Should we use Lightroom or Bridge if my students need to move between PC and Mac systems?

[Lisajr]

Hello – my students work on both their PC laptops and iMac desktop with Adobe Creative Cloud. I have heard that there are sometimes compatibility issues with Lightroom on the two operating systems. Are they better off using Bridge or can they use Lightroom with which I have more familiarity? This is for organization and workflow mostly w some editing. They will also be editing in Photoshop. Many thanks for your advice!!

[Rob_Cullen]

First, Bridge is not designed to be a photo Editor! It is more of a File Browser (and Asset manager) for local files, so it can be used on both PC and Mac to view locally stored photos.

Second, Which version of "Lightroom" are you asking about?

If students want their photos available on both systems, via the Cloud, then the Cloud based Lightroom v5.5 is the answer.

They would need both Lightroom v5.5 and Photoshop installed on both systems, and internet access for the 'online' photos.

Lightroom-Classic v11.5 on both systems does introduce some difficulties- Requiring the photos and Catalog on an external drive that can be swapped, and is compatible, to both systems.

[Lisajr]

Thanks so much for your response! It is the creative cloud that they have access to. However, the former teacher told me that from her experience, lightroom was not stable transferring from PC to Mac and vice versa. Is this no longer true?

Best,
Lisa
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[JohanElzenga]

There has never been a problem with stability, but because Lightroom Classic stores image paths in its catalog, there can be a problem with 'missing images' if you switch between the platforms. That is because Windows uses drive letters (so the image path would look like this: D://Folder/Subfolder/Image) while MacOS uses disk names (so the same path would look like this: Diskname/Folder/Subfolder/Image). There are ways around that however, so we still need to know whether you plan to use Lightroom Classic or Lightroom (cloud).