I too work on two machines: one at work and one at home. I use the export/import catalog functionality that takes care of everything.

My workflow is:

1. Set up a smart collection called "Touched Today" which automatically shows all images modified today.
2. At the end of the day, select all images in "Touched Today" and Export as Catalog onto a USB flash drive.
3. On the other computer, I import the catalog from the flash drive into the host catalog.

Note: If you know you worked on old files, that already exist on the other computer, do not check the "Include negatives" option during export. This will save a lot of disk space (on the flash drive) and time.

In my opinion (notice, MY opinion), the easiest way to do this is to have the catalog, the images, previews, (in other words, everything) on an external hard drive.  It's easy, it works well.  Then, when you are finished with the editing, you could export a set of JPEG images for viewing to each computer.  But the master files remain on the external drive.  It's a way to do it, but you might not like that idea.  I do.

Hi Geoffbubbles,

if you see only 1 photo you did export only 1 photo in the catalog.

Make sure you select all (e.g. <ctrl> A or remove the tick from "export selected photos only" in the dialog box of export-as-catalog =>will pick the total folder).

What Dorin mentions are catalogs as transportation vehicles between the two LR computer catalogs.

Let's assume you start on your home-comp and transfer to the work-comp.

When you EXPORT you give a name "home-to-work" for the transport catalog. You decide if you include the pictures by ticking "exclude negative files".

You would do so only for the first time, when your work-comp would not yet have them.

These are the original files which would never be touched, but which LR needs to have available to do develop work (i.e. to write develop instructions into its database). [Or maybe only you need them in order to have LR display the effects of what you are doing, if your slider settings achieve your desired result.]

When you transfer your new settings from the work-comp to the home-comp which has the original files already you only need to transfer the DB-records for the files, i.e. the catalog parts. Then it is sufficient to export-as-catalog (name it "work-to-home") without the tick for the negative files. Which will obviously save a lot of data to transfer.

As would leaving off the tick for "include available previews", but then your receiving computer would have to render the previews itself - your choice where you spend the effort.

Depending on your ticks checked in export dialog the data on the transfer stick will show different folders:

• 1 wrapping folder with the name you specified as transportation catalog name (in the example above "home-to-work")
• therein the catalog file *.lrcat (home-to-work.lrcat)
• if "include negative files" ticked: as many subfolders as the original folder structure/names of the pictures in it had on the sending machine
• if "include available previews" ticked: an *Previews.lrdata-folder ("home-to-work Previews.lrdata") with lots of subfolders labelled 0...F
  

On the receiving computer, when you IMPORT FROM CATALOG, you only select the *.lrcat-file.

In the dialog box you decide if you import the negative files (prereq you had included them) or if you just add them without moving (why not leave them on the stick i.o. actually copying over to the work-comp?). If there are no new photos, but just new settings, you can either overwrite your old settings (which is probably your intention) or tick "preserve old settings as virtual copies".

When you use Dorins smart collection "Touched today" the virtual copies should not show up upon re-export on the way "work-to-home", provided you have further tweaked the master versions only. Or they do because in the end you liked them better and continued tweaking on them.

Note if you do not include previews: you might need to tell LR on the receiving comp to rerender the previews if it contains the photos and earlier previews already - I am not sure, if LR starts off on its own to rerender them.

Hi,

I know you mentioned that an external drive would not work, but you did not say why. I work on 2 computers also... There are a lot of advantages to having ALL your work on an external drive and it works great as long as you have a fast one (ESATA; Firewire 800 / 400; etc.).. If you have a moment take a look at this post by David Marx on the Lightroom Lab...

My Photo Storage System: Two External Hard Drives

I regret to inform you that your well intentioned posting has simply wasted both our times.

 

I won't apologise for being so blunt,  I'm a Yorkshireman and we are respected for 'saying it as  it is'.

 

Best regards

 

Geoff

No regrets; and no problem for me...  What I posted was 10 seconds of reading. If your time is so critical those 10 seconds of read don't compare to your arduous reply. I certainly Hope you get your issue's worked out and have a better day.

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Bud

Dear Geoffbubbles,

The purpose of this forum is not to debate social graces or manners. It is to discuss Lightroom and to be helpful to others. I certainly was not trying to waste your time,  or anyone else's including mine. As Johnhawk666 stated accurately; I was only curious why using an external drive wouldn't work for you, and only offered a link for a good article on the topic that you might have found helpful. That did not mean you had any obligation to follow the link, and I was not trying to "sell" you on my way. But again; I don't want to waste time by drifting as you say "off topic"... I will point out that if you think such is the case you might consider editing the title of this thread and changing it to something such as "How can I work with Lightroom transferring files using a flash drive?"

Currently your post is titled "How can I work with lightroom when I use two computers?" so after all; I was really not so off topic. If taking a moment (A very brief moment) to read a post bothers you so much, maybe you would get more specific responses if you re-title your post. It's Just a suggestion, and you should respect that because I am only 'saying it as  it is'.

Happy days using Lightroom. I sincerely hope you have great success and hope someone will answer your questions to your liking. Now I will remove the default e-mail notifications for this thread because I don't know about you, but I have better things to do.

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Bud

I saw your reply to the post on working with two computers.  I have a slightly different situation - I would like to have Lightroom installed on two computers (in different cities) then save my catalog and phots to a cloud such as Dropbox.  I would then use the Catalog and files from either computer and have changes saved on each.  I would never be in two places at the same time some my only risk is that somehow that Catalog does not sync.  Will this work? 

Jeff,

In Dropbox the files are automatically synchronized to both computers. For example I could work on a catalogue in NY which is located on my local Dropbox folder and as I work is updated to the cloud.  In this scenario my catalog would be replicated on computer "B" located in Chicago. When I get to Chicago the files will be identical.

I have read that Lightroom can't be used on a network but this would look like a local drive in both cases. Other than transfer speed, which is not an issue given that it is at least 24 hours between uses in each city, I can't see a reason that this won't work.  Am I missing anything?

Thanks for you help! 

RDB

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