Loading LR on more than one computer

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This is my first post on this fourm. I just downloaded LR on a 3' day trial, and I have been reviewing the Matt Kloskowski tutorials.
Wow. I have been using Elements. What a great upgrade.

Now my question. If I purchase LR will I be able to load it onto both of my computers, or do I have to buy another LR for the second computer?
 
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A big welcome, good idea signing up and learning early on !!
No LR can be used on two computers at once, even a PC and a Mac with the one licence!!
To help us help you could you please take a moment to fill in your signature in the "userCP' that is found at the top left of the page - thanks.
 
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Thanks Geoff,
So is it a 2 computer limit? After studying some of the tutorials about Collections & Keywords, I occurs to me that one computer will have all those setups, and the second computer will not. Unless there is some way to merge those setups from one machine to the other, it might not be pratical to have it in 2 places. Even if you could merge it, your storage configuration would also have to be identical (I think).

Thanks again for your reply,
 
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Hi Joel, welcome to the forum!

Yes, it's 2 computers maximum per license, not in use at the same time.

It is possible to merge and split catalogs, although it's a bit of a pain if you're doing it regularly. If you often work on 2 computers, the simplest solution may be to put the images and catalog onto an external hard drive and plug that into whichever computer you're using at the time.
 
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guntoter said:
If I purchase LR will I be able to load it onto both of my computers, or do I have to buy another LR for the second computer?
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Yes and no. If you have two desktops at the same location, it is two licences. If you have a desktop and a portable, one licence is suficient provided only one copy is running at once. If you have two desktops at different locations like one at work and one at home then, one licence is OK.

Here is an extract (2.4) of the licence that you can see at installation time:

Adobe's Licence Agreement:
"2.4 Portable or Home Computer Use. Subject to the important restrictions set forth in Section 2.5 below, the primary user of the Computer on which the Software is installed (&#822';Primary User”) may install a second copy of the Software for his or her exclusive use on either a portable Computer or a Computer located at his or her home, provided that the Software on the portable or home Computer is not used at the same time as the Software on the primary Computer. You may be required to contact Adobe in order to make a second copy".

Here is the complete Lightroom Licence Agreement (EULA).

EDIT: One can be Mac OS and the other Windows no problem!
 
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I have two installs PC and Lap Top

Where do I have to go to de-authorize the PC in order to authorize my new Mac
 
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Hi Larry, welcome to the forum!

Yep, Brad's spot on, no activation on Lightroom, at least at this point in time.
 
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Victoria Bampton said:
Hi Joel, welcome to the forum!

Yes, it's 2 computers maximum per license, not in use at the same time.

It is possible to merge and split catalogs, although it's a bit of a pain if you're doing it regularly. If you often work on 2 computers, the simplest solution may be to put the images and catalog onto an external hard drive and plug that into whichever computer you're using at the time.
Click to expand...

Victoria,
It has been a while since you gave me this answer to a question I had about using Lr on 2 computers. I am interested in the suggestion you had about moving the catalog to the external HD, and I am assuming that both computers would always go to the ext Hd to find the catalog when you started up Lr.

Can you tell me the procedure for moving the catalog to the external hd and then making sure Lr is pointed at that location for the file?
 
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guntoter;36'68 said:
Can you tell me the procedure for moving the catalog to the external hd and then making sure Lr is pointed at that location for the file?
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Simple Joel:

If your images are not on the external yet:
  1. Make sure that the external drive will appear having the same drive letter on both computers. You can assign one in "Desktop, Management, Disk Management" and giving a volume name is nice to have too.
  2. Import a dummy image from the external to make it visible to Lightroom if needed then delete that image from both Lightroom and the disk.
  3. Open Lightroom and move you existing folder structure to the external drive.
  4. Close Lightroom and move your CatalogName.lrcat file to the external drive.
  5. In Windows Explorer, double click CatalogName.lrcat and this will open Lightroom with the Catalog at its new location. You can opt to always open that one when LR start...
If your images are already on the external:
  1. In Lightroom, make sure you have a single top level folder with all folders and subfolders containing images beneath. If this is not the case, you can right click on a top level folder and choose "Add Parent Folder". This wont create one in the file system but add the one already there.
  2. Close Lightroom.
  3. Make sure that the external drive will appear having the same drive letter on both computers. You can assign one in "Desktop, Management, Disk Management" and giving a volume name is nice to have too.
  4. If the drive letter had to change: Open Lightroom, go to the top level folder wich now show a question mark, right click and choose "Locate missing folder". Close Lightroom.
  5. Move your CatalogName.lrcat file to the external drive.
  6. In Windows Explorer, double click CatalogName.lrcat and this will open Lightroom with the Catalog at its new location. You can opt to always open that one when LR start...
From now on, just plug the external drive on the computer you want to work with! :D
 
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Great answer Denis
 
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guntoter;36'81 said:
Denis,
Great Description. Thanks for the help.
I will try it tonight when I get home.
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Lest us know how it went and if you encountered any problem or if a point was not clear enough. That will help as I think I should write an official "Tip & Tricks" on this frequent question.

If all went good, then in Lightroom, go to help, choose 2nd option and follow Rule #5 :cheesy:
 
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Yes, as usual! LOL
 
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Denis Pagé;36'95 said:
Lest us know how it went and if you encountered any problem or if a point was not clear enough. That will help as I think I should write an official "Tip & Tricks" on this frequent question.

If all went good, then in Lightroom, go to help, choose 2nd option and follow Rule #5 :cheesy:
Click to expand...

Denis,
It worked just fine. Thank you.
You should make that a Tip & Tricks item. I am sure others would need that info.

Thanks again to you and Victoria as well.
 
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guntoter said:
Denis,
It worked just fine. Thank you.
You should make that a Tip & Tricks item. I am sure others would need that info.

Thanks again to you and Victoria as well.
Click to expand...
T&T done yerterday night... :D So, thanks for reporting back. I added some to the final T&T but it is mostly the same.
 
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