Lightroom Catalog Question: Semi Mobile Workflow

[Destin]

I recently got a new MacBook Pro, though I still plan to do most of my editing at my desk, I’ll also be doing some at work when I’m on a time crunch or while traveling. I think I have most of my new workflow figured out, but I’m not 100% sure so I’d like opinions.

While at my desk I’ll be hooked into my 4tb RAID 1 drive where I plan to primarily keep my Lightroom catalog to save SSD space on the MBP. The RAID will be backed up to a second drive on location and periodically backed up to an off site drive that I’ll be keeping at work.

I’m afraid that keeping the catalog on the external drive will make it really slow to work with.. is there an effective way to keep the photos on my internal SSD while I edit them and then transfer them to the RAID? Would this require multiple catalogs (1 for each location?)

Also, if I’m editing on the go I’ll have to import directly to the MBP (and back up to a portable external SSD that I picked up) and I’ll have to transfer those files to the RAID system when I get home. This is basically the same scenario as the previous paragraph I suppose.. I’m just not sure what the best way to do it is.

I’ve used Lightroom for several years now, but almost exclusively in the develop module. I’ve rarely touched its cataloging and organization tools, so this is a learning curve to say the least.

Any wisdom here would be greatly appreciated.

 

[smoke665]

I know that Adobe recommends the catalog and preview cache be in the same "folder", but I'm not sure that it matters on external drive. I would suspect it would be more of a network connection issue. Some heavy reading Preference file and other file locations | Lightroom Classic CC and Lightroom 6

 

[weepete]

I've used it to transfer files between my tablet and my home computer. It's pretty simple and not that much of a chore. All you will need to do is get 3 catalogs set up. So create a folder on your MBP and one on your SSD, then make the new catalogues in lightroom. If you keep the file paths the same except the drive path everything should work ok. Then to import from your MBP to your SSD just copy over the files (using the same folder structure within the root folder) and the lightroom catalogue and then use the import from a different catalogue feature in lightroom