Q: Multiple users on multiple macs sharing iPhoto Library
How can different family members (using personal logins) all access the same iPhoto library, regardless of which of our two iMacs they happen to be logged into?
I thought the solution would be as simple as:
- Plug an external hard drive into the Airport Time Capsule.
- Copy our iPhoto library onto the external hard drive.
- Log in as each user, open iPhoto and point to the iPhoto library on the external hard drive.
I've searched the support forums and can't find a successful example of this. Does it work? If not, is there another elegant solution?
I'd also be interested in how to back up the 'networked' iPhoto library. I plan to use iPhoto's "publish to Flickr" capability for this as it also solves how to share photos with our family's many iOS devices.
Ps. I'm new to the Mac environment so am still learning my way with OSX (be gentle please).
Equipment
x2 iMacs (<12 months old) running the latest OSX and iPhoto software versions
2TB Airport Time Capsule (brand new) with a 1TB USB external hard drive plugged-in (not sure of the formatting).
iMac, iOS 8.1.2
Posted on Jan 27, 2015 1:46 PM
Media Pro 1 will do what you want. It's designed for it. And it's multi platform compatible. You can store the source image files on a server and each user can access the files and create their own "catalog" of thumbnails. However, if one user edits a photo and overwrites the source file with the edited version all users will see that version in their catalog. MP1 does have versioning capability where the edited version is stored on each users hard drive leaving the source file intact as a digital negative.
MP1 has a demo version available to try. Be sure to view the tutorial videos to get you started. Also other DAM apps are discussed at the The DAM Forum.
You could use the Adobe Elements Organizer that comes with Adobe Photoshop Elements for Mac as a file organizer along with PSE as the editor. Here it's a file managing system and not a true digital asset management app.
Posted on Jan 27, 2015 4:41 PM