Moving images between PC and Mac with Lightroom

Paul Holtom

Paul Holtom

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Paul
Edit My Images
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I have a PC that I do my main editing on but have just got a macbook pro to use when away from home.

I will install Lightroom 3 on the mac so it is on both machines then just need to know the best way of moving the images downloaded to mac back onto PC.

I am sure someone has already done this so it will be an easy answer for one of you guys.

Paul

PS First post from the mac
 
I do it across my wireless network, I have a desktop which has shared drives attached to it, I also have a macbook, a macbook pro and a PC laptop, by saving the files in the shared drive I can access them from any of the computers.
 
You could also look at some cloud storage solution such as dropbox. Advantages are that just an Internet connection is required, you don't need to have both devices on the same network to share images. On the downside free storage space is limited so it'll depend how many images you need to store and transfer in one go.
 
Trouble is though I don't think you'll be able to keep your lr edits as youll have separate libraries. Unfortunately it's not designed for multi computer use, it doesn't even work too well switching users in windows.. :-/
 
Be careful. I've just bought a mac book pro after years of pc and am in the transition process. Im still using a pc laptop too with 2 external hard drives that have been formatted for use with both systems. I have found that several folders full of shots have been unreadable on mac and more worryingly one folder of shots vanished!
Fortunately both drives are mirrored so i just copied from one to another.
Another reason to have more than one copy!
 
Assuming this is what you did, you shouldn't need to format a drive in the old FAT32 file system. It's old and clunky.

With a couple of terminal commands OSX can read and write to ntfs file systems which are a whole load more reliable.
 
Paul Holtom said:
it would seem you could export images as originals and then import or export as catalogue.
Click to expand...

this.

It allows you to move your source RAW files and all the edits in one tidy package.

I move stuff regularly between two Macs. There shouldn't be any difference in principle whether it's to another Mac or a PC.

Assuming you're exporting a day's shoot in one folder...

File > Export as Catalog...

choose a destination directory (probably on an external HD)

Check Export negative files*

Uncheck Export selected photos only if you want everything in the folder.

Press the Export Catalog button.

hook up the external HD to the other computer.

File > Import from Catalog...



* or not, if you're already got the RAWs on the destination computer.
 
Musicman said:
this.

It allows you to move your source RAW files and all the edits in one tidy package.

I move stuff regularly between two Macs. There shouldn't be any difference in principle whether it's to another Mac or a PC.

Assuming you're exporting a day's shoot in one folder...

File > Export as Catalog...

choose a destination directory (probably on an external HD)

Check Export negative files*

Uncheck Export selected photos only if you want everything in the folder.

Press the Export Catalog button.

hook up the external HD to the other computer.

File > Import from Catalog...

* or not, if you're already got the RAWs on the destination computer.
Click to expand...

Very useful. Thank you. :)
 
What about making use of the Lightroom XMP sidecar files. If you're storing your edit data in the file then copying the image files + the corresponding XMP files means you can retain edits across machines.
 
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