rudimentary question, as it feels as if it should easily work.

Many thanks for all your help,
Anders

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Tony_See
Tony_See
Inspiring
March 1, 2019

What is your connection speed like?

This can be an issue if large libraries are being updated, synced and shared . . .

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
February 27, 2019

The problem with using Lightroom Classic CC in this manner is that it is not designed to be a multi-user application. There are no easy simple workarounds that I know of that will allow other potential users to essentially use the same catalog that you are using. You probably need to search for DAM software that allows multiple users.

There is no problem with Lightroom using photos on a networked drive (unless the network itself is flaky, which does happen sometimes).

    cainerd
    cainerdAuthor
    Participant
    February 28, 2019

    @dj_paige - thanks for taking the time answering. Is there any DAM software you could recommend for this purpose? I've also seen a few pople suggesting to simply save the LR catalog file in the dropbox folder as an option. 

    OK, so how about if we discount the opportunity of sharing photos to edit (I was hoping that this would be seamless in LR CC), and focus on the actual storage, which I'm now running out of. 

    Currently, the set up using LR classic kind of requires me to have all photos either on my laptop downloaded (I can't use the dropbox smartsync) or to rely on an external hard drive. Seems like there should be an easier way to operate using the cloud without having to use all storage capacity on my laptop.


    many thanks,
    Anders

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    February 28, 2019

    AS I have never used a multi-user DAM, I cannot recommend one. A list of DAM software is located at Best Digital Asset Management Software | 2019 Reviews of the Most Popular Systems​, again I can't say how complete or accurate the list is.

    Lightroom does not "kind of require" you to have photos on laptop or external drive. There's no reason your photos can't be on a networked drive.

    Seems like there should be an easier way to operate using the cloud without having to use all storage capacity on my laptop.

    Well, no, storing photos in "the cloud" was never a design feature of Lightroom Classic CC (or its predecessors). If you want cloud storage of photos, there is the similarly named (but very different) Lightroom CC, which does allow you to store photos in "the cloud" and allows others to access these photos in "the cloud" as well.

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