How to have a shared library with 2 networked macs?

Like many people I have a laptop (leopard) and a desktop (tiger) in my home, and I'd like to have a shared iPhoto library so I can download/access/edit the pictures to be available on both macs. For the laptop this would have to be set up wirelessly, and I'm thinking a large external drive is the best solution (I'd like to do the same with my iTunes library too, but I guess that's a different discussion). I'm about to install iPhoto 09 on both machines, so can anyone give me instructions on how to do this? Thank you.

Mike
The key factor here is the version of iLife - they need to be the same on both machines. However iPhoto 09 requires 10.5.6 minimum, so you’ll need to upgrade the OS on the 10.4 machine.
What do you mean by ‘Share’?
If you want the other machine to be able to see the pics, but not add to, change or alter your library, then enable Sharing in your iPhoto (Preferences -> Sharing), leave iPhoto running and enable 'Look For Shared Libraries' on the other Machine. Your Library will appear in the other source pane.
You can drag pics from the Shared Library to the machine’s own Library in the iPhoto Window.
Remember iPhoto must be running in both machines for this to work.
If you want both machiens to have the same access to the library: to be able to add, edit, organise, keyword etc. then:
Quit iPhoto on both machines
Move the iPhoto Library Folder to an external HD set to ignore permissions. You could also use a Disk Image or even partition your Hard Disk.
Note This disk should be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Storing libraries on disks formatted any other way can lead to issues with importing, sharing and editing.
On each machine in turn: Hold down the option (or alt) key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting dialogue, select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new library location. From that point on, this will be the default library location. Both machines will have full access to the library, in fact, both machines will 'own' it.
*Note 2* there is a catch with this system and it is a significant one. iPhoto is not a multi-user app., it does not have the code to negotiate two users simultaneously writing to the database, and trying will cause db corruption. So only one user at a time, and back up, back up back up.
*Note 3* A wireless connection is perfectly adequate for viewing photos in a Library. However, it is not suited for editing or organising photos in an iPhoto Library. Drop outs are part and parcel of wireless networking. Should one occur while the app is writing to the DB then the database will be corrupted.
Regards
TD

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