This is something i may need to change as well. The photos are on the PC local hard drive, and the catalog. There is a backup of photos only on NAS. The Mac laptop photos are on a 2 TB external drive. The external is an SSD so it is fast, and is in exFAT format to be read by both, with the ability for my very large video files to be stored as well. I wanted to have the RAWs and JPEGs on the PC and just the JPEGS on the external SSD, but be able to use one catalog with both. Would I need the catalog on the external drive? Would the JPEGs on the Mac laptop have to be in identically named folders and structure as the PC? Or is the only way to do this to have all the photos on the external drive? If I have all the photos, JPEGs on the external drive, with the catalog there?, can the catalog still keep up with the RAWs on the PC internal drive?
The bottom line is that I want all the JPEGs accessible and able to give star ratings on the laptop, but do any processing on the PC. I thought about just storing all the JPEGs on the external drive in addition to the PC internal drive, and use something else to evaluate and browse on the laptop, like photo mechanic, but it costs as much as lightroom.
I was all ready to buy a second copy of lightroom for the laptop, but am not sure what makes the most sense to be able to view, evaluate, sort, and rate JPEGs on the laptop, yet be able to transfer the ratings to the catalog on the PC - I guess that is the best description of what I think I am trying to do.
I just got lightroom on the PC, and have uploaded photos from a month in Spain in one folder, with four subfolders for each SD card, and a similar structure for a month in Peru. I just want to figure out the best way to do all this before I invest too much time in the current structure and process. Thanks.