> The most restrictive way possible. Huh? For professionaly use?

The flip-side is having to deal with all those that corrupted their catalogs by accessing the same one from two machines at the same time, and the resulting out-cry from users about "how stupid it is that a *professional* program could allow that to happen".

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That is, unless you do it really right, which is not so trivial. It requires a multi-user database environment, and a service to be running on the server.

You can't put a catalog on a network share.
Network drives are almost never faster than local drives.

Network drives are faster for network access. We are talking about multiple computers accessing information.

I just talked to my electrical engineer husband and it is confusing. The rating of a connection, like usb2 or firewire, isn't what you will actually get, so it gets complicated a bit. Network drives are not slowed down by your computer, so technically they might be able to do more. Anyone who wants to do this should look into it.

Data centers use network drives.

Since the ability to access a catalog from more than one computer is an essential feature, hopefully they will fix the system sometime soon. Professionals rarely work from one computer. Just between my wife and me we need to access the same catalog from four different computers (2 laptops and 2 desktops), which is impossible to do under Lightroom's current design. So we basically ignore Lightroom's 'library' functionality, and use other programs for sorting and previewing. and use multiple small catalogs that we move back and forth between the network share to do editing.

I have been given some really bad advice in this forum about solving the 'shared catalog' issue, none of which even come close to being practical, the worse being "turn on XMP and import your photos every time that you start Lightroom again and everything will be fine." There is no real practical way to share a catalog between computers and maintain your sanity.

The solution is for Adobe to fix Lightroom to it can actually be used in a professional environment. But it is still early in the cycle... remember that we are actually still on version 1.0, since the original V1.0 was the real beta version (making 1.1 the real V1.0) and aside from camera support, little changed between 1.1 and 1.2.
Hopefully V1.5 or so will make Lightrooom a real professional tool, instead of a stand alone tool for photographers that never have to work with others.

Bill ...

I'll have to give that a try, thanks for the tip. If that could work it could save a fair amount of time moving entire shooting folders of weddings and such around the system, the ol' there-and-back-again trick. Maybe sort of.

Neil

To: Bill

thanks for the tip on substitutiary locomotion for LR using a catalog across a network (obscure kid's movie reference there!). I tried it, and it works. On WinXP, that is.

For everyone viewing this, the process is as follows:

You have an LR catalog on another computer in your local network, that you want to access from your computer.

In Window's Explorer on your computer, "map" the network drive (on the other computer) that holds the folder with the catalog, or perhaps even specifically that folder, to a virtual or single-letter drive on your computer, say "x". (And note, the quotes I place around things are there by me to delineate exactly what you type, do not type them in yourself. Only type what is BETWEEN the quotation marks.)

Then access the command-line (DOS level) editor on your computer through the menu system, "Start | Programs | Accesories | Command Prompt".

Type "cd\c:\"

(The above step may not be needed, but I was taught to make my commands from a main-drive location, not a subfolder. Back to the little routine.)

At the prompt, "c:\ ",
type "subst p: x:\"
where "p" stands for any free local drive letter on your computer, and "x" is the local drive letter you mapped the other computer's LR catalog drive or folder to. NOTE THE CLEAR SPACE BETWEEN P: AND X.

Now, open LR on your computer, tell it you want to open a new catalog, and choose the drive-letter that you typed where I use "p" as the drive to find it on, navigate to the folder that has the ".Ircat" folder on it, select it, click on "open".

If you get a message that it cannot access files across a network, simply click on the drop-down box to the right titled "choose" and select the folder-path on the "p" drive and it will now load.

It takes half the time to do this that it does to read it!

I tested this by exporting a small folder as a catalog, copying that folder to another machine, doing the mapping\substitutiary routine above, and accessing it (only from one computer at a time) sequentially from both computers, changing a couple things each time, without saving back to the XMP either manually or automatically.

After doing several changes I then closed the catalog without saving either manually or automatically to xmp. All changes were there immediately on opening the catalog with the other computer. Virtual copies, exposure changes, ratings, labels, keywords ... all saved from both computers to a local drive on the one computer, and readable and useable from the other computer.

You do need to keep from using both at the same time, like duh, but then, we've managed to use file-sharing across our network here for several years with up to 5 people accessing files without both being on the same file at the same time in ANY program, CS, word processing, whatever.

Of course, anything one EVER does it always at your own risk.

Neil

I have tried this, but the folder appears as a disconnected network drive on the 2nd PC (you can actually access the fiels no problem). Properties say it is a Network drive and when I try to launch the catalogue I get a runtime error. I tried using the same subst command on a folder on the hard drive of the pc and that works fine as the properties say it is a loal drive. I'm using a Vista pc so maybe it only works on XP? If you go to your virtualrive and check properties does it say local or network drive please?

Just keep in mind that LR uses a database that isn't really intended to be used on a network, as per the database designer's own words. You are really playing with fire, because your database on the network becomes very easily corruptible. Any interruption in data flow can result in a damaged database.

If you are going to do this, make sure that you set the 'make backup' to everytime you open the database, and keep the backup local.

I cn't do the subst thing. I get path not found!

Hello I have developed a bat file that will create the virtual drive and run LR auto.

First create a network drive (In my case I used X:\)

Then open note pad and write this code:
-------------------------------------------------------

@echo off
IF EXIST P:\ GOTO LR
net start
net use x: "\\MyNetwork\digital photos"
subst p: x:\
:LR
Start "" "C:\Programas\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.4\lightroom.exe"
cls

-------------------------------------------------------

(Change "\\MyNetwork\digital photos" to the path to your network drive with the catalog that you ar targeting, I fund useful to put the catalog in the same folder that the photos

for exemple
c:\digital photos\LRcatalog\
c:\digital photos\MyPhotos1\
c:\digital photos\MyPhotos2\
....

)

(Change "C:\Programas\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.4\lightroom.exe" to the path to LR exe)

Save it whit the name "virtualLR.bat"

Now just run "virtualLR.bat" and you will have acess to the catalogs in the network, you can replace the target form the shortcut of LR to target the new file "virtualLR.bat"

Hope it was clear and useful

greetings
Soloam

Why not just switch to a database that works on a network?

Also, why is everyone mapping a network folder to a drive and then substing the drive? You can subst the network folder directly:
SUBST P: \\OtherMachine\photos