p.1 #1 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
I have two Mac computers that I use for editing in LRC: a Mac Mini and a Macbook Pro. Both are a couple of years old but well-speced and fit for purpose.
However, I find that I much prefer editing in LRC on my Mac laptop because I can use it wherever I am in the house while the Mac Mini can only be used in my home office.
What is the most practical way to edit from a large library of files on a laptop? The Mini is connected to several 18TB drives on which I store and backup my images. The Macbook Pro has a 2TB internal SSD, whiich is not large enough to hold all my files, so files from the Mac are held in the cloud and then downloaded as I want to edit or print them. But the downloading of a large folder of images is a very slow process, and i wind up not having practical access to many images when I actually want to work on them.
How can a laptop be set up to be a practical and easy-to-use primary location for editing in LRC from among a fairly large library (probably about 10TB) of images?
p.1 #3 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
jeffbuzz wrote:
NAS.
Unless I use an ethernet cable, which would defeat the flexibility of using the laptop, wouldn't an NAS via wifi be about as slow as the cloud storage?
p.1 #5 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
I think the most practical thing would be to relocate the desktop system to a better place in the home where it is more accessible. Secondly you can get 8TB SSDs, so replace your 2TB. Unfortunately the costs are stupidly high now.
p.1 #6 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
RustyBug wrote:
Portable SSD
While not a full 10TB, if can easily be kept with the laptop bag / sleeve. Just might have to be strategic to not try and work on all 10TB at once.
Yes, this is where my mind has been tending, to some form of attaching an SSD to the laptop when I want to work. I already have several 4tb SSD drives that I could repurpose to holding files for the laptop to work on, and I could divide up my files over a number of drives. I think the different drives could also be reflected in the LRC file structure so it would be easy to see which files were on which drive by looking in LRC.
This may be the best solution. I could have a separate catalog for each SSD, and then I could also use them on the Apple Mini when I wanted to work on that machine.
It would complicate the issue of back-ups since I would be backing up portable drives, which does seem awkward and high-maintenance as a task to perform regularly. Which might mean that it wouldn't get done.
p.1 #7 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
EB-1 wrote:
I think the most practical thing would be to relocate the desktop system to a better place in the home where it is more accessible. Secondly you can get 8TB SSDs, so replace your 2TB. Unfortunately the costs are stupidly high now.
EBH
The office location is not inconvenient, but the advantage of the laptop is that it can be easily used wherever I am. It moves.
And it is a shame about the tripling or quadrupling of SSD prices. Fortunately, I already have a number of 4TB SSD drives that I can make use of. It would now cost me about $4,000 to replicate the four that I have.
p.1 #8 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
chiron wrote:
Unless I use an ethernet cable, which would defeat the flexibility of using the laptop, wouldn't an NAS via wifi be about as slow as the cloud storage?
I'd expect any local network to be much faster than traversing the interwebs. But ultimately it depends on your local hardware. I do everything over wi-fi to NAS.
p.1 #9 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
HDDs are relatively less, but about 1.5x previous prices ($25/TB March 2026) and expected to increase. You need about four HDDs in a NAS to get any kind of decent transfer rates. Individual HDDs are so slow.
p.1 #10 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
jeffbuzz wrote:
I'd expect any local network to be much faster than traversing the interwebs. But ultimately it depends on your local hardware. I do everything over wi-fi to NAS.
Is your wifi access to your NAS laggy or is it quick and smooth for browsing through files when you are going through hundreds for culling or choosing one to work on?
p.1 #11 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
"What is the most practical way to edit from a large library of files on a laptop?"
After reading your question, I am left wondering how this might be necessary. Do you really mean that you face editing thousands of images? I am asking this because the situation is unusual to me. In my practice, even after a foreign trip I need to work on no more than 500 raw files, and after the first round of culling the number is usually down to about 200 - 300 that dont take too much disk space on an external small SSD.
I know that wildlife photographers have to work through thousands of raw files, for the obvious reason (high-fps shooting with pre-capture), but I believe that you not a wildlife photographer.
I am not answering your question, however my point is that maybe it is better to re-think the question itself. If you are working on a project of a sort on your laptop, what is the number of files to edit in this project?
p.1 #12 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
ruthenium wrote:
"What is the most practical way to edit from a large library of files on a laptop?"
After reading your question, I am left wondering how this might be necessary. Do you really mean that you face editing thousands of images? I am asking this because the situation is unusual to me. In my practice, even after a foreign trip I need to work on no more than 500 raw files, and after the first round of culling the number is usually down to about 200 - 300 that dont take too much disk space on an external small SSD.
I know that wildlife photographers have to work through thousands of raw files, for the obvious reason (high-fps shooting with pre-capture), but I believe that you not a wildlife photographer.
I am not answering your question, however my point is that maybe it is better to re-think the question itself. If you are working on a project of a sort on your laptop, what is the number of files to edit in this project? ...Show more →
He’s using the laptop at home enabling him to edit from different locations around the house. Nothing mentioned about travel.
p.1 #13 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
chiron wrote:
Is your wifi access to your NAS laggy or is it quick and smooth for browsing through files when you are going through hundreds for culling or choosing one to work on?
My NAS wired 1GbE is the bottleneck on my network. My wifi 6e PC and wi-fi 7 router have a 4Gbps link internally and 2Gbps to the internet. I'm planning to upgrade the NAS to 2.5GbE to bring it in line with the other parts on my network.
Even with "only" 1Gbps speed in and out of the NAS itself, I have no catalog or editing issues with Lr or Ps. When editing, the file only needs to be pulled across the network once. Then all the work happens locally on your PC scratch disk.
p.1 #14 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
ruthenium wrote:
"What is the most practical way to edit from a large library of files on a laptop?"
After reading your question, I am left wondering how this might be necessary. Do you really mean that you face editing thousands of images? I am asking this because the situation is unusual to me. In my practice, even after a foreign trip I need to work on no more than 500 raw files, and after the first round of culling the number is usually down to about 200 - 300 that dont take too much disk space on an external small SSD.
I know that wildlife photographers have to work through thousands of raw files, for the obvious reason (high-fps shooting with pre-capture), but I believe that you not a wildlife photographer.
I am not answering your question, however my point is that maybe it is better to re-think the question itself. If you are working on a project of a sort on your laptop, what is the number of files to edit in this project? ...Show more →
I'm not talking about issues of editing while traveling. I'm talking about editing from different locations in my home.
I do often have hundreds or thousands of files that I want to skim through, either to cull or to select some for editing and possible printing or to make a copy for someone. For example, we recently returned from a month around the Mediterranean. I have about 5,000 images from that trip which I am sorting through and working on. That is not an unusual situation across many types of my photography.
p.1 #15 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
I posed my original question to the free version of Chat GPT. It suggested that I put my files on a fast SSD of 6tb or 8tb, put the LRC catalog also on the SSD, and save smart previews of all the photo files to the 2TB SSD on My Macbook Pro which it said would allow me to edit even when the external SSD was not connected. It also suggested that I could then plug the large external SSD into the Mac Mini and also edit from there. The external SSD could be backed up to a large HDD.
To those who are a bit more conversant than I with LRC and with computers, does this make sense? Is it true that I could edit smart previews with the files and even the catalog not present? (I may have confounded that part of its advice, so if it is not true then I am probably misquoting Chat GPT on that point--it gave me quite a long answer with various branches.)
EDIT: I've been able to find the answers to my questions: ChaGPT is wrong when it says you can edit the smart reviews in the absence of the catalog. That never made sense to me. Smart previews can be edited in the absence of the original files,, BUT THEY REQUIRE THE PRESENCE OF THE LIGHTROOM CATALOG. So the catalog would have to be kept on the laptop, not on the SSD. This would complicate the move to editing on the desktop, since the desktop would have to also have access to the catalog.
p.1 #16 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
chiron wrote:
I'm not talking about issues of editing while traveling. I'm talking about editing from different locations in my home.
I do often have hundreds or thousands of files that I want to skim through, either to cull or to select some for editing and possible printing or to make a copy for someone. For example, we recently returned from a month around the Mediterranean. I have about 5,000 images from that trip which I am sorting through and working on. That is not an unusual situation across many types of my photography.
Thank you for answering my question. 5000 Sony 60MP lossless compressed files should take about 400 GB of disk space on an SSD. You don't even need a large drive. The problem you are facing, in my understanding, is with the LR catalog.
Consider working on your laptop using a raw converter that doesn't use a catalog (you can sill keep all the raw files in the main catalog connected with your MacBook). I believe that Adobe Camera Raw can be used from Bridge, outside LR. You can also consider purchasing a perpetual Capture One licence for $299 from Adorama. C1 doesn’t require a catalog, and you can probably save money this way, as buying large SSDs instead may turn out to be a more costly solution.
p.1 #17 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
I use a 4TB SSD to move back and forth between a laptop and a desktop computer. I keep the LrC folder which includes the LrC catalog and all the other folders and files LrC needs to run on the SSD. That includes all the previews I have created, which are normally 1:1 previews since I want to be able to zoom in to assess and edit photos. I also keep a photos folder structure with all the currently active RAW files. I have the portable SSD connected to the laptop or the desktop through a high speed USB. On both systems the disk is T9: (both are Win11 systems), so that when I move back and forth LrC does not need to find the files on the SSD. The files in longer term storage are not available when using the laptop, so in LrC those files/folder show up as missing. Since I am not editing them that is OK.
Moving between the laptop and the Desktop is just a matter of plugging in the SSD. Although the SSD has a fast USB (TB4), it is still a bit better to move the LrC folder to a faster internal SSD. I do that if I am going to be using only the laptop or the desktop for an extended time. When I am going to move to the other system I must copy the Lightroom folder back to T9.
I move photo folders from the T9 drive to the longer term storage once I have completed culling and editing, at which time they are backed up from their new location. As I download new files from memory cards they go to folder on the T9 drive.
The only other thing is that I keep the files in the folder C:UsersusernameAppDataRoamingAdobeLightroom on the laptop and the desktop synchronized, which only needs to be done if I make changes to plugins.
I have never had any issues moving between systems. I assume the same method can be setup on a Mac.
p.1 #18 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
ruthenium wrote:
Thank you for answering my question. 5000 Sony 60MP lossless compressed files should take about 400 GB of disk space on an SSD. You don't even need a large drive. The problem you are facing, in my understanding, is with the LR catalog.
Consider working on your laptop using a raw converter that doesn't use a catalog (you can sill keep all the raw files in the main catalog connected with your MacBook). I believe that Adobe Camera Raw can be used from Bridge, outside LR. You can also consider purchasing a perpetual Capture One licence for $299 from Adorama. C1 doesn’t require a catalog, and you can probably save money this way, as buying large SSDs instead may turn out to be a more costly solution. ...Show more →
Thank you for your suggestions, but I have come to like working in LRC and I am slowly developing some expertise with it. For example, I find its Snapshot feature an excellent way to evolve and compare many different versions of an image and it is now a fundamental part of how I work on an image. I can get an 8TB Crucial SSD with very high transfer rates (over 2000mb/sec) for about $750. I can keep my original files on the external SSD and edit files on my laptop using smart previews. However, since the catalog still needs to be with the smart previews on the laptop, moving to the desktop mini for editing bcomes cumbersome.
p.1 #19 · Advice needed on most practical way to edit in LRC on a laptop
This what ChatGPT finally gave me as a visual summary and prompt for working with Lightroom Classic on both a laptop and a desktop by using smart previews and an external SSD.
To summarize; The catalog and smart previews are on the laptop. The original files are on the SSD (after creating the smart previews, the SSD does not need to be connected); all editing happens on the smart previews and is stored in the catalog on the laptop. When I want to edit on the desktop mini, I have to copy the catalog folder (not just the catalog) to the SSD and then plug it into the desktop mini and edit on the connected SSD. When I want to go back to the laptop, I have to reconnect the SSD to the laptop long enough to copy the catalog folder (not just the catalog) back to the laptop. Then I can disconnect the SSD
🔄 Step-by-Step Visual Logic
💻 1. Working on Laptop (No SSD attached)
[LAPTOP]
├── Catalog (.lrcat) ✅
├── Smart Previews ✅
└── Originals ❌ (SSD not connected)
➡ You CAN edit (using Smart Previews)
➡ All edits saved in catalog
🔁 2. Move to Mac Mini
Step:
Copy Catalog Folder → External SSD
[EXTERNAL SSD]
├── Catalog (.lrcat) ✅
├── Smart Previews ✅
└── Originals ✅
🖥️ 3. Working on Mac Mini (SSD connected)
[MAC MINI]
└── Accesses SSD
➡ Full editing power (original files)
➡ Faster performance
➡ Edits saved to catalog on SSD
🔁 4. Move Back to Laptop
Step:
Copy Catalog Folder → Laptop
[LAPTOP]
├── Updated Catalog ✅
├── Smart Previews ✅
└── Originals ❌ (optional)
➡ Continue editing anywhere
➡ All Mac Mini edits preserved
🔑 The Core Idea (Visualized)
🧠 Think of it like this:
(You are moving THIS back and forth)
↓↓↓
