A Catalog In The Cloud Revisited

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Jan 222012
 

Some time ago I offered a solution to working with a catalog on multiple computers utilizing Dropbox to store the catalog. Take a look at A Catalog In The Cloud in case you missed it.

I mentioned that this wasn’t a solution for the multi-photographer studio but it could be useful if your images are housed on an external drive and you like to work from multiple computers. The cloud based catalog has the advantage that all of the changes you make reside there and are accessible to your various computers. If you are using a free Dropbox account (you get 2GB free when you sign up!) you will run out of room quickly as your previews file grows. The .lrdata file gets big if you use 1:1 previews and like to keep them.

Since I wrote that article, Dropbox has added a feature called Selective Sync. A Lightroom Secrets reader, David Balder, sent me an email pointing out that this new feature removes the preview bloat issue and can give you more room to store your catalog. Thanks, David! That’s a brilliant suggestion!

David suggests that you use Selective Sync to exclude the .lrdata file from the Dropbox sync. The downside here is that you will lose your previews. However, Lightroom will happily build them as needed when you start to work in your catalog. So there’s the tradeoff: a little more time to build a preview in exchange for more room in your free account to store a catalog.

Here is how to implement David’s suggestion. Start by clicking the Dropbox icon in your menu bar to access Preferences…

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In the preferences dialog go to the Advanced tab and choose Change Settings for Selective Sync.

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If you aren’t already there, choose Switch to Advance View at the bottom of the resulting dialog.

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Once you are in Advanced View you can navigate to your .lrdata folder and uncheck the box.

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This will remove it from your Dropbox sync going forward. Press the update button and you will be reminded of that.

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Press update again and you’re all set.

Thanks again, David!

Related posts:

  1. But I Backed Up My Catalog!
  2. Process Your HDR Images in Lightroom
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About the Author:
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Gene is an Adobe Community Professional, an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop, and InDesign, and an avid Lightroom fan. He has written several feature articles for Photoshop User Magazine and is the author of Explore Lightroom 4: A Roadmap for Photographers.

He belongs to the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). Gene is the Co-Founder, Manager and a frequent blogger for the Dallas Fort Worth Adobe User Group (DFWAUG).

In addition to running Lightroom Secrets, Gene also contributes to O'Reilly's media blog, moderates on the Adobe forums, and helps out on lightroomforums.net.

  • Anonymous

    That’s a pretty neat trick. How do you handle working with extra-large PSD files over the network? I’ve got some that go larger than 1GB before I’m done with them, and that is prohibitively slow to work with on a wireless network.

  • http://lightroomsecrets.com Gene McCullagh

    Thanks!

    This really is useful for smaller catalogs and files. More of a proof of concept until Adobe finds a way to make LR network friendly.

  • David Balder

    If you do move an existing catalog to dropbox, you don’t want to lose your generated previews. To avoid that, create the .lrdata folder (windows)/file (mac) first, then set up selective sync, and then copy your catalog and previews.

  • David Balder

    If you do move an existing catalog to dropbox, you don’t want to lose your generated previews. To avoid that, create the .lrdata folder (windows)/file (mac) first, then set up selective sync, and then copy your catalog and previews.

  • David Balder

    If you do move an existing catalog to dropbox, you don’t want to lose your generated previews. To avoid that, create the .lrdata folder (windows)/file (mac) first, then set up selective sync, and then copy your catalog and previews.

  • http://lightroomsecrets.com Gene McCullagh

    Good point, David! Thanks!

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  • Jennings C. King

    I use two computers with LR 3. I am constantly trying to update all the presets and custom settings from one to the next. Is DropBox an option for keeping these settings consistent between the two? So when you add a preset to one computer it will be on the other automatically? That’s my biggest gripe. I usually use an external HD for my cataloging.

  • http://lightroomsecrets.com Gene McCullagh

    Hi Jennings!

    Not really. This method is really doesn’t address the other components of LR. Presets and preferences are usually stored in other directories. These would not be in Dropbox. While you cold theoretically rewire LR to look in Dropbox for these it probably isn’t worth the effort

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1361626778 Burt Johnson

    I don’t really see the benefit of this?  If your photos are on an external drive, as described, then presumably you are moving the disk around with the photos to your various computers.  If so, why not just put the catalog on that disk too, and it moves along with the photos?  No sync necessary, since the catalog is with the photos, and thus on whatever computer you are connected to.

    Instead, I see a possibility of letting multiple computers share a single catalog, where the photos are spread among the computers.  If you set your preview size to small, then it might take awhile before you exceed the 50GB you get with a paid account (which is what I have).

    Then you would be able to view, sort, rate, etc the photos from any of your computers, even though you could only do full editing on the computer that actually has the photos.

    I could see this possibly being useful for a travel computer to be able to access the studio machine.  Not sure where I would really want to do it, but I see no benefit at all from the idea of moving the disk around and putting the catalog on Dropbox…

  • http://lightroomsecrets.com Gene McCullagh

    Hi Burt!

    The example here is an external drive. But it could just as easily be a network drive. In that case Lightroom will not let you store the catalog on that drive. This is one way around that.

    Another use is that with the catalog accessible from the cloud you can still rate and keyword the images even if the drive containing the originals is not present.

    Also, having the catalog and the images on one external drive creates a single point of failure. Of course, a good backup discipline avoids this problem.

    Yes, the benefits aren’t huge and this is really an edge case or proof of concept idea. But it is one answer to the multiple computer problem.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1361626778 Burt Johnson

    I wouldn’t be too concerned about the “single point of failure.”  If my photos were lost, then the catalog wouldn’t do me much good. so having them fail together is not a particular worry.  (I use Time Machine for local backup, plus CrashPlan for offsite backup hourly, and my external photo drive is RAID, so my chances of data loss is pretty small.)

    I hadn’t thought about the network drive, but I can’t think of where I would want my photos spread among multiple computers at home, yet want single-point access to the catalog.  My thought about using this would be for a travel computer, where I am in the field and able to access photos that existed on the home computer (for rating, etc), but that would only be useful if the preview file was also shared (which is where I got confused about the recommendation).

    I started to write an article to our camera club, referencing your blog entry, and telling where it could be useful, when I hit this wall and realized I couldn’t come up with a scenario where anyone in the club would really want to do this…

    Of interest, with just over 58,000 images in my LR4 catalog, the main catalog is only 680MB, though the preview file is 293GB.  Of course, I use ‘full size’ previews, to speed up reviewing.

  • http://lightroomsecrets.com Gene McCullagh

    Unfortunately, Burt, I have talked with too many photographers who are not as prepared for the inevitable drive crash as you. So a single point of failure is a real concern. 

    At home or in a small studio it is more common now to find network based storage. Drobo has been a big reason for this. I find many network based Drobos or other file servers housing music and image libraries. This method is one way to address the multiple computer single server issue with Lightroom.

    As I mentioned, this is an interesting use of Dropbox and more a proof of concept that does provide a solution in some situations. But, it is not for everyone.

  • Kurt Congdon

    Works like a charm, thanks for the tip.  I’ve trying to figure out how to do this for a while now.  Thanks!

  • http://lightroomsecrets.com Gene McCullagh

    Hi Kurt! I’m glad you found it useful! 

  • Andrew Webb

    On Mac Snow Leopard and Lion, you can use a Symbolic Link to point to all of your Lightroom settings (including Presets) stored on Dropbox:

    If you’re in Lion, you need to see your Library folder, so fire up Terminal and past this in, and hit return:chflags nohidden ~/Library/

    That will make your Library folders visible

    Then go here: 

    /Users/yourname/Library/Application Support/Adobe/

    and find the Lightroom folder. Move that Lightroom folder to your Dropbox. (I keep it in a folder called “PREFS”, because I do this with several applications). Create a symbolic link [http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2001110610290643] or an alias of the Lightroom folder. (I haven’t tested this with aliases) and move the link/alias back to /Users/yourname/Library/Application Support/Adobe.

    Make sure that the link/alias is the only thing called “Lightroom” in the folder (if you copied the Lightroom folder instead of moving it, you would have the original folder and the link/alias.)

    Next time you fire up Lightroom, it will bounce off the link/alias and use the real folder on Dropbox. If you replace the /Users/yourname/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom folder with a link/alias on all of your machines, they will all have the exact same setup, and they always will.

    Hope that helps somebody.

  • Mangu

    I have to give away a invitation link for dropbox, valid for the next 10 users: http://db.tt/fFOYH5HV . If you register with this dropbox link and use the fotoupload functionality thereafter your free space wil be expanded up to 5,25 GB – permanent.
    Enjoy it.
    Mangu

  • http://twitter.com/DavidSimmon David Simmon

    Great article, thank you for sharing.

    Only question I have, is if you are using DropBox to sync your catalog file between a Windows and Mac client, how do you manage the different pathing to the file located on the network/NAS device?

  • http://lightroomsecrets.com Gene McCullagh

    Hi David!

    That would be an issue. I will see if I can get my hands a windows pc and Investigate.

  • Murray Leslie

    This will work equally well with a Google Drive. Thanks!

  • http://lightroomsecrets.com Gene McCullagh

    Great point, Murray! I hadn’t tried it on a Google drive. Thanks!