Moving catalogs between Mac & Windows

[theturninggate]

I may be taking on a Lightroom consulting job with a client that would require development of a large catalog that would need to be accessible on both Mac and Windows-based systems. I have some ideas about how this will have to work, but wanted to put out a call for any general advice on the matter, as I am not accustomed to having Windows machines in the mix.
Is there anyone out there already doing this?
Thanks,Matt

 

[Denis Pagé]

Hello Matt!

Mainly, the problem is that Windows will look at photos being under a drive letter and Mac will look for them under a drive's name. Thus, each time the platform change, the "Find fissing Folder" operation will have to be performed.

One solution may be to have all images under an UNC share as \\Server\PhotoFolder

Starting the catalog from D: (Drive letter) or MyHardDrive (Drive name) have no influence on this as it is the catalog which is seeking for folders' location.

 

[theturninggate]

Gads, I hadn't thought of that. Not quite sure how to go about using or setting up a UNC share. I'm going to need to make this as foolproof as possible. Any ideas?

 

[clee01l]

[quote author=Denis Pagé link=topic=9'25.msg6'783#msg6'783 date=12644488'2]...One solution may be to have all images under an UNC share as \\Server\PhotoFolder...[/quote]AFAIK, this will only work with network attached drives. A USB/Firewire attached drive is going to appear as a local drive and subject to the OS drive designations such as drive letters and mounted folders. Windows7 has a feature that is either new or easier to configure. You can place a USB drive as a symbolic link to a folder under C:\ This makes it behave like other Posix compliant OSes with respect to how these drives might be seen by LR.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Or the other easy solution is just to make sure all the photos are showing under a parent folder in the Folders panel so they're easy to relink depending on what OS you're attached to.

 

[Denis Pagé]

[quote author=clee'1l link=topic=9'25.msg6'8'9#msg6'8'9 date=1264476'4']
AFAIK, this will only work with network attached drives.[/quote]

Short of a NAS, they can simply use a third computer set to the same domain as the Mac and Windows machines. It can then be accessed as \\ThirdPC\ShareName

Also give a look at this thread: Workflow my Brain Hurts. We finished discussion over Skype and I asked the OP (thorrrr) to report back but he didn't yet. It is on my schedule to contact him to know how it went as I want to publish a third tutorial about using Lightroom on a LAN in the Tips & Tricks forum. My two first were Windows only...

EDIT: As per the thread mentioned above, we concluded over Skype that he does have to change the "-edit" suffix to be different for each machine which is editing.

 

[theturninggate]

I think Victoria's thinking is in line with what I had in mind, and I'm glad to hear it from a second source. That's probably the way I will go, as I'm uncertain whether computers at this production studio are networked. I'm guessing not, as things seem to be scattered on several portable hard disks throughout the building (I'm spending my day today rounding up images from various sources, putting them onto a single drive for cataloging). And I'm not being paid to setup a network ...

Officially, this is all being setup on Windows. Fun, fun.

Thanks for the advice, guys. All helpful stuff, and much appreciated.

 

[rendezvous_cyber]

Hello, Cyber here ---

Try with External Hard / Pen Drive, to store the catalog. You can access it from both OS.
The previous post is correct in this sens

regards,