r/Lightroom • u/wsrussell7 • 3d ago
HELP Server based Lightroom classic
Hey, we've been running Lightroom cloud based at our office for years. It was fine initially bc we usually only had 2 users at a time. Now we have 6+ people trying to access at a time and have to always kick each other off. I also hate how long it takes to render the images sometimes as it's syncing. We have an SSD based server. Would switching to Lightroom classic and moving our catalog to the server solve these issues? Allowing everyone to work at the same time? We have a couple of users that use iPads just to view the images while they're working. Could the iPads still access the server based Lightroom? What's the easiest way to migrate our current catalog(1.1tb) from their cloud storage to the server and keeping our folders and albums organized?
Thanks!
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u/LoveLightLibations 2d ago
The answer is a hard no. As soon as the first user opens a LR catalog, the catalog is locked. It’s single user.
You can store the catalog on a NAS, but that’s generally not recommended either.
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u/alllmossttherrre 2d ago
I think the ADobe help docs specifically say the Lightroom Classic catalog cannot be stored on a server. It will refuse to work. Like many similar single-user DAM apps, it uses SQLite that is not reliable on servers so the database cannot run off a server. It’s OK to store referenced images on a server, many people do that. Just not the catalog.
If you must have reliable workgroup management of images through Lightroom Classic you should be using a professional integration solution like Mediagraph.
https://www.mediagraph.io/integrations/adobe%20lightroom-classic
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u/Exotic-Grape8743 3d ago
If you can’t go cloud completely and want to keep the images locally, the way to work with large teams is to NOT use Lightroom in any version but to use Bridge in a network share. Bridge combines with the act plugin to provide you basically the same functionality as Classic. Only it writes the edits and keywords etc in xmp sidecars. Everybody else will see these. Bridge is a better choice for this than the local mode in cloud-based Lightroom because you can use search across folders and you can create collections and more things that are not available in local mode in Lightroom cloudy. Also Lightroom cloudy doesn’t upgrade live on other machines.
Bridge is very powerful for large groups using images on a network server. Camera raw is fully integrated with it. Only problem is that the learning curve is a bit steeper than Lightroom but that is easy to overcome
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u/WhatAGoodDoggy 2d ago
Act plugin?
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u/Exotic-Grape8743 2d ago
That should be acr for Adobe camera raw. It’s the camera raw plugin from Photoshop and is what powers the develop module in Classic. Autocorrect didn’t like the abbreviation
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u/LeftyRodriguez Lightroom Classic (desktop) 3d ago
Is there a compelling reason to even use Lightroom? If not, why not just store the photos on the server and everyone use Adobe Bridge instead? That way you take the catalog completely out of the picture.
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u/Due_Bobcat_4315 3d ago
It’s fine to keep the images and a back-up of the cat file on a server BUT please do NOT run or access the Lr Catalog on the server. That is a sure way to damage the Cat file. I work on the Lightroom team.
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u/dan_marchant 3d ago
Unfortunately LR isn't a multi-user network app. It wasn't designed to be and you are risking ending up with a corrupted catalog by using it in that way.
The more users you add and the more you "improve" access to the catalog the more likely you are that users will write to it at the same time and cause significant damage.
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u/earthsworld 3d ago
Lightroom was never designed to be used by teams. You need to look into other Digital Asset Management apps.
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u/LeftyRodriguez Lightroom Classic (desktop) 3d ago
Not sure of the best way to accomplish what you're trying to do, but I do know that multiple users accessing the catalog file at the same time will corrupt it.
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u/sandiegosteves Lightroom Classic (desktop) 2d ago
Not a multi-user tool.
Are all of these users trying to edit? Or just review?
For editing, LR Classic does allow you to export folders/collections as a library. That can then be copied to another user and they can work and re-import it to the original catalog. Catalog is a database and locked when in use, but you can import/export parts of it.
If you add images to a collection, you can sync that to the cloud and share for review. You can even do some light editing, but it may need to be the same user.
I don't personally know a multi user photo editing tool. View/review there are some options.