Well, the good news is that a lot of the infrastructure
required for managing off-line or remote images is already in place,
but it's either hidden or not very elegantly presented. Nevertheless,
by using this infrastructure it's fairly easy to reference off-line
images, and get them back into the library again when required. The
same infrastructure can also be used as a pseudo-synchronised library
i.e. a Unitary Library. The method described below works around
the current limitations of Lightroom in so far as it cannot merge two
or more libraries.
Important Background Information
on Lightroom Library
A Library folder with the default name Lightroom is
automatically created the first time that the application is launched,
and will most likely be located on your boot disk at
Users/username/Pictures (Mac OSX). A quick check of this folder will
probably show up to four subfolders or packages, plus a file named -
Lightroom Library.aglib. The subfolders will be named Backups,
Lightroom Library.thumbs, and possibly another called Photos. The
Backups folder will contain a backup version of the Library.aglib file
from earlier betas, the Library.thumbs folder will contain thumbnail
files (i.e. xxxx.data.noindex) for any images already within the
library, and the Library.aglib file will contain all of the metadata
and adjustments for images already within the library. The Photos
folder, will contain any images that may already imported into
Lightroom via the Copy, Move or Copy as DNG options. Since it usually
contains images associated with the managed library this folder
is usually referred to as the Managed Photos folder. Actually, if you
do have the Photos subfolder inside the Lightroom folder and it
contains images, then now is a good time to drag it out. Obviously this
may break the links between the images and thumbnails, but I show how
this can be fixed later. Once moved it's also important that the
application knows that the Managed Photos folder is now located outside
of the Lightroom folder. Therefore, I suggest that you update the
Lightroom Preferences as demonstrated by the example shown in Figure 1
below.
Figure 1 - Telling Lightroom where to place Managed
Photos
The Managed Photos folder can be located pretty much
anywhere you like, which includes external disk drives or even a
network server. You can even give the folder a name more in keeping
with your normal folder naming convention. The important point to keep
in mind here is that by keeping the Managed Photos folder outside of
the Lightroom folder you are making it much easier to transport and
back up the library independently of your images. It's also much easier
for Adobe Bridge to access for renaming of images, etc.
Figure 2 - Lightroom with existing image Library
Step 1 - Moving the Library
At present, the simplest approach to running Lightroom
on multiple computers is to have only ONE Lightroom Library (i.e.
Unitary Library), but share it amongst these computers. For this
purpose I use a
SmartDisk FireLite 100GB FireWire drive, but any compact
portable disk drive is suitable. This particular disk drive is powered
by the FireWire port of my Apple PowerBook, is light and compact. USB 2
versions are also available. At a spin speed of 5200 rpm it's not the
fastest disk drive in the world, but not having to connect it to an
electrical supply is a really big advantage when working in the field.
SmartDisk FireLite Portable Disk Drive
The Unitary Library (i.e. the folder named Lightroom
and its contents) should be placed onto a portable disk drive (see
figure 3 below). To do so simply move the Lightroom folder from the
computer disk drive across to the portable disk drive. If the library
is new it will take only a few seconds to move. However, if you have
already imported some images into Lightroom it will take a little
longer. The actual time taken depends upon the number of thumbnails
stored in the Library.thumbs folder. So, relocating the library onto
the portable disk while it's still relatively small has its advantages.
It's also worth mentioning that, if space is tight on
your laptop it might worthwhile using the portable disk drive as your
image store for work-in-progress images or those you need to access
regularly and at any location. I'm not suggesting it as a permanent
store, but one that is used for short term portable storage. Once you
have access to the desktop computer the image folder can be moved
across to more secure and faster disk drives.
Figure 3 - Moving the Lightroom Library to a
Portable Disk Drive
Step 2 - Accessing the relocated
Library
Lightroom Beta 3 can only access one Library at a time,
so accessing the version now installed on the portable disk drive
requires a little trickery -
-
Hold down the Option/Alt key and launch
Lightroom.
-
Browse to the portable disk drive
-
Open the Lightroom folder and select the file named
Lightroom B3 Library.aglib
-
Hit the Choose button and presto you have
reactivated your old Library (see Figure 4).
Figure 4 - Selecting the relocated Library
Note: this description for relocating the
Lightroom Library was first published by Michael Reichmann at
Luminous Landscape
When Lightroom reopens you may
find that your images now have a "?" symbol on the top right
corner (Figure 5 below). If the "?" mark symbol is present
then this is a sign that the links between the library thumbnails and
actual images have been broken and that you'll need to repair them.
However, more often than not Lightroom will reopen with the links back
to the original images still in place. If the links are still intact
the thumbnails will look as they do in Figure 2 above (i.e. no "?"
symbol).
Figure 4 - Lightroom has lost the link to your
images
Images with the "?"
symbol in the top right corner are orphaned and cannot be edited in
Lightroom until re-linked with the library. However, so long as the
original thumbnail process was allowed to complete, then it's
still possible to apply Keywords, Ratings. etc. Likewise, it's also
possible to create and present slideshows and web galleries. It's even
possible to print contact sheets.
Earlier I indicated
that Lightroom could only access one Library, but this should not be
construed as meaning that you can have only one Library. Actually, you
can have as many Libraries as you wish. Space permitting, they can all
be stored on the same portable disk, although each must have a unique
name.
Step 3 - Locating your images
In the event that the links between the Library and
images were broken when you moved the Lightroom folder, then
re-establishing these links is the next step. Finding the images again
is actually very simple.
Figure 5 - Finding your Images
-
If the identified disk drive is off-line you should
reconnect it. Generally, this is all that is needed for Lightroom to
automatically re-establish the link and make the "?"
disappear. If it doesn't then hit the Locate button -
Lightroom will immediately open an OS dialog and highlight the
relevant image (see Figure 6).
Figure 6 - Selecting the Image
-
If Lightroom doesn't automatically locate the image
then you will have to do it manually using Folder or List view as
shown above.
-
Once the image is found hit the Select button
and the dialog will close.
On return to the Lightroom you'll notice that the "?"
symbols begins to disappear from the thumbs. Once the "?"
disappears it will be possible to begin editing the images within the
Develop module.
If for whatever reason Lightroom looses track of where
your Library is, then it will display the following dialog when trying
to launch the application:
Figure 7 - Lightroom has lost the Library
Normally it will advise you of where the Library was
last located, which is generally all that is needed when using the Mac
platform. However, Windows currently seems a little more prone to
loosing the Library when the user moves it using Explorer. If
this occurs, then you'll need to use the Locate Library button
to navigate to the new library location. The Use Default
Library option creates a completely new library, and should only be
used when that is what you want to do.
If you've got this far then you'll be glad to know that
all the difficult steps are finished. I've demonstrated how it's
possible to relocate a Lightroom Library and subsequently re-link any
orphaned images. However, it's also possible to do it the other way
round. That is to say, relocate the image folders. The process of
finding orphaned images is just the same as described above. For
example, say the original folder with images has also been relocated to
an off-line storage device. Lightroom will identify all such images in
the same way as I described above - the "?" symbol, which
when clicked opens a dialog that includes the name of the disk drive
and folder hierarchy. Reconnect the disk drive and Lightroom will
automatically re-establish the links between the thumbnails and all of
images stored on the disk.
Finally, by combining the principal of Unitary Library
and Off-line storage as described above you can manage very large
numbers of images in multiple locations. Hopefully, the methods
described above will be made redundant in the near future, but in the
meantime it's probably the easiest way to manage and access large
numbers of images quickly.
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