| Joined: | Mon Apr 2nd, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
A good question, I have recently started using DropBox for some stuff, not Lightroom yet... Your idea is very interesting to me, I did try putting my Lr catalogues on a server at home but Lr doesn't seem to do servers. Also it doesn't solve the multi locations problem.
My method has been to immediately on return to home off load my new images to my Mac mini's main image data folder hierarchy with the date reversed followed by a descriptive title yyyy-mm-dd title because of the way sorting works, that structure sits well in the folder coming out nicely in date order. I then synchronise that years folder with Lr. That gets the images into the system but not onto the Mac Book Pro.
If I am away, I off load the image files into the MBP with the same naming convention and on my return home I move them manually onto my Mac mini. Effectively the only complete set of images exist on my main computer and backups of course.
In a way I am not sure I really want a complete set of images on my MBP, which complicates things.
I would like a 'lightweight' set of selected images in my portable devices, to refer to and to be able to show people while away from home. That involves selecting them, making them a universal size say 1024 on the long edge, convert to JPEG medium quality and then export them. THAT might be the set to put in Dropbox.
As for separate Lightroom libraries, in my opinion unless a set of images are utterly unrelated to the main group there is no justification for a separate library. I keep all my botanical images in a separate library and have weeded out any recreational or family images taken at botanic gardens, storing the non botanic images in my general file structure.
I have also tried separating out my work images and my hobby stuff, car building and the like. Work is OK it's usually completely isolated from domestic stuff but projects and hobby stuff is usually pretty well embedded in family activities so it would be impossible to separate them, so they have returned to my main folder structure and the main Lr library. I have multiple groups of images of work projects which include for example hundreds of pictures of leaky roofs, bent walls, rotten timber, and cracks in walls. I don't need them in my general image folders. Eventually I will dump them.
The reason for this is the great strength of Lr is it's ability to find an image by location, keyword, camera, lens, date etc. That falls flat if some images are in another library, Lr won't search multiple libraries and opening a number of libraries in turn to search for an image is a pain.
Speaking of loosing my hair, I was looking for a particular set of images of a car race meeting at folder level yesterday, I was sure as hell they were taken this year. In the end I opened Lr, did a search on the location and it seems they were taken LAST year... Doh!
One of my concerns with putting my entire photo collection in my DropBox is the load it will impose on my internet connection. When I did a major update of iPhoto/Mavericks etc. recently it blew my bandwidth allowance overnight and cost me a packet in excess usage fees. It had been caused by PhotoStream re-distributing my images to all my devices. I had turned PhotoStream off but with the new installation it had reverted to default, which is ON. :-( So I had limited internet for several days before my next period began.
____________________
Robert.