Using Lightroom CC on both windows and mac

[Sónamerica]

Im in the market to purchase a laptop running windows. My question to you all is can I use lightroom on both platforms and swap my work between the two?

example: Imac at home where most of my work is being done, but I would like to be able to take my work with me on the laptop running windows when I travel so that I can finish up my work and still be able to meet the deadlines I set for my clients. I have looked into this but I can't find a solid answer I am aware of how CC works and that I can have it installed on both platforms but can only run one at a time. I just want to make sure that im not going to have an issue with lightroom not being able to see my work because I jumped into another platform. Thank you in advance for your assistance

Regards,

Rob

[JP Hess · Accepted solution]

Although I have never used a Mac, I can tell you that Lightroom is cross-platform. The catalog, which is the file that Lightroom opens, is platform independent so you should have no problem with your plans to use it on both Windows and the Mac.

[Sónamerica]

Thank You Jim

[John Waller]

Sónamerica  wrote

My question to you all is can I use lightroom on both platforms and swap my work between the two?

What Jim said. I use LR on Mac and Windows daily. Works fine, as it is designed to.

[Sónamerica]

Thanks John I was really worried about that since I had read something about lightrooms paths were different in each platform and thus when one platform opened the catalog it would write that path and when you moved the catalog to the other platform lightroom would not see it since the path had changed.

Thanks again you've been a big help these last couple of days!

[Just Shoot Me]

That is correct. Windows uses Drive Letters and Mac uses Drive Names in their respective paths. These paths, to the image files, are written into the catalog with either the Letter or Name of the drive the images are on.

[Sónamerica]

On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 5:57 PM Just Shoot Me <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[John Waller]

Sónamerica  wrote

I was really worried about that since I had read something about lightrooms paths were different in each platform and thus when one platform opened the catalog it would write that path and when you moved the catalog to the other platform lightroom would not see it since the path had changed.

There are various ways of overcoming that.

Moving Lightroom CC used on external drive only from PC to Mac

MacDrive makes things easy

http://www.mediafour.com/software/macdrive/

[williams11032794]

Based on what I see, this question has not been answered.  Jim Hess and John Waller say no problem.  But the discussion continues to indicate there are naming convention issues and points to documents that refer to external hard drives.  Seems to me the Lightroom runs on both ios and windows, but you can't seemlessly access your photos.

[John Waller]

Seems to me it depends on what kind of answer you are looking for. Needs to be one which works for you.

There are steps and workarounds available to circumvent most of the awkwardness in any setup.

Which part is not answered for you? Have you tried using a Mac/Win workflow yourself? If yes, do you have any problems with your setup?

[williams11032794]

Let me give you some background.  I run Lightroom 6.9 on an iMac.  I plan to move to CC in the near future. I want some portability to do edits while travelling, so I have  been looking at the new Ipad Pro and the Microsoft Surface Pro.  For ease of use, I am assuming the best choice is the iPad Pro.  But I like the Surface Pro.  If the Surface Pro could be used seamlessly - by that I mean, edit on the road to some level using the Surface and be able to do final tweaks at home on the iMac with very little effort in syncing.  I would still like the iMac to keep final copies of everything.  But I don't want to buy other products and go through a lot of steps that I can screw up.

[Just Shoot Me]

The iPad runs Apple's iOS which can not run the real Lightroom. It can only run LR Mobile.

The MS Surface Pro runs the real, Desktop, version of MS Windows and can run the full version of Lightroom.

If you already own LR version 6 there is no reason to start subscribing to the Photographers subscription plan unless you want Photoshop and the newer features that have been added to LR CC since LR 6/CC was released back in 2015.

LR 6 and LR CC are the exact same program, minus the features that were added to the CC version.

[williams11032794]

I understand that the iPad runs LR mobile ( not the real version if LR). What about the iMac?  I am running Lightroom v6.9 on the iMac.  Is it running the real version of Lightroom?  Because this is my home base, I want everything to come back to it.  Is Lightroom mobile for the iPad better aligned to the iMac than a Windows version running on a Surface?

it seems to me that if I get the Surface, I will have a real version running on the Surface, a real, but different version running on the iMac and that they will not talk to one another very well and won't know who is the boss.  If I want the Surface to be the one and only boss, it would work just fine, but my iMac would virtually be used for nothing?

    Bill

[Just Shoot Me]

Yes the iMac runs Apple's OS X which is a desktop operating system.

First off you are 3 or 4 releases behind. LR 6/CC is now up to the .12 release.

You can run the exact same version of LR of 2 different computers. You can export images from one computer as a catalog and then import that catalog into LR on your main desktop system.

[DdeGannes]

The Lightroom Mobile application will only run on mobile devices I.e iPhone, Android Smart Phone, iPad, Adroid Tablet. The full Lightroom Application runs on Computer desktop and laptop. You sync images from Computer to Mobile devices and vice versa.

You cannot sync computer to computer.

One other important feature to note is only collections from one Lightroom Catalog at a time can be synced between Computer / Mobile devices.