Lightroom Workflow Sanity Check Needed

I started using Lightroom about six months ago on my laptop (Win 7). I use my laptop both as my on-site PC and my main PC at home. I also recently put a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device in full time use. The NAS has my photos backed up, but not my Lightroom catalog. What i would like to do is use my laptop in the field (flag, rate, tag, quick edits, etc) then transfer content to the NAS once home for long-term storage AND to keep my photos centrally managed (I have a backup to the NAS arranged so do not need to clog the laptop memory for back up).

So, to my question for Lightroom old hands, is it simply a case of exporting my catalog to the NAS then deleting the files on my laptop? Can Lightroom link to a catalog on a LAN?

I would like to make sure i've got the process down before i do anything irreversible.

How do others manage using Lightroom in the field and centrally manage their library upon their return? I understand most people will also have a desktop at home that would make this process easier.

Anything I might be missing? I did a quick search and did not find an answer to this specific problem so maybe i'm just missing something very elemental.

thanks

Jason

On return "Export as Catalog". Then "Import as Catalog" on your main PC.

Another option: make sure you set "Automatically Write Changes to XMP" on your laptop, or alternatively when you get home select all images and "Save Metadata to File". Then copy over your originals including the XMP files to your destination drive at home. Then import those into your home library, and select all images and "Read Metadata from File".

Im sure there's more options.

Buy a 1TB portable hard drive and store your photos and your catalogs on this, and plug this in to either your laptop or your PC when you want to use LR, and back them up on your NAS. No exporting importing necessary other than when you initially download your photos. I also initially put my SD card into my Vosonic to back them up then temporarily copy to my laptop, then copy from my laptop to my portable HD as DNG.

Works for me!

What if you have 5TB worth of photos?

I cant imagine running my 'field' work (lets say a 2 week liveaboard trip) on a USB or firewire drive. The agony! So I run my trips on a new, clean catalog on my laptop drive, and when I get home I just sync it back to LR. It's trivial.

What if you have 5TB worth of photos?

.

In one trip!!!?? Whenever its full I'll just buy another hard drive.

I see the speed advantage tho...it does take its time to import photos, but once they are imported they are all in one common place, I like to use my laptop to develop photos as well as my PC..probably cos its a macbook! Maybe using a portable HD is why sometimes developing hangs a bit, especially cloning and healing, could this be the case?

Sorry to hijack a little but its highlighting certain related issues

When away from home, I copy over the entire catalog and previews, and the current years images. I then import, catalogue, rate etc. on the road, to the laptop HD, backing up to an external USB drive. On return, I copy it all onto my PC HDD, and just open the catalogue. I might have to do a little remapping of drives in LR, but it takes minutes.

My catalogue runs on my C Drive (10,000 RPM), and my images are stored on a separate internal drive. Everything is backed up to 2 external drives that are rotated, one being stored off site.

Thank you for the replies. I will give it a try/experiment this weekend. I guess the mental block i still have is that i intend to continue using my laptop as the primary editing terminal but would like the photos primarily stored on the home network.

with that said, does it make sense/is it possible to keep my catalog on the laptop (and backed up on the NAS) while the photos reside on the NAS? Is it straight forward to re-map the links once I transfer the files from the laptop to the NAS?