Sharing Pictures,Edits,Meta between two LR2 Users

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Rosewood

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Scenario: Two users using LR2 (whatever the most current version is) in Windows.

One user has a bunch of pictures (say 2'''+) that they need to send to another user so that user has them in his library, but along with the pictures need to go the LR Adjustments (ideally the non destructive edits), keywords, and all the added Metadata. Also this second user has his folder structure completely different than the first user.

So catalogs won't work for this because he doesn't want to switch back and forth between catalogs all the time.

You can't just export the originals as even though they metadata is added to the jpegs and you can do the xmp sidecars for the raws, the edits don't go along with the export.

DNGs are huge plus they don't take any of the non destructive edits.

So what is the best way to do this?

Thank you!
 
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Welcome to Lightroom Forums Rosewood!

This can be done; See my tip on this here. But instead of sending images to the other users, I would rather put them on a share even if you want to keep them in two different folder structures.
 
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You can select "export as catalog" along with negative files. Probably the safest way.
The other user can then import from your catalog and files and put them where they like.
 
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The method I suggested is absolutely safe Geoff... Also well tested. It is not like sharing the Catalog as it is not; Both users use the same in turn.
 
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That is fine Denis, however I am assuming they are on different systems and maybe in different locations.:D
 
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Hi Rosewood, welcome to the forum!

As the guys have shown, we probably need a bit more information - how many computers involved, are they on the same network, do the settings need to be copied back again later, what exactly have you got in mind? What's your ideal end result?
 
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Kiwigeoff said:
That is fine Denis, however I am assuming they are on different systems and maybe in different locations.:D
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This is right Geoff. Victoria asked the first thing we have to know: Same computer or not... It is my second tip involving multiple computer that is risky!
 
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Sorry I was out this morning and since the post was held for moderation I couldn't keep tracking it remotely until I got back. Thank you for the replies and I'll share more information (I should have included it, I was in a bit of a hurry to get out the door this morning. My bad).

We are talking about two seperate non networked locations here.

I also do want to stress that we don't want to have to open up new catalogs each time. I really want to integrate the work into one catalog. The idea here is to have his pictures, my pictures, side by side so that as whoever makes the final export has everything available.

In the past we just exported out the DNGs but since this made the non destructive edits permanent and for the ones that were jpegs made huge files out of small files, this really wasn't an ideal solution.

Thank you again for the replies, I would really like to make this happen as I just love Lightroom and have since the early first betas.

(What we are doing: I work with another photographer on a few projects where he and I both go out and shoot seperate things and then there is some overlap as well. So he and I both go in and dump our work in and start working. Sometimes one of us may have to move on to another project before we are finished, so we may have to send the partially edited, the fully edited, and the non edited over to the other to finish. Most of the time we are just combining eachother's finished work. From there we find the best of what we need, so it is really crucial to have all the work together. We also will make tweaks on each other's work. Down the road, either of us may need to come back to that project and take a picture out and work with it, so again it is critical to have all of the photos together in one catalog.

On the personal side of things, I purchased APSLR for my Mother in Law. She has a lot of pictures in her catalog of my daughter, and I don't always trust her adjustments, but I do trust her keywords and ratings and flags. I store everything based on date, she is a folder person. So merging catalogs in the past was a nightmare as all of her folders would come into mine and if I gave her my pictures of my daughter, well then she had my date based folder structure. Ugh, it was a mess and we haven't even tried since APSLR2.)
 
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Thanks for the details Rosewood! :)

We are still missing some information... Mac? Windows? Mixed environments? Do all three have internet access? APSLR version of each involved... As you can see everyone here do add this kind of information to their signatures so it is easier for us to target our answers. Look at some signatures examples on the forums to get an idea of what may be most relevant and when ready to make your own, just click the "User Control Panel" (User CP) link just the LR logo top of the page. Thanks.

As I see it, you are well set for workflow nightmares! :shock: For computers on a network, I have an unsafe tip that need to push the backup procedures to an extreme. Anyway, this won't work in your case as each of you is apart from each other.

So, how do you exchange files between each other? FTP? Physical device such as USB memory or external HD?

At the moment, I can only suggest one thing for your mother in law: Make a Collection with your daughter's images and export them as Catalog. Then, she can open it separately without messing her own. Same the other way to you...

There is another important aspect we have to take in consideration here: So you and your coworker have to acces the Catlog simultaneously? :left:

P.S.: For those wondering. APSLR :right: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
 
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Thank you again for the reply. As I said in my original post, all computers are running windows and LR2. whatever the latest is -- we always keep our versions up to date. I'll update my signature, but I've always hated signatures on forums as they always end up like some weird bragging session that I have to scroll past each time. It always cracked me up when a post was "No" but then you had 15 lines of sig to scroll past.

Our workflow is so non standard that it is either potentially always a nightmare or always just what we need to do to get our projects done.

When we use the catalog option we just do the export and then either zip it up and FTP it or we burn it to CD or whatever. But no, we don't need access to the same catalog at the same time. We just need access to the same photos.

But again, the problem with exporting the catalog is the same for my work as it is with my mother in law, we now have separate catalogs! So if my mother in law is looking for a picture from Christmas she has to go through two separate catalogs. If her sister from Hawaii is in town and she wants to do a slide show, she has to do two separate catalogs. If she wants to export a bunch to put together a book on Blurb, again she has to go through two catalogs and she may end up exporting two pictures that are basically the same because she had no way of seeing ALL the pictures at once. These are the same basic problems we want to avoid in our WORK workflow and that I want to avoid by getting HER pictures in the mix.

E: I do apologize is this is more of a feature request but I really thought there was / would be a way to do this.
 
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I just thought of one other way to ask this question:

In Lightroom 2.2 (or in the 2.3 RC) is there a way to merge two catalogs into one?
 
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Yes, you use import from catalog and select the one you want to "merge with the already open one.
 
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Rosewood said:
I just thought of one other way to ask this question:

In Lightroom 2.2 (or in the 2.3 RC) is there a way to merge two catalogs into one?
Click to expand...
I was just about to suggest something along those lines... Let us know how it turns out.
 
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Rosewood said:
...If she wants to export a bunch to put together a book on Blurb, again she has to go through two catalogs and she may end up exporting two pictures that are basically the same because she had no way of seeing ALL the pictures at once.
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If she doesn't want to merge Catalogs, she can Export to Catalog from the first, Export to Catalog from the second, Create a new one and Import from the two previously exported Catalogs. Duplicates will merge and the two temporary exports can then be deleted.

As you can see, trying to minimize the number of catalogs is the best approach to you problem. I think she will have to learn to disregard folders structures to manage images and use Lightroom's built in search capabilities. :|

Time to give "Import from Catalog" a go...
 
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