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Using Lightroom classic with Lightroom CC

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sh1209

Active Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
128
Lightroom Version Number
Latest version of LRC and CC
Operating System
  1. macOS 11 Big Sur
I’m a long time user of LRC and started using the cc version in conjunction with it whenever it was released. For the most part I’ve had no issues using the two together until I went to move my original files to an external drive. This turned out to be a 3 day nightmare that was never fully resolved and lost some of my originals. Long story short that’s in the past and we recently bought a new iMac and I have put everything back on the internal drive. I miss not being able to use LRC on my MacBook and am only able to use the cc version on there now. I do 95% of my work in LRC and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth the hassle to keep the cc version. Not sure what to do and not sure the best route to take regarding being able to use LRC on both machines. My question is would I have to move the catalog, library and originals to an external drive to do this or only the original files. The second question is, how would I migrate away from the cc version since I created the albums in cc and 4-5k of my images are stored in the cloud and on my iMac internal drive. Adobe is of no help whatsoever. Thanks in advance.
 
I miss not being able to use LRC on my MacBook and am only able to use the cc version on there now. I do 95% of my work in LRC and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s worth the hassle to keep the cc version. Not sure what to do and not sure the best route to take regarding being able to use LRC on both machines. My question is would I have to move the catalog, library and originals to an external drive to do this or only the original files. The second question is, how would I migrate away from the cc version since I created the albums in cc and 4-5k of my images are stored in the cloud and on my iMac internal drive. Adobe is of no help whatsoever. Thanks in advance.
I use both and in doing so, I was able to replace my MBP with an iPadPro.
Lightroom Classic is still my primary image management tool. We’re it not for some functionality that does not sync to the cloud, I could eliminate Classic and only use the cloud based Lightroom(there is no longer a product called CC).

With Lightroom Classic, you need to decide which images in your master catalog that you want sync’d to the cloud and these are the images that you can see and use on the MBP running Lightroom (cloudy). Every image that you have stored in the cloud will be in your catalog UNLESS you have done something to change that.

So it sounds like you have not been syncing the cloud library with the Classic catalog. This would be the first step. Once you have sync’d the Adobe cloud with your Classic catalog, all of your images should be found in the master Classic Catalog. Then you can decide if you want to continue using the Adobe Cloud or just run Lightroom Classic on your iMac and the MBP.

When you reach that point, we can help you use LrC and Lr. Together or come up with alternative solutions that will let you use LrC on both the iMac and MBP.


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I use both and in doing so, I was able to replace my MBP with an iPadPro.
Lightroom Classic is still my primary image management tool. We’re it not for some functionality that does not sync to the cloud, I could eliminate Classic and only use the cloud based Lightroom(there is no longer a product called CC).

With Lightroom Classic, you need to decide which images in your master catalog that you want sync’d to the cloud and these are the images that you can see and use on the MBP running Lightroom (cloudy). Every image that you have stored in the cloud will be in your catalog UNLESS you have done something to change that.

So it sounds like you have not been syncing the cloud library with the Classic catalog. This would be the first step. Once you have sync’d the Adobe cloud with your Classic catalog, all of your images should be found in the master Classic Catalog. Then you can decide if you want to continue using the Adobe Cloud or just run Lightroom Classic on your iMac and the MBP.

When you reach that point, we can help you use LrC and Lr. Together or come up with alternative solutions that will let you use LrC on both the iMac and MBP.


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Yeah I’m aware of that cc doesn’t exist I was just putting it that way so people would know it was the cloud-based version. I have always sent to the cloud since Lightroom cloud was introduced. OK usually when I’m traveling I will upload their originals to the cloud through the mobile light room but most of the time whenever I’m home I upload the original through Lightroom classic. Once I have edited the images in Lightroom classic I normally put them in the collections that I created in the cloud-based Lightroom through albums. If it weren’t for some of the plug-ins not working in light room I could switch over as well but I do a lot of macro photography and wildlife photography so the plug-ins are really important in my case. I have around 5000 images that were about a directly into Lightroom that are stored in the cloud and the rest of my images are on my internal hard drive they were uploaded through Lightroom classic. We just upgraded to the iMac to a much larger hard drive and 64 GB of RAM because I didn’t want to have to use an external drive. Perhaps in my situation there is no alternative other than to use Lightroom on the MacBook and Lightroom classic on the iMac. I really don’t want to go back to having to tote around a external hard drive again if it all possible. I wish Adobe would get it together and get all the functionality of classic into the Lightroom web app it would make things like this much easier and certainly easier about making a clear-cut choice.
 
Yeah I’m aware of that cc doesn’t exist I was just putting it that way so people would know it was the cloud-based version. I have always sent to the cloud since Lightroom cloud was introduced. OK usually when I’m traveling I will upload their originals to the cloud through the mobile light room but most of the time whenever I’m home I upload the original through Lightroom classic. Once I have edited the images in Lightroom classic I normally put them in the collections that I created in the cloud-based Lightroom through albums. If it weren’t for some of the plug-ins not working in light room I could switch over as well but I do a lot of macro photography and wildlife photography so the plug-ins are really important in my case. I have around 5000 images that were about a directly into Lightroom that are stored in the cloud and the rest of my images are on my internal hard drive they were uploaded through Lightroom classic. We just upgraded to the iMac to a much larger hard drive and 64 GB of RAM because I didn’t want to have to use an external drive. Perhaps in my situation there is no alternative other than to use Lightroom on the MacBook and Lightroom classic on the iMac. I really don’t want to go back to having to tote around a external hard drive again if it all possible. I wish Adobe would get it together and get all the functionality of classic into the Lightroom web app it would make things like this much easier and certainly easier about making a clear-cut choice.

Those images that were imported into Lightroom while traveling should have sync’d back to your master catalog from the cloud and your master catalog will have ALL of the originals. Check to see if this is not true.

I use my iPadPro and mobile Lightroom as the front end to my master Classic catalog. I import into Lightroom from my camera card on the iPadPro and if I have a good internet connection, the images are on my iMac and in my master catalog by the time I return home. I take a lot of macro photos in my backyard garden and use the iPad Pro to import these while I am downstairs rather than go upstairs to import them directly on the iMac.

Because your images are most vulnerable when there is only one copy. I backup the images on an external drive when I travel. So I’ll have one copy on the iPadPro, and other in the Adobe Cloud and a third on my backup portable drive. I think we can work out a workflow for you using Lightroom (cloudy) on your MBP and keep everything on the iMac in Lightroom Classic.


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Those images that were imported into Lightroom while traveling should have sync’d back to your master catalog from the cloud and your master catalog will have ALL of the originals. Check to see if this is not true.

I use my iPadPro and mobile Lightroom as the front end to my master Classic catalog. I import into Lightroom from my camera card on the iPadPro and if I have a good internet connection, the images are on my iMac and in my master catalog by the time I return home. I take a lot of macro photos in my backyard garden and use the iPad Pro to import these while I am downstairs rather than go upstairs to import them directly on the iMac.

Because your images are most vulnerable when there is only one copy. I backup the images on an external drive when I travel. So I’ll have one copy on the iPadPro, and other in the Adobe Cloud and a third on my backup portable drive. I think we can work out a workflow for you using Lightroom (cloudy) on your MBP and keep everything on the iMac in Lightroom Classic.


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So would it be best in my circumstance to just download all of my images into Lightroom at first in order to let them sync with the cloud which would also put a copy of the originals on my internal hard drive and just quit putting the photos directly into Lightroom classic? It’s sort of a screwed up messages point because I have a few thousand images that were uploaded directly into Lightroom classic and as I said there were about four or 5000 images that were uploaded into Lightroom via the cloud. The Lightroom web originals and the Lightroom classic originals are both in my pictures folder on my Mac and I also back everything up to an external hard drive on my desk through Time Machine. I think this is what you’re telling me to do?
 
What I am not clear on is: “Those images that were imported into Lightroom while traveling should have sync’d back to your master catalog from the cloud and your master catalog will have ALL of the originals. Check to see if this is not true.” It is true?

If all of your images are stored in the Lightroom Classic catalog, then it does not matter what means were used to get them into your master Lightroom Classic Catalog.

There is no uploading into Lightroom (cloudy) via the cloud because the Adobe Cloud is where your Lightroom (cloudy) is stored. Like a web browser, Lightroom (cloudy) is a window that lets you see what is stored in the Adobe Cloud. Some images from the cloud are stored on (cloudy) Lightroom’s Local cache, but this is temporary and transitory.

I do not understand what you mean by “Lightroom Web Originals … are not my pictures folder”.

Also, using TimeMachine to backup your iMac will not help you when traveling and all of your travel images are on the camera card or the MBP. You can’t use TimeMachine to back up your MBP in the field unless to have a TimeMachine EHD back up location with you.


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What I am not clear on is: “Those images that were imported into Lightroom while traveling should have sync’d back to your master catalog from the cloud and your master catalog will have ALL of the originals. Check to see if this is not true.” It is true?

If all of your images are stored in the Lightroom Classic catalog, then it does not matter what means were used to get them into your master Lightroom Classic Catalog.

There is no uploading into Lightroom (cloudy) via the cloud because the Adobe Cloud is where your Lightroom (cloudy) is stored. Like a web browser, Lightroom (cloudy) is a window that lets you see what is stored in the Adobe Cloud. Some images from the cloud are stored on (cloudy) Lightroom’s Local cache, but this is temporary and transitory.

I do not understand what you mean by “Lightroom Web Originals … are not my pictures folder”.

Also, using TimeMachine to backup your iMac will not help you when traveling and all of your travel images are on the camera card or the MBP. You can’t use TimeMachine to back up your MBP in the field unless to have a TimeMachine EHD back up location with you.


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Okay in my case if I upload directly into LRC the files will not show up in Lightroom until they’re put into a collection. If I upload into Lightroom the files will show up immediately in LRC without being in collections. So if I upload into LRC and then go out of town I can’t access the files in Lightroom unless they’ve been put into a collection beforehand. It’s been this way in my case for as long as Lightroom has been out. My thing is I don’t know if I can have LRC on two machines without having two separate catalogs. I’ve already removed LRC from my MacBook so I’d have to reinstall it and sync it from the cloud in order to use it at this point. Whenever I first got the iMac a couple weeks ago and started editing photos that were uploaded thru my MacBook it was duplicating the files and not erasing the files if I Deleted them on the iMac. At this point I just decided to remove it from my MacBook
 
I suppose I could just make another collection in Lightroom and put all the imported photos in there prior to editing them and maybe it would sync over ok that way.
 
What I am not clear on is: “Those images that were imported into Lightroom while traveling should have sync’d back to your master catalog from the cloud and your master catalog will have ALL of the originals. Check to see if this is not true.” It is true?

If all of your images are stored in the Lightroom Classic catalog, then it does not matter what means were used to get them into your master Lightroom Classic Catalog.

There is no uploading into Lightroom (cloudy) via the cloud because the Adobe Cloud is where your Lightroom (cloudy) is stored. Like a web browser, Lightroom (cloudy) is a window that lets you see what is stored in the Adobe Cloud. Some images from the cloud are stored on (cloudy) Lightroom’s Local cache, but this is temporary and transitory.

I do not understand what you mean by “Lightroom Web Originals … are not my pictures folder”.

Also, using TimeMachine to backup your iMac will not help you when traveling and all of your travel images are on the camera card or the MBP. You can’t use TimeMachine to back up your MBP in the field unless to have a TimeMachine EHD back up location with you.


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I just don’t see any way whatsoever to make it work on two machines. First off would the catalog names have to match exactly since Lightroom only syncs to one catalog? Also I only want to be able to edit smart previews on the MacBook so would that make a difference. I’ve used LRC many years and Lightroom since it’s release and I’m absolutely utterly totally lost with how to accomplish this.
 
In Lightroom Classic, there is in the Catalog panel a Special Collection named “Synched Photographs”. This represents all of the cataloged photographs that are in the cloud and in the catalog. If you drag a photo from elsewhere in Lightroom Classic to this special collection. It will then synch to the cloud without being added to a designated syncing collection. If you want ALL of your catalog photos in the cloud without them being in a syncing collection. This is the way to do it. I only have about 7000 of my Classic photos that I chose to do this way. I have about 20,000 photos in the master catalog and ~10,000 Synched to the cloud. I do have a lot of photos that should probably be deleted from the catalog and a few of these also happens to be in the cloud.


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You can only synch one catalog at a time to the cloud. Even if the catalog have the same name and the same data. Lightroom Cloudy will know and see them as different. It then removes the images that are in the cloud and syncs the next catalog chosen to synch.

The only solution if you want to use Lightroom (cloudy) and Lightroom Classic is to put the classic catalog on an EHD and move it from computer to computer.

Photos that originate in Lightroom Classic get added to the cloud as “proxy” Smart DNGs and do not count against your plan storage limits On the other side of the coin, any images that import through Lightroom (cloudy) will be stored full size in the cloud and Synched full size down to your Classic master catalog and these will be counted against your plan limits .

All in all, I think Lightroom (cloudy) on any mobile device is the way to proceed and Lightroom Classic with a master catalog is the solution for a desktop where you need functionality that Lightroom (cloudy) does not have.


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In Lightroom Classic, there is in the Catalog panel a Special Collection named “Synched Photographs”. This represents all of the cataloged photographs that are in the cloud and in the catalog. If you drag a photo from elsewhere in Lightroom Classic to this special collection. It will then synch to the cloud without being added to a designated syncing collection. If you want ALL of your catalog photos in the cloud without them being in a syncing collection. This is the way to do it. I only have about 7000 of my Classic photos that I chose to do this way. I have about 20,000 photos in the master catalog and ~10,000 Synched to the cloud. I do have a lot of photos that should probably be deleted from the catalog and a few of these also happens to be in the cloud.


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So basically take what photos on the iMac that aren’t in this location and drag and drop them to all synced photographs? All I want to be able to do is edit smart previews on the MacBook and keep the originals on the iMac so this should rectify everything hopefully.
 
So basically take what photos on the iMac that aren’t in this location and drag and drop them to all synced photographs? All I want to be able to do is edit smart previews on the MacBook and keep the originals on the iMac so this should rectify everything hopefully.

Yes, and you won’t be editing smart previews on the MBP. You will be editing the Smart DNGs that Classic sent to the cloud. The MBP footprint of Lightroom (cloudy) will remain small, only the cache, library and the app executable and some other files will consume space. And you can control the size of the cache.


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Yes, and you won’t be editing smart previews on the MBP. You will be editing the Smart DNGs that Classic sent to the cloud. The MBP footprint of Lightroom (cloudy) will remain small, only the cache, library and the app executable and some other files will consume space. And you can control the size of the cache.


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I have the mbp syncing LRC now and it will take a few hours but I will move the unedited photos on the iMac in the morning to the synced photos to see if everything is good. Thank you for the help I appreciate it.
 
You can only synch one catalog at a time to the cloud. Even if the catalog have the same name and the same data. Lightroom Cloudy will know and see them as different. It then removes the images that are in the cloud and syncs the next catalog chosen to synch.

No it doesn't. It you try to sync a different catalog to the cloud what happens is that the entire content of the cloud is downloaded into that new catalog. Nothing is removed from the cloud. I've explained that to you before.
 
Yes, and you won’t be editing smart previews on the MBP. You will be editing the Smart DNGs that Classic sent to the cloud.
The "Smart DNGs" that Classic sends to the cloud are smart previews, exactly the same as smart previews that you can generate in LrC. In fact, if a smart preview already exists in the LrC catalog at the time of syncing the original, the existing smart preview is copied to the cloud rather than having LrC generate a new one for syncing. They are the same, and it's probably confusing to other users if we imply that they are different.
 
The "Smart DNGs" that Classic sends to the cloud are smart previews, exactly the same as smart previews that you can generate in LrC. In fact, if a smart preview already exists in the LrC catalog at the time of syncing the original, the existing smart preview is copied to the cloud rather than having LrC generate a new one for syncing. They are the same, and it's probably confusing to other users if we imply that they are different.
So if I have LRC on the MacBook and iMac can I still use LRC on the MacBook as smart previews only without screwing up the iMac?I’m not talking about simultaneously just at different times. I just don’t want to go back to an external drive again at this time. We ordered the iMac with a much larger hard drive so I would t have to do that.
 
No it doesn't. It you try to sync a different catalog to the cloud what happens is that the entire content of the cloud is downloaded into that new catalog. Nothing is removed from the cloud. I've explained that to you before.
Maybe eventually, I'll remember. In one of the earliest versions of Lightroom for the cloud, I switched to another copy of my LrC catalog and Lightroom removed every image in the cloud only to replace them with the same image in the second copy of the catalog. That experience soured me on trying to work with different versions of the LrC catalog and Lightroom in the cloud. As you can see that is hard to unlearn.
 
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So if I have LRC on the MacBook and iMac can I still use LRC on the MacBook as smart previews only without screwing up the iMac?I’m not talking about simultaneously just at different times. I just don’t want to go back to an external drive again at this time. We ordered the iMac with a much larger hard drive so I would t have to do that.
Yes you can, but I'm not sure that you understand how that would need to work. If you take the cloud syncing out of the picture, and just concentrate on LrC, you can generate smart previews for all (or some) of the images on the system that has the actual images connected. Once that is done, you could copy the catalog folder (which includes the catalog itself and the various preview caches) to the MacBook. On the MacBook you can open that catalog and, despite the fact that all the images are not available, you can work on the images by using the library previews (in the Library module) and the smart previews (in the Develop module). But then what? You've now got two slightly different version of the same catalog, which you'd need to consolidate. Unlike the cloud system, the work that you do in LrC on one system does not sync to LrC on the other. To amalgamate the work you'd need to copy the catalog back from the MacBook and merge it (by using the Import from another Catalog command) with the master iMac catalog in order to update the latter with the work that you did on the MacBook.

The suggestion from Cletus to utilise the cloud syncing system has a lot of merit. Basically you can sync all images (or just some selected collections) to the cloud from the iMac, which would upload smart previews to the cloud (which don't count against your 20GB allowance). Then on the MacBook you install and run the Lightroom Desktop app and you will have access to all those synced images (they are "only" smart previews, but likely good enough for most editing needs). Any changes you make to any image in Lightroom Desktop will then automatically sync back to the LrC catalog on the iMac.
 
Yes you can, but I'm not sure that you understand how that would need to work. If you take the cloud syncing out of the picture, and just concentrate on LrC, you can generate smart previews for all (or some) of the images on the system that has the actual images connected. Once that is done, you could copy the catalog folder (which includes the catalog itself and the various preview caches) to the MacBook. On the MacBook you can open that catalog and, despite the fact that all the images are not available, you can work on the images by using the library previews (in the Library module) and the smart previews (in the Develop module). But then what? You've now got two slightly different version of the same catalog, which you'd need to consolidate. Unlike the cloud system, the work that you do in LrC on one system does not sync to LrC on the other. To amalgamate the work you'd need to copy the catalog back from the MacBook and merge it (by using the Import from another Catalog command) with the master iMac catalog in order to update the latter with the work that you did on the MacBook.

The suggestion from Cletus to utilise the cloud syncing system has a lot of merit. Basically you can sync all images (or just some selected collections) to the cloud from the iMac, which would upload smart previews to the cloud (which don't count against your 20GB allowance). Then on the MacBook you install and run the Lightroom Desktop app and you will have access to all those synced images (they are "only" smart previews, but likely good enough for most editing needs). Any changes you make to any image in Lightroom Desktop will then automatically sync back to the LrC catalog on the iMac.
Yeah it looks like other than using a external hard drive there’s not a readable way to make it work. I have it installed now so I synced one unedited image this am from my iMac then opened LRC on the MacBook and was prompted that only one catalog can sync at a time. I proceeded and the photo did come into LRC without being in a collection. My question is, if I edit the smart previews in LRC on the MacBook with sync turned on will it work that way. Meaning as long as both machines aren’t running simultaneously. I’m very familiar with both programs but have never tried using LRC on two machines. If you ask 5 Adobe reps you’ll get 5 different answers. My issue that’s most troubling is I don’t want to screw things up by syncing two catalogs even though it would be independently. Probably best to remove LRC from the laptop and just use Lightroom I suppose. It just sucks that I can’t use my plugins without having to move the image into photoshop.
 
The "Smart DNGs" that Classic sends to the cloud are smart previews, exactly the same as smart previews that you can generate in LrC. In fact, if a smart preview already exists in the LrC catalog at the time of syncing the original, the existing smart preview is copied to the cloud rather than having LrC generate a new one for syncing. They are the same, and it's probably confusing to other users if we imply that they are different.
The point I am trying to make is that the images that get updated reside in the cloud with changes syncing back to a master image in a master Lightroom Classic Catalog. That which is stored locally in Lightroom (cloudy) is stored temporarily in Cache. While in Lightroom Desktop it is possible to store a copy of the original, that copy does not contain any edits and AFAIK in no way has further interaction with the Lightroom Desktop app.

The reason I use Smart DNG is to clarify and distinguish the two types of image. The OP says "still use LRC on the MacBook as smart previews only without screwing up the iMac?" and needs to understand the difference between an image in the Lightroom Cloud and its counterpart that might be stored with the master catalog.

It is my understanding that the contents Lightroom Cloud is comprised of Smart DNG derived from smart previews generated by Lightroom Classic. These do not count against the users plan storage limits. Additional images imported using Lightroom (cloudy) (Lightroom Desktop on the MBP) to the Lightroom Cloud are full size images and count agains the users plan storage limits.
 
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So if I have LRC on the MacBook and iMac can I still use LRC on the MacBook as smart previews only without screwing up the iMac?I’m not talking about simultaneously just at different times. I just don’t want to go back to an external drive again at this time. We ordered the iMac with a much larger hard drive so I would t have to do that.
LrC requires a catalog file and Master copies of the originals. If you master LrC catalog is on the iMac, you will need a separate travel catalog file and images on the MBP. These will not stay in sync though you can import the travel catalog into the master catalog periodically to bring everything back together.

The only process that automatically syncs with your Master catalog is Lightroom in the cloud. You can access and interact with Lightroom in the cloud from Lightroom Desktop on your MBP, or mobile Lightroom running on a tablet or smart phone.

If you want to avoid having two separate catalog files (iMac & MBP) that will be out of sync as soon as you make changes to one copy or the other, is to put the master catalog and the associated images on an external disk that can be shared between the two computers.

The other choice is to maintain one master catalog on one computer and sync everything of importance to Lightroom in the cloud where it is available to any device that can run Lightroom Desktop on Mobile Lightroom .
 
It is my understanding that the contents Lightroom Cloud is comprised of Smart DNG derived from smart previews generated by Lightroom Classic.
What you call a "Smart DNG" or "Smart proxy" isn't "derived" from a smart preview, it IS a smart preview, my point being that I don't understand why it's necessary to use different terminology to describe the same thing. That's potentially confusing.
 
LrC requires a catalog file and Master copies of the originals. If you master LrC catalog is on the iMac, you will need a separate travel catalog file and images on the MBP. These will not stay in sync though you can import the travel catalog into the master catalog periodically to bring everything back together.

The only process that automatically syncs with your Master catalog is Lightroom in the cloud. You can access and interact with Lightroom in the cloud from Lightroom Desktop on your MBP, or mobile Lightroom running on a tablet or smart phone.

If you want to avoid having two separate catalog files (iMac & MBP) that will be out of sync as soon as you make changes to one copy or the other, is to put the master catalog and the associated images on an external disk that can be shared between the two computers.

The other choice is to maintain one master catalog on one computer and sync everything of importance to Lightroom in the cloud where it is available to any device that can run Lightroom Desktop on Mobile Lightroom .
One other possibility which I don't think has been mentioned is to sync the catalog and smart previews between iMac and MacBook by using a Dropbox-type method. It carries some risk, but many users have successfully worked that way. Get it to work correctly and it probably ticks all the boxes.
 
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