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I am looking for a photo management solution that I can use on both my Mac Mini and Mac Book Air. As with everybody I have a stack of photos, certainly more than is feasible to store on my MBAs 128GB SSD. So I store them on the Mac Mini (I have a server model with two drives). Currently they are in Lightroom 5 (imported from Aperture)

But in doing this, I can not access photos from the MBA (when I'm sitting on the couch etc)

With Lightroom's insistence on the catalogue being local, I would need to store the photos on a NAS and sync the catalogue file between the two machines - does anyone do this? Is it practical? How do you ensure the catalogues are synced properly? How does Lightroom behave of the NAS is not available?

But are there any other solutions? Other management applications?

Ideally I would like to:

  1. Access the photo library from any of my systems (if I'm remote I would use a VPN to be on the same LAN)

  2. Import on either the Mac Mini or MBA

  3. No local storage of photos (only data like previews)

  4. Ability to make changes to images (most likely just labelling/tagging images)

The Naughty Otter
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    Possible duplicate of Sharing Lightroom Catalog – inkista Aug 16 '16 at 18:08
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    Possible duplicate of What is the best way to synchronize Adobe Lightroom databases between two computers? – mattdm Aug 16 '16 at 18:50
  • Thanks for both those answers; I did not find them on my search, and we're both interesting to read, though unfortunately provided no new information. They suffer in either being cumbersome, multi step solutions and/or require you to have duplicates of the data on both systems using sync software. Neither of which are attractive solitons to me. Perhaps storing photos on the nas and a – The Naughty Otter Aug 16 '16 at 22:13
  • tool to just syncs the catalogue via the nas is possible. – The Naughty Otter Aug 16 '16 at 22:23
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    can you not use screen sharing to access the mini from the air? – Alaska Man Aug 17 '16 at 18:13
  • @Alaskaman I hadn't thought of that! I guess it's possible, not optimal (performance, esp. when remote for example) and a little clumsy requiring having the mini on, but definitely an interesting proposition! Thanks! – The Naughty Otter Aug 17 '16 at 18:35
  • It's been discussed to death. The best answer for Lightroom is "do not do it". Do something part way in between - remote access, export something in between and import as catalogs, capture new photos and preliminary edits on the laptop then export, and import on the main. Full, bi-directional sync will eventually screw up your work because you will miss a step or have a timing issue; the tool is just not architected for that. – Linwood Feb 12 '17 at 13:49
  • @Linwood yeah! It's definitely been done to death! Which is some ways is odd that's it's not been resolved!! With the cloud based solution through you'd think/hope something was in the pipeline – The Naughty Otter Feb 13 '17 at 13:16
  • Why can't you just share the folder where the catalog is on the Mac Mini? Its easy and built in to OS X. – Eric S Jun 14 '17 at 18:28
  • Lightroom doesn't like you doing that, from what I understand. It's also rather dangerous with the risk of multiple people accessing the catalog simultaneously. Finally, it's not easily shared when I'm not at home. – The Naughty Otter Jun 14 '17 at 21:30

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I do this today, but more old school style: I use Lightroom, but all my images, and the Lightroom Catalog, are stored on a portable hard drive. I simply connect the drive when I want to work on Lightroom. Doesn't matter what computer is connected, since all the data, and the catalog is on the portable drive. Just be sure to open the catalog on the hard drive.

Of course, I must remember to bring the hard drive, and connect it, so not a convenient as a cloud solution, but easy and effective.

cmason
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I think https://getmonument.com offers a good solution. I don't work or related to them. Just found it useful to share with you.

UPDATE:

Monument allows you to connect your HDs to it via USB. Then you can connect smartphones and PCs via ethernet/wifi and upload your photos to the box. It will organize them based on their AI software. Then you can show the albums on phones or screen (via HDMI).

Reading comments on their kickstarter campaign, it seems multi-users are not yet active on the shipped devices but the team says they are working on it. For now, multiple users can upload photos on the box, but they can not see each others' photos.

  1. It is possible to access your photos on the box remotely.
  2. You can import photos on your Mac Mini
  3. It saves all your photos so there is no need for local storage
  4. It automatically tags your photos. I don't know if manual tagging is possible.
Morteza Milani
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I've abandoned Lightroom, I'm afraid to say. Instead I'm testing photos + iCloud. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it's been the least-bad system I've tried!

The Naughty Otter
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