Syncing 2 catelgoues in Lightroom

Schizophonic · 30 Jun 2013 at 22:59

Just wondering if people already do this?

As I've just got a new laptop and working / editing photos on the go when I'm away for weekends / evenings would be a good time to do processing.

Whats the easiest method you found that helps stops duplication (where possible) and only updates changes - if possible!

I have my main computer with all the original photos with the main catalog and will now start using a laptop offsite ito import from a current session and editing. I want to when I get back home to just plug in and my main computer to pick up and copy the changes over. Is it possible?

King Damager · 30 Jun 2013 at 23:20

I was looking into this the other day. Whilst I haven't quite looked into it enough. Thinka bout potentially doing a smart catalogue (LR5 feature).

kd

PistolPete · 1 Jul 2013 at 21:00

Actually, scrub that as I have access to my RAWs on my storage server from my laptop too

Genoma · 2 Jul 2013 at 10:13

I have this issue too.

I believe the problem is we are trying to juggle 3 things:

1. Syncronise the files (RAWs)
2. Syncronise any edits (in either the DNGs, JPGS or in .XMP files)
3. Syncronise the catalogue (which is a view of the files, location, metadata, indexes, + SOME ADDITIONAL edit data such as virtual copies, etc).

I haven't found a way of doing this. but the best compromise for me is is to do these steps manually.

Both my desktop and laptop have the following structures:
C:\Lightroom\Import\Year\Month\Day
D:\Files\Photos\Year\Month\Month\Photoshoot Name

My desktop is nominated the master set of photos.

If I need to import + develop anything on the laptop, I manually copy these to the relevant master desktop D:\ area and resync the folder in the catalogue.

Periodically I use SyncToy to copy (echo mode, desktop -> laptop) changes from the master desktop D:\ area to my D:\ area of the laptop

Think of this as a backup and my mobile set on the laptop. Once SyncToy is run I re-sync the laptop's catalogue.

The simplest way to do what we want Is to have both the catalogue and the photos on an external drive and use that single/same catalogue on both desktop and laptop.

I'm happy with my process above since:

I have an automatic backup of the photos on the laptop on a separate drive
Synctoy echo ensures the desktop is always the master
I'm happy with only transferring .xmp edit changes over from the laptop to the desktop (remember things like virtual copies, are held in the catalogue not in the .xmp/dng/jpg file).
It makes sure I think of what I'm moving around

Another option is to export the relevant folder as a catalogue from the laptop, and import that (which will include all catalogue data + all the photos) onto the desktop or vice versa. I haven't tried that and I have no idea how it will deal with duplicate files.