Presentations while OS away from the cloud

[BobT]

Lightroom Version Number

12.1

Operating System

1. Windows 11

Using multiple computers for travel comes up regularly. Sorry to bring it up again but what I'm after is simple on the face of it but I don't think has been covered. The solutions usually involve the use of external drives and the cloud. I don't want to take an external drive and there'll be little or no cloud availability where I'll be. My image folder and catalogue are on a PC running LrC and that's where they must stay untouched till I return. I'll be taking a laptop which currently has LR(cloudy) installed but rarely used.
What I'd like to be able to do is to temporarily emulate on the laptop, what is currently on the PC. This will be for presentation purposes only, no editing whatsoever. Not sure if my Photography Plan will allow another copy of LrC on the laptop. I may have to use LR somehow. Since there won't be any editing, I'm thinking there may be no need to take full images but only previews or those smart preview thingies. Any ideas?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Yes, your plan allows Lightroom Classic on two computers, so that is fine. If you just want to use Lightroom Classic for presentations, then select the images you want to present and export them as a new catalog on the laptop. You could indeed export the catalog with smart previews only, especially if you need to take many images with you, but you can also export a copy of the original images.

 

[Gnits]

Just be careful of your synch settings. Lr only allows synching from one catalog. I have not mastered this myself for my travel laptop. I stopping synching to the cloud some time ago, so usually not an issue for me, but got caught out when travelling to a wedding recently and realised my Lr Catalog would not synch to the cloud, as my Catalog on my main workstation was already setup to synch to the cloud. There are probably work around, but I did not want to end up with cross pollination between any collections I had synched to the cloud and 2 different catalogs. I was keen to share wedding images with the family, so used Flickr instead as my workaround.

Comments welcome regarding this scenario.

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Bob, You might find some useful information in these links-
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/classic-on-vacation/ (Victoria Bampton)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My10kpBxeB0 (Julianne Kost)

I rarely want to edit my thousands of files in my master 'Home' catalog when I travel, so I like the 'Empty Catalog' method that allows me to import and edit only the photos I take while traveling. Then merge the Catalog into my 'Master' when home again.
I agree with @Gnits - Do not try and sync the travel Catalog!- Causes too much confusion (AND all cloud file downloads!!)

 

[Jim Wilde]

What I'd like to be able to do is to temporarily emulate on the laptop, what is currently on the PC. This will be for presentation purposes only, no editing whatsoever.

I have all my LrC-based images also synced to the cloud. Thus when I travel I'd just take my iPhone and iPad, both with a full set of Smart Previews already downloaded. So I would have access to all images on either device even when internet is not available. I can even edit as well if I feel the need.

 

[BobT]

Thanks guys! Much appreciated. It looks like a goer.
Good point about the syncing. I'll make sure to have it all turned off.

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Good point about the syncing. I'll make sure to have it all turned off.

I will qualify this statement re syncing-
-Do not sync the Lightroom-Classic 'travel' catalog. (Only one catalog can be synced, and that should be the Home Master.)
-Yes you can sync a Lightroom library- as advised by Jim in Post#5. And that is great advice.