Check out the brand new Adobe Carousel cloud based image management system.

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David Marx

if i save an image on the laptop, will automatically appear on the desktop?

I wish adobe would have a cloud solution

The simplest method is to stop storing files on both machines. A much better way to achieve the same goal, but with far less complexity, is to move your images and to move your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog onto a high-quality high-speed external hard drive.

XMP files (and the XMP data block for non-raw files) are the data portion of a digital image. This is area where the camera, and the computer, can store information that will accompany the pixels or raw sensor data. This information– details like the time of capture, the shutter speed, or your copyright info– must be written down somewhere inside of the file. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can keep a record of this data inside of its catalog but it is far safer to have this information stored both at the catalog and at the file level. Storing it in both places is excellent protection in case your catalog gets corrupted or deleted. For more on this topic see http://thelightroomlab.com/2010/06/getting-started-right-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-3-critical-preference-menus/

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David Marx

I work on 2 computers at 2 different locations.The lightroom catalog and negative files are duplicated on each computer in order that I can import or work on either computer and
maintain a back up copy if either machine fails.( A system which worked very well when working with Photoshop)

How can I adapt your method so that I can edit some photos on computer 1 and duplicate those settings on computer 2. Likewise, edit some on computer 2 and duplicate to computer 1? I dont want to import “New photos” as the photos already exist,I simply want to update the develope settings (and possibly the previews ??) either with a flashdrive,or CD.

One other problem I have is understanding why XMP files are needed in my photo folders when develop settings are said to be contained in the catalogue folder ?

I just put up a tutorial on merging Adobe Photoshop Lightroom catalogs together using the Import from Catalog command that might help. If you can’t straighten things out for yourself, and I sure hope that you can, I am available for remote tech support this week. Hopefully, you have already gotten this all straightened out and clients are happy, but if you need the extra help please send me email and we can talk about our support services.

Best of luck,

David Marx
david@thelightroomlab.com

Erin

You can export the files as a catalog as you’d mentioned, but I’d probably skip that step and just copy all of the relevant files to an interim storage drive (which you’ll need while completing this Windows 7 upgrade) then putting them back in place on the new machine.

If you haven’t changed any of the defaults, you should have a “Lightroom Catalog” or “Lightroom 2 Catalog” folder in your Pictures folder. Keep a copy of this as it’s your Lightroom Catalog. Then you’ll just need to keep a copy of all of your images in their original folder structure. For example, if you had all of your images in:

My Pictures/Images/[misc folders and images in here]

then just copy the “Images” folder to your temporary drive. When you get your new computer set up, install Lightroom (hopefully you’ll be upgrading to Lightroom 3) from the disk or download, put the “Lightroom 2 Catalog” folder back in your new My Pictures folder and put the “Images” folder back in the new My Pictures folder before launching Lightroom.

Just keep a copy of everything until you’re sure it worked.

Let me know if I can explain it better.

-Scott

I’m looking at building a new computer, and I plan on re-using my hard drives, but I’ll need to wipe them out before I install Windows 7 onto them.

After building the new computer, I’d like to have the same exact library catelog and files appear in Lightroom after it’s installed.

So would I export the image files as a catolog onto an external hard drive > build the computer > install lightroom > import catelog file into lightroom on new system? Will that give me the exact same library format that I have now?

Note: My library probably has a couple thousand pictures on it, so I want to make sure I don’t lose any of them? Will that hinder me exporting the catelog from lightroom (the big volume of images)?

Your question about putting the catalog on a network disk is a good one and an excellent idea. Sadly, though neither Lightroom nor your network is ready for this option. Maybe someday….

David