Library module LR for hard drives in multiple locations

[nicholsart]

Lightroom Version Number

13.5.1

Operating System

1. Windows 11

I am not sure if this is the correct forum for my question. If not please let me know where I should post. I have about 10TB of photos from the last 15 years. I have always filed my images by date but have never used LR for importing or cataloging, but I am starting to see the need to have better organizational capabilities. I have been looking into the LR and LRC but I am not sure if it will work for me.
I have my photos on 3 identical sets of hard drives. I spend about 6 months out of the US and 6 month in the US. Each location has it's own set of hard drives and the directory structure is mostly the same but not identical. I also keep on set of files in a safe deposit box. The drive letters will always be different. I don't see how I can set up LR for one set of hard drive (domestic) and have it still work on the second set. (international). Admittedly I am a total newbie to LR so maybe I am missing something. There must be others who face a similar situation. I don't think I can afford to store all my images in the cloud. Comments?

 

[Califdan]

So, several points.....

1. If you have the same images on 3 different drives here and then a different set of 3 drives there, you should only make LrC (Lightroom Classic) aware of one of those sets
2. Let's start with the US location. designate one set of images as the "Master" set with the other two being backups, clones, or copies of the master set.
3. Whatever folder structure you use for your images, assure that ALL the folders known to LrC on the Master drive descend from one common parent. Something like "Master Photos".
4. It is best if the other two copies have the same folder structure within the "Master Photos" folder
5. With Windows, you can lock a drive letter to a specific drive so that it always gets that same drive letter as long as some other device has not gotten that letter first. For this reason lock in a letter later in the alphabet (Lot's of folks use "P" for Photograpy).

You don't say how your images get from your domestic drives to your foreign drives and vice-versa and that answer may influence the best way to set thuings up. But, the easiest way way would be to just take the "master" drive with you when you switch countries leaving the two copies. If you do this, then I suggest putting the LrC catalog on that "Master" drive as well (but no in the "Master Photos" folder structure) so that when you arrive in the other location you have everyting you need with you. When you plug that "Master" drive into the computer at the other location, it will assign the same 'locked in" drive letter as you set in step 5 above and you're good to go.

Of course I assume you have some system in place to copy new stuff from your primary drive to the other two drives so continue to do that.

 

[nicholsart]

My "master" set in the US is one 18TB WD Mybook with a backup on a 12TB (for now) WD Mybook. Traveling with my master drive is impractical for a variety of reasons not to mention the risk of losing lots of images for one reason or another. My international set consists of a 3 portable HDs ( 3 portable HDs, 2 passports, 2x 5TBs and 1 x 4 TB Seagate) with my file spread out amongst them so they are not really 1 to 1 with regards to drive letters and so on. It would seem that the best option would be to have all the images in the cloud and use LR for the cloud but I just don't think I can afford this. Plus I can't imagine how long it would take to upload my entire catalogue.

 

[clee01l]

What I see is a recipe for trouble.

A Master copy of all of the images needs to be in one place and backed-up regularly using some system backup app

I use both Lightroom Classic and the Adobe Cloud so that the images that I need are everywhere.
It works this way. I have Lightroom Classic on my home computer. All of my images are stored there. I then sync those images to the Adobe Cloud where they are available to any device that runs Lightroom (desktop or mobile). These images are synced as Smart previews and do not count against my storage plan at the Adobe Cloud. When I travel I use Lightroom (mobile on an iPadPro) Any image that I import while traveling are stored full size in the Adobe Cloud and do count against my storage plan. I usually keep my home computer running 7X24 with Lightroom Classic syncing anything from the Adobe Cloud. These are the full size images that came from my travels. So. ALL of my master images end up on my home computer and are available in the Adobe Cloud while traveling.

I have the 1TB Photography plan since the 20GB plan is not appropriate for importing camera cards full of images.

 

[nicholsart]

From what I am hearing LR may not be the right solution for me.

 

[clee01l]

From what I am hearing LR may not be the right solution for me.

If used together LR and LrC is a very good solution for what you are wanting to do.


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[nicholsart]

Could I make LRC work in two locations if I create identical hard drive configurations and then remap them to the same drive letters every time I travel? I would also use the same computer in both places.

 

[clee01l]

Could I make LRC work in two locations if I create identical hard drive configurations and then remap them to the same drive letters every time I travel? I would also use the same computer in both places.

Same Catalog and Same computer. I don't get it. If your images are on a drive not always with your computer, then how do you import new images while traveling.

If using only one computer, then you need the master images available to that computer OR Smart Previews stored with the master catalog on that computer when leaving the EHD behind.

There are several scenarios that can work.

1. Using Lr (cloudy) while you travel and the Adobe Cloud as I outlined earlier is one solution.
2. Creating a Smart Preview of all of your cataloged images allows you to leave the EHD behind.
   1. New imports would need to be stored locally or at least with a EHD that travels with your computer
   2. You can move the locally new imports to the home EHD when you return.
3. Creating a Travel catalog and locally stored image imports is another option.
   1. On returning, the travel catalog needs to be merged with the master catalog
   2. You don't have access to your master catalog and the images it contains while you travel.

I don't understand what your goal is. You can only have one master catalog It must travel with you unless you choose option #3. Pleas give me some more details on what you are wanting to accomplish.

 

[nicholsart]

I am sorry for not understanding the nuances of LR. I have never used it before.
I have about 12TB of photos from 2010 until now. Recently I was invited to show my work in a gallery. Fortunately for me I always include the file name and path on every print I make, so I was able to locate the appropriate files and reprint in the various sized for the different editions. These images were only one project or subject matter and I have many. I started to methodically go through my archives and create a separate set of files organized my subject matter. It became obvious that this is not best approach, hence my interest in LR.
This is my situation:
My wife is from Switzerland and has an apartment there. We also have an apartment in eastern MA. So far the MA location has been our main base with short travels to Switzerland. I am now retired and we are planning on spending more there and will be basically split 50/50.
In MA I have two EHDs 18TB and 14TB. The 18TB is the master and the 14 TB is a backup. I broke up the files from my master HD into multiple smaller HDs that were easier to travel with. Some portable WD passports (5TB) and one Seagate (5TB). They are with me now in Switzerland but they are in no way a singular mirror of my master. I thought I would leave these here and keep them updated with my latest files and bring back to the US my new files on some Extreme Scandisks, as there are easy to travel with and robust.
I organize my files by the unedited files out of the camera by date and then I have another set of folders by the same dates that hold the edited files. This is all working in regards to keeping my files up to date in both locations, but trying to find the different subject matters is proving to be difficult. That is why I wanted to learn LR. I take way too many images when I travel because I bracket do a lot stitching, HDR, and focus stacking. I don't think I can afford a cloud solution for the quantity of files that I am generating. Maybe I am wrong about this.
The internal HD on my computer is 1 TB and it is a lightweight 14" travel laptop. I don't know how much capacity HD I would need for my catalog.
I hope that this lengthy post helps to understand my situation and needs and I greatly appreciate the help that I receive here!
Art

 

[clee01l]

Thank you for the details. It helps to understand better. I don't see a simple one stop solution. but I do think the Solution My photography is much the same as yours. I shoot focus stacks, panoramas and some HDR. I shoot exclusively RAW which are much larger than a lossy compressed JPEG. I don't have near the volume that you seem to have. But I have been rigorous in my efforts to cull out images that are not worth keeping. My image inventory is about 80,000 images and my catalog is about 2GB in size. I think you could have a catalog that might be 4 GB in size and standard previews of perhaps 100 - 300 GB. All in all you could probably manage with Lightroom Classic on your 1TB primary disk not counting the necessary storage for your original images. All of my Lightroom related catalog previews and original image s sits on a 10TB EHD consuming ~4TB of that 10TB.

The question is where should you begin? Obviously you need to gather everything into one master LrC catalog. Ideally, that would be in Massachusetts where you have everything under one roof and one 18TB EHD. If you have most of your image files in Switzerland, you could begin where you are with what you have. And be prepared to travel back to Massachusetts with a Package containing your new LrC master catalog and image inventory that you have imported into that master catalog. Once your have everything into one master LrC catalog with all of your Image files imported into that master catalog, we should look at options for sharing those images in your LrC master catalog in two physical places

I think you would be better served using a cloud system backup service instead of copying files from one HDD to another. For this I would recommend BackBlaze. There are other cloud based back companies but this is the one I use currently. I have used Carbonite and CrashPlan in the past. BackBlaze offers unlimited backup of one computer for $99USD per year.

Once you have everything in your inventory, you should consider culling images that are not in your opinion worth the disk space they are taking up. Next, when you consider that 80% of your good image inventory will never be accessed again, there is probably 20% of your image inventory that would be useful if available in the Adobe Cloud. That 80/20 ratio is about what I have between my master catalog file and the Adobe Cloud. One nice feature that Adobe provides is that any image that is synced FROM LrC is synced as a smart Preview Proxie file that is 2560px on its long edge and does not count against your storage plan subscription. Because I import into Lightroom mobile to the Adobe Cloud, those images arrive in the cloud full size and do consume my plan storage. For this reason, I have the 1TB Photography plan.

As for sharing between locations, A Smart Previews Folder on your Primary Disk with your master catalog is one way. It however would not be suitable for exporting or printing original derivatives.

Another option would be to sync your entire master catalog to the Adobe Cloud where a reduced size proxie smart Preview would be available from any location. Again it would not be suitable for exporting or printing original derivatives. If you use a system cloud backup like Backblaze, you would have access to any file that you have backed up from any location. If for instance, you were in Switzerland and your image inventory is back in Massachusetts, if you needed a full size image file for printing or exporting in Switzerland, you could dowload that file from Backblaze just for creating a derivative for export or print.

Let me know your thoughts. I don't think managing images and syncing two different disk drives in two different physical locations is a doable solution in the long run. There are too many places for disaster to occur.

 

[Califdan]

I know that @clee01l is helping you out but in thinking about your problem and skimming through this thread I came up with a question that I didn't see addressed in my skim through the thread.

Do you need full size original files in both locations? Don't be too quick to answer as if you say "yes" i'll ask you why. There are really very few real (rather then emotional) resaons that some folks need full size files. For example printing large prints, uploading full size files to stock photo web sites plus a few others. If in one location you only need images for screen viewing, editing, and not too agressive cropping we can think about a solution using Smart Preivews on a portable drive with your master catalog that you take back and forth between your two locaitons. If that is something you'd consider we can go through the details, including how to deal with new photos shot while in the remote location.

 

[nicholsart]

Thank you both for your informative input. I am trying to digest it all and see what kind of solution will work best for me. I shoot both JPG and raw and go back and forth working in these two formats. Any raw imports I do in Photoshop. I don't really need to import raw files in LR and apply presets and so on. My main need is to have a catalog that I can use to locate different types of subject matter. I wonder if there is not a simpler program that I could use for this and just go through my files and catalog them without having to import raw files and so on. I will look into the various cloud backups that would be suitable for my EHDs volumes, but they are large. I am thinking if I need full size in both locations but it seems that it would be a benefit for me. I may buy a printer to have in Switzerland so I can show my work here in galleries also without having to transport large prints across the ocean. But you don't need to respond to this right away. As always I appreciate the time and input regarding my question/s.

 

[clee01l]

Thank you both for your informative input. I am trying to digest it all and see what kind of solution will work best for me. I shoot both JPG and raw and go back and forth working in these two formats. Any raw imports I do in Photoshop. I don't really need to import raw files in LR and apply presets and so on. My main need is to have a catalog that I can use to locate different types of subject matter. I wonder if there is not a simpler program that I could use for this and just go through my files and catalog them without having to import raw files and so on. I will look into the various cloud backups that would be suitable for my EHDs volumes, but they are large. I am thinking if I need full size in both locations but it seems that it would be a benefit for me. I may buy a printer to have in Switzerland so I can show my work here in galleries also without having to transport large prints across the ocean. But you don't need to respond to this right away. As always I appreciate the time and input regarding my question/s.

LrC is first the tool for managing all of your images second it is a non destructive image editor on par with Photoshop for most images. Over 90% of everything done in Photoshop can be done in LrC. I recommend importing ALL of you r images in LrC and then if there is something that LrC can not do (e.g layers, or Generative expand or sky replacement) do you need to create an intermediate file for Photoshop. FWIW, I do not use develop presets in LrC, preferring to do my own develop work rather than use some one else's generic fix.

IMO there is no simpler app for managing and editing your image inventory than LrC. You keep one original and all of the edit adjustment together. You do not save derivatives since you can create a derivative (export) whenever there is a need to send the finished product to a destination.

You should avoid having copies of your image inventory in two places. One catalog "to rule them all..." (apologies to Mr. Tolkien). Using a system backup in the cloud offers the ability to store a copy of all of the originals. I would also add that you could store copies of the originals in the Adobe Cloud but the $120USD for 1TB price is out of $ range when you compare it to unlimited storage at houses like BackBlaze.

 

[Gnits]

I have been thinking about your situation. There is probably no perfect situation.

So…. Why make the situation so complicated.

I see huge benefits to you in terms of using Lightroom, but the cost is the initial effort involved. As time goes by the benefits will increase. But ignore Lightroom for the moment.

Assume you have your main workstation in the US and you travel with a laptop to Switzerland.

Why not simply get a second 18TB WD (call it the Travel Archive) and sync this drive from your WS Master Drive. Leave the master drive in the US and bring the Travel Archive with you when travelling. You therefore know you always have your master drive at home and you have full versions of all your images when travelling. Having multiple sub disk copies of your master disk is a potential exercise in frustration and extremely error prone. The extra weight of a single Travel 18TB drive must be similar to bringing a collection of smaller drives.

I would refine this by getting a fast external SSD (say 2TB). Use this (plus a fast port) to store your catalog. When you travel, you can thus plug this into your laptop and you also have your full catalog and all the catalog previews.

While in the US…. add any new photos / edits to your Master WD drive. While you are travelling (ie not only Switzerland) add any new images to your desired folder structure on the external SSD. You can then add these images to your Lightroom Catalog (if using Lightroom). If not using Lightroom, follow your normal process, but add any new content to the external SSD.

When you get home transfer the new content to your Master WD. When you have that completed, sync copy your Master WD to your Travel Archive… so it is ready for your next trip. Any new images /edits while in the US get saved to the Master WD Drive. Just remember to synch the Master WD drive to the Travel drive in advance of any travel.

At home, make sure your Master WD drive has a letter in the mid section of the alphabet (say P for Photos). Allocate the WD Travel to say a letter of Q (ie P & Q are a logical pair). When you travel, and from your laptop, with the Q drive connected, rename the Q drive back to P. This means, if using Lightroom Classic on your laptop, Lightroom will be able to find all the images on the drive. [This may not make sense to you now if you are not familiar with Lightroom and the handling of drives.]

VIP. In this scenario… Do No Import Images From Your Travel WD Drive (P when used with your laptop and Q when used on your main PC). You do not want to create a scenario where you are importing duplicate images to your Lightroom Catalog.

I see lots of pros for using the Cloud Version of Lightroom… and maybe this is a future option, but while you are starting… regard the US as base and use LR Classic to manage your Master WD images and get to base camp. While learning Lr I would not recommend mixing Lr Web Cloud and Lr Classic, especially when dealing with a large volume of images.

As you get familiar with Lr.. you should be able to categorise your 5 star images (or your absolute keepers), add these to multiple and overlapping collections as required. Your workflow will improve as you get more familiar with Lightroom.

I intend to use a modified version of this approach myself going forward. I have my Lr Catalog moved to an External SSD drive and I also keep my last 2 years images on this SSD drive. When I travel, I use LR Classic on the laptop, with my Catalog, All Previews and the last 2 years images on the SSD (now connected to my laptop). Any new travel images get added to their appropriate folder (Organised by Year and Project in chronological sequence) on the SSD. I can edit, add metadata, create jpgs (or PSDs, or Tiffs) as needed during travel and all of this effort is instantly available when I plug the SSD into my main workstation when home. In my case I have no need, while travelling to go back to images captured back in say 2002.

Every January, I move the oldest year on my SSD drive to my internal spinning disk, which holds all my images back to 2002 and open a new folder for the next year (ie 2025).

You still have all options available for Cloud Based Backups. I would not regard cloud synch services, such as DropBox, OneDrive, iCloud, Adobe Web / Cloud as backup services.

 

[nicholsart]

Thank you all again. A lot to digest and think about

 

[clee01l]

Matt offers another solution that I think has merit. While I am trying to come up with a solution that does not involve external disks for your laptop, an external disk does provide the over all best solution with the least opportunity for disaster.


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[PhilBurton]

Assuming that your laptop uses an NVMe drive, you could upgrade that drive to 2 or even 4 TB at reasonable expense. If you have the skills, it is a DIY project. Otherwise, any competent repair shop can do the job for you. That would enable you to adopt Gnits' approach for current year photos.

 

[karl.nyhus]

You do not save derivatives since you can create a derivative (export) whenever there is a need to send the finished product to a destination.

I'm not sure this is true anymore with all of the evolving artificially intelligent features that are being included with Adobe's photo editing software. Who can say an AI-powered feature (for example, the new Adobe Adaptive Profile) will produce the same output when next I need to generate a JPEG from an edited raw file?

I have always liked to save JPEGs of my selects, just in case.

 

[clee01l]

I'm not sure this is true anymore with all of the evolving artificially intelligent features that are being included with Adobe's photo editing software. Who can say an AI-powered feature (for example, the new Adobe Adaptive Profile) will produce the same output when next I need to generate a JPEG from an edited raw file?

I have always liked to save JPEGs of my selects, just in case.

I'm not talking about intermediate files. You complete your work flow in LrC and this may result in a intermediate DNG file today, and may not in a future version. When you export this file you will always create the same JPEG. You do not need to keep this JPEG as you can always recreate it by repeating the export.

 

[karl.nyhus]

When you export this file you will always create the same JPEG. You do not need to keep this JPEG as you can always recreate it by repeating the export.

To stay with my example, I expect that when I open a raw photo, perhaps months from now, that was based on the Adobe Adaptive Profile, that it may be rendered differently at that future point in time. Which, of course, would affect the export.

This would be due to rendering that depends on the evolving nature of an AI-based feature that is trained on thousands of photos and fine-tuned by experts over time. And none of this starting point would even show up in the positions of your sliders.

And one way I might notice this would be to have an exported JPEG available to compare from when I first adjusted my raw file. I'm afraid even a virtual copy would simply adopt the new rendering and not reveal that anything has changed.

See The Adobe Adaptive Profile | Adobe Blog for more background.

 

[clee01l]

To stay with my example, I expect that when I open a raw photo, perhaps months from now, that was based on the Adobe Adaptive Profile, that it may be rendered differently at that future point in time. Which, of course, would affect the export.

Prior to Adobe introducing the "Adobe Adaptive Profile" (AAP), everything I have said still holds true. AAP, is still a new concept and presumably still evolving. What is not clear is whether once demosaic'd and rendered, will LrC revert to the Original RAW or work with the RGB image that gets you to your final image before export. I am thinking the latter in which case you will always get the same JPEG every time.

FWIW, my catalog. contains images going back 17 years. In the 17 years of Adobe improvements, I have yet to go back to an older image and reprocess it and not get a better rendition.