Photo cataloging, storage, editing for teenage daughter

gad-westy · 2026-09-11T16:58:32+0100

I'll try to keep this brief! Daughter has recently started a photography GCSE and just generally is now taking a lot of photos with her own camera. I don't particularly want her to add her photos to my own lightroom catalogue because it will be hard for her to access them and also because I'm very organised and she is not!

She has an iphone and a macbook air M1 with a 256gb ssd. She's also using a stand alone camera.

I use Ligthroom classic and PS myself.

I'm trying to pick through the myriad of options available to her with an eye on her being able to catalogue her own photos, edit them a bit and some thought to storing them.

1) Adobe student package looks a good option at the moment. £13 per month and includes just about every adobe product by the look of it. She could have her own LR catalogue and use photoshop which is what her school use and I could obviously help her as well so that might work well. I'd need to get her an external storage drive as well.

2) I never use Apple photos myself but maybe that does a lot of this already and in a familiar 'environment'? And maybe up her icloud storage and just let her use cloud storage?

3) Something else?

Mr Perceptive · 2026-09-11T17:21:43+0100

Adobe Student Package is way to go, because...

1) she has access to it at School, so it will be the same
2) she has access to you for help at home, it's something you have some familiarity with
3) as she develops her adobe skills, she will be able to tecah you things!

Faldrax · 2026-09-11T17:36:09+0100

Note that the LR Photography plans allow you to have LR installed on 2 machines, so she could use your LR subscription on her macbook with an independent catalogue.
The only restriction is that you cannot both be using LR at the same time - but for £13/month getting the whole Adobe suite does give access to a lot of other options, so even with the 'work around' alternative, it may well be worth paying the extra.

gad-westy · 2026-09-11T17:42:35+0100

Faldrax said:
Note that the LR Photography plans allow you to have LR installed on 2 machines, so she could use your LR subscription on her macbook with an independent catalogue.
The only restriction is that you cannot both be using LR at the same time - but for £13/month getting the whole Adobe suite does give access to a lot of other options, so even with the 'work around' alternative, it may well be worth paying the extra.

Cheers. I must admit, I hadn't realised I could have a second user for LR. But I suspect it would not work if we couldn't use at the same time. Already have those arguments about netflix in our house!

gad-westy · 2026-09-11T17:43:01+0100

Mr Perceptive said:
Adobe Student Package is way to go, because...

1) she has access to it at School, so it will be the same
2) she has access to you for help at home, it's something you have some familiarity with
3) as she develops her adobe skills, she will be able to tecah you things!

Yeah, that Adobe package has a lot going for it.

Faldrax · 2026-09-11T22:04:54+0100

gad-westy said:
Cheers. I must admit, I hadn't realised I could have a second user for LR. But I suspect it would not work if we couldn't use at the same time. Already have those arguments about netflix in our house!

I have 2 daughters, so we have the 4 user subscription for Netflix!