Lightroom syncing advice
So I ran into a bit of a challenge on the last job syncing LR tags/adjustments. In the spirit of constant improvement, I figured I’d post it to the forum and see what tips I can glean for the future. (AKA: “There has to be a better way.”) Here’s the basic rundown:
Shoot to Laptop “A”. Backup to external. Photog takes external to edit at night on Laptop “B” (his). I told him to just double-click the .lrcat file on the external – so that all adjustments were logged on the external’s LR catalog. Instead he opened LR and imported the images. So all his edits were in his catalog. (He didn’t want to carry Laptop A with him – just to explain why we didn’t use the obvious/easiest solution!)
The best I could do: I went back to Laptop B, opened his catalog and saved the metadata to xmp sidecars on the external. Then I hooked it up to Laptop A, dragged the XMP’s over manually (shot folder by shot folder), and re-imported the shot folders into Laptop A’s correct LR catalog. But this seemed rather inefficient: having to go into the Finder, select XMP files folder-by-folder, overwrite the old XMP’s on Laptop A, then open the correct catalog and RE-import those folders. For all the little “tricks” in LR, it seems it should be easier. I did notice that just “Synchronize Folder” did NOT pick-up the tags, despite the new XMP’s; I had to remove the folder and re-import.
I figure there’s a good chance someone who’s more savvy with LR (I use it on less than 5% of my jobs) has a better way to solve this situation.
A second, related challenge: Suggestions on how best to sync LR tags/adjustments (meta) over the internet? The same shooter wanted to edit the last day and send me the tags (so we didn’t have to meet up). Since he’d all-but-certainly use his own catalog again, his .lrdata file wouldn’t help me (even if I did have him FTP the entire thing). And I couldn’t count on him being computer-savvy enough to reliably save his meta, copy the XMP’s to a folder to ZIP and send. Even if he could, it just seems wildly too much work. So: over the internet, potentially with 2 different catalogs…best way to sync metadata?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
~Gully
I understand that you wouldn’t simply want to use the Lightroom catalog on laptop B since it would contain photos from other shoots. However, if you open this catalog, click on the folder which contains the imported images, you can choose FILE > EXPORT AS CATALOG. The newly created catolog will only contain the images from the folder that was visible in Lightroom when you made a new catalog. You can archive the old catalog on laptop A and use the new one instead. You may have to relink the photos by control clicking on the folder in Lightroom and choosing ‘UPDATE FOLDER LOCATION’ so the catalog on laptop A will be linked to the photos on laptop A and not the external drive. Lightroom will automatically locate images located in subfolders as well.
Saving the metadata as .xmp sidecar files on the external drive from his catalog sounds like a good option as well. You could use Chronosync to automatically update laptop A from the external. This would copy over all .xmp files at once. When you open the catalog on laptop A, choose the parent folder which contains the entire shoot, make sure you are in the LIBRARY module in GRID VIEW, select all images, then choose METADATA > READ METADATA FROM FILE. This will reload all .xmp files for the selected images.
I’ve never tried to sync metadata over the internet but it sounds like an interesting challenge. Love to hear possible solutions.
Comment by Jonathan Marshall — November 13, 2009 @ 9:08 pm
The “simple” way to send xmp’s for the non ftp savvy users is to write a basic curl and zip script and package it in a drop app. This would work by having the user sort a folder by type selecting all the xmps and dropping them on an app icon on the dock. here is a basic curl script as a taste:
do shell script “curl ftp://rapdigital.net/rapdigital.net/files/uploads/ -u userxx:passxx -T ” & dest as string
If this interests you but you cant make it work contact me with you ftp details and I’ll put something together for you. Applescript while not as sexy as some of the other languages is a great tool that we all should make more use of.
Comment by Rick Allen — November 14, 2009 @ 6:36 pm
Jonathan – thanks for the advice; cataloging the one folder would be a faster way to transfer back to “A” than creating and copying XMP’s, for sure. I’ll keep that one in mind for next time.
Rick – using a script to automate would definitely help some tasks; do you think/know if there’s a way to make the script automatically select the XMP’s (instead of having to “sort by” and do it manually)? It is a nice addition to my knowledge base; unfortunately, I think the required actions (shell scripts, etc.) are far beyond what the photog would want/know how to do, given he either didn’t understand or didn’t want to double-click the .lrcat from the shoot to begin with. But like I say: good for ME to know.
Comment by Gully68 — November 15, 2009 @ 11:56 am
Alright Gully try this out. http://www.rapdigital.net/gully.html
You might want to have the app save to a photographer specific folder on your server or just an upload folder in which you could place a php file that emails you whenever a zip file lands in the directory. I have a php file somewhere but I cant find it at the moment.
Comment by Rick Allen — November 15, 2009 @ 11:01 pm