Photos on a network

I am moving from windows to Mac, we have a NAS on our network with 11gig of photos all in folders relevant to the subject ie. "the dogs:holidays:wales:april2005" Each windows pc mounted this as a network drive "Photos' and could see and look at what ever they liked
can I do the same with a ibook, mini and iMac so that all photos stay on the network and not on each computer. It would be a big issue to try and keep each machine updated the same. Or is there a way of keeping each machine the same on the fly?

Hi 1Rascal,
Not very easily with iPhoto. It is a big permissions issue. there are ongoing discussions right now concerning that topic.
You can try different software such as MediaboardONE

Similar Messages

Photos on a network drive

Hi,
I have over 10gb of photos on my Network Hard drive at home. I recently bought my first Macbook.
When I opened iPhoto, I dragged 1 folder to iPhoto and it worked great. Then I realized that my photos were copied from the network drive to my macbook.
Is there a way to keep the photos on the network drive and to have iPhoto read them directly from the network without having to copy them on my macbook? (I want to save space on my macbook)
If not, can this be done if I purchase an external hard drive and plug it via usb/Thunderbolt and put all my photos on it?!
Thank you for your help !

Is there a way to keep the photos on the network drive and to have iPhoto read them directly from the network without having to copy them on my macbook? (I want to save space on my macbook)
Yes but don't. It's unreliable.
For more on iPhoto and file management see this User Tip:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6361
If not, can this be done if I purchase an external hard drive and plug it via usb/Thunderbolt and put all my photos on it?!
Yes.
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

Photo Printing from Networked Windows 7

My HP Photosmart Printer is USB connected to a Windows XP machine which is directly attached to the home network. Also have a Windows 7 64 machine wirelessly connected to the home network. The Photosmart printer was added to the windows 7 machine and selected as the default printer and I have no problems printing to it from the Windows 7 machine except that I only recently found out that I cannot select from various photo paper sizes to print photos from the Windows 7 computer. All various printing programes only give me a limited selection of paper sizes to choose from when configuing the printing - Letter, A4, A5 Envelope, Legal, etc. The same programs on the XP machine offer the choice of various photo paper sizes to print to. It seems as though all of the Photosmart configuration options are not available via the Windows 7 computer. Should I try to install the printer on the Windows 7 machine again, directly from a downloaded HP installation file?

Hi,
Well, looks like you have to install drivers on the Windows 7 machine (if supported) but I how do we know your printer to find out ?.
Regards.
BH
**Click the KUDOS thumb up on the left to say 'Thanks'**
Make it easier for other people to find solutions by marking a Reply 'Accept as Solution' if it solves your problem.

How can I access photos on a network disk with apple TV ?

I just bought a WD network disk to put all my photos. I wish to look at them with apple TV but can't find how. The only thing I see is what shared in my laptop Itune. Can't I just acces the content on network device without going through Itune?
It should be easy as looking what's on the network and brows through the content!

fouiiin wrote:
I just bought a WD network disk to put all my photos. I wish to look at them with apple TV but can't find how. The only thing I see is what shared in my laptop Itune. Can't I just acces the content on network device without going through Itune?
It should be easy as looking what's on the network and brows through the content!
AppleTV2 does not support directly accessing media on network drives.
All media viewed must be via itunes.
If you can point iTunes to a folder on the network drive (Advanced>Choose Photos to Share) you maybe able to access them but only when itunes is running.
AC

Relocating 'source' photos to new network location???

I have all of my family's photos on my Time Capsule (in a specific folder). The TC is almost full so I am am moving all my media to a new NAS device and dedicating my TC to backups. They are on a network drive so that they can be access by multiple users across multiple computers.
When setting up iPhoto I imported the photos on the Time Capsule with the "Copy items to the iPhoto library" option UNCHECKED so I would not fill up my local hard disk with duplicates.
If I just move all the photos from the TC to the new NAS then iPhoto will complain that it can't find the photos any more. Is there any way I can update the library to get it to look for the photos in the new location? I do not want to lose all of the events, albums, places and faces by having to reimport them all again. (I have 4 users across three computers to update) I will be in deep doggie doo from one particular user if everything is lost.
Message was edited by: gdw35
Message was edited by: gdw35

- my account and my wife's account on both iMac and MacBook share a common library
That's four Users on Two machines.
The only way to do what you want is to put the Library on an external disk - USB or FIrewire.
This disk needs to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and set to ignore File Permissions.
To move the Library:
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library. Do this from each machine and each account in turn.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Next Up: Connecting to it:
A strong warning: If you're trying to edit the Library (that is, make albums, move photos around, keyword, make books or slideshows etc.) or edit individual photos in it via Wireless be very careful. Dropouts are a common fact of wireless networking, and should one occur while the app is writing to the database then your Library will be damaged. Simply, I would not do this with my Libraries.
If you're viewing and so on the a Wireless Connection is fine.
Regards
TD

RE: sharing photos across a network with Lightroom

I own Lightroom but haven't starting using it, mostly because I've heard that it doesn't work if you accessing photos from multiple computers across a network. Is that correct? Or is there a way around this?

I do use Lightroom on multiple computers that can work on a single network and, I believe I have the same question. So let me see if I can ask it in a bit clearer fashion to get more complete advice from others.
My workflow for LR has been to use the licenses on my desktop and on my laptop.   That works fine once my postprocessing flow is done and the processed raw files are exported in jpg form to working folders and incorporated into the LR Catalog.   Those ppd images can be transferred by Windows across the network and the exported jpgs can be imported into both LR catalogs and both catalogs are easily synchronized.
Where the workflow seems to break down is for the unprocessed RAW files. If, for instance, I use my laptop for pping the images, than the actual processed raw files only appear with their changes on my laptop and in its LR catalog. If I use my desktop for processing, the Raw files on the Desktop have the processing changes embedded but those changes don't appear in the RAW files in the laptop. So I end up with raw files on 2 computers and only the LR catalog that actually processed the image has its processing data saved.   The other computer only holds unprocessed Raw files.
Is there anyway to transer the processed raw files from one LR catalog to another along with their processed data?   Currently I find myself processing the Raw files on the other computer a second time quite often, which seems redundant.
To the OP, is this what you were thinking about?
Perry

Airport error when attempting to import photos across wireless network

Hi,
I'm using the latest version of iPhoto '09 on a MacBook that's connected to my home wireless network through an Airport Extreme. Also on the same network is a brand new Mac Mini. When I attempt to import photos into iPhoto '09 on my MacBook from the Mac Mini, I get an Airport connection error that I dismiss by clicking OK. Immediately after clicking ok, I then get a "Can't find the original photo..." error and I hit cancel. I do this three times and presto the photo imports itself. This occurs every time I attempt to do an import.
My network is not dropping. My Internet connection is not dropping. My MacBook and the Mac Mini stay connected continuously so I'm not sure why I get these errors.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Mark

It has nothing to do with the Airport connection.
This sometimes occurs if you’re importing a file into iPhoto and there’s already a file there with the same name. Digital cameras can produce many, many files with the same name over their lifetime, so it’s not uncommon to have several files called IMG_00543.JPG, for instance. Now you want to import one also called this.
What happens is that iPhoto compares the two files to check for duplicates. However, if iPhoto cannot find the file already in the database for comparison, then you get this message. It suggests that your database is damaged because iPhoto has lost track of this (or these) similarly named files.
A simple test is to rename the file you are importing - just add a character - IMG_00543a.JPG for instance. If this then imports with no issue then you might consider rebuilding your library:
Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. This will create a new library based on data in the albumdata.xml file. Not everything will be brought over - no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your albums and keywords back.
Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.
Regards
TD

Slow importing photo library from network hard drive

I have about 20GB of photos stored on a network hard drive. I'd like to import them into iPhoto but I don't want to store them locally on my macbook pro as it will take up too much space.
I followed the advice from previous posts and set up my library on the network drive - however the import process is taking way too long. Last night I was able to get about 100 photos in 3 hours. I eventually gave up and stopped the process. I realize that transferring via the wireless network is slowing things down but there has to be a way of doing this that doesn't take several days. I didn't have this problem on my PC using Adobe Photoshop Elements - it was able to import the same number of files from the network drive in less than an hour. I watched iPhoto while it imported a single (small) photo - it took about a minute just to import a file less that 1mb in size.
any sugestions or should I just stick to Windows?
Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I'll try the wired connection tonight - I do have other devices that access photos/mp3's over my wireless network (eg. xbox360) that seem to have no difficulty with speed.
Do you think it would make any difference if I imported in smaller groups (maybe one folder/50 photos at a time) rather than trying to import my entire photo album at once (3000 photos). It might take a few days, but it is a process I could run in the background while I surf. Just curious if iPhoto cares - does it take the same amount of time to import 50 photos 20 times, versus 1000 photos in one shot...?
thanks for the advice
JRP123

Playstation 3 viewing photos on wireless network from iMac

I am stumped at trying to share my media (photos, music) from my iMac to my Playstion 3 via my wireless network. Any help much appreciated.

Try MediaLink from nullriver. Check forum boards for playstation3 for more options.

Moving from folder-organized photo library on networked NAS to iPhoto...

Hello,
This is a fairly broad question, I know, but I've been researching for almost a full week and still at a loss as to what to do, so I thought some of the kind souls on here might be able to cut thru the forest of info out there to help me.
I vetoed iPhoto long ago but am now interested in trying it out & testing it against Picasa. However, I have a fairly large photo library that I keep on NAS, and definitely want to keep it there. Basically the research I've been doing has scared me, with all the horror stories about mixed libraries and the dangers of referenced libraries (which is what I was thinking would probably be the way to go), so now I'm a bit frozen.
My photos are currently folder-organized, mostly by date, but the level above date is by major categories (such as child's name, etc). I realize the date organization becomes redundant if I migrated to iPhoto, and even the categories seem redundant too if I can tag them all instead, etc.
The Picasa part was pretty easy, since I can just point it to the externally stored library and it does the rest, not moving anything. That part of Picasa is brilliant and makes a strong argument for going that route. My big hangup with it is the lack of nested collections - particularly in the web environment. The organizational aspects of Picasa seem a bit lackluster - and iPhoto sounds to be pretty good at that.
But with iPhoto, I'm having trouble deciding how to structure things and get started. I've read up on moving an existing iPhoto library to an external drive, but my impression is that to achieve what I'm trying to, I would need to import the entire library into local iPhoto library FIRST, then go backwards and migrate that iPhoto libary back onto NAS - which would then be a duplicate of the entire library since I'd be leaving the original intact to continue using with Picasa. Is that indeed the way to do it? I'm a little worried about ending up with an undifferentiated mass of 50+ Gigs of pics in iPhoto that i'd then need to go thru individually to tag (a monstrous task), as opposed to, say, having the names of folders turned into tags on all the pics within those folders (wishful thinking?).
To complete the picture of my situation for whoever may be kind enough to read all this, we have an iMac & a MBP, and would love to be able to share the NAS library on our respective iPhotos, and be able to keep "sync'd" up to what the other has done. From reading around it seems this is a little trickier, and the stuff I've been seeing about speed issues with WiFi-connected NAS libraries is not making me any more comfortable.
I was somehow able to rig just this situation up for iTunes (the library for which is shared & kept on NAS), which works pretty good (although I'm now concerned that that is also a 'referenced library' and liable to the same horror stories and cautions as external referenced libraries for iPhoto - is it the same? - so far so good...).
I've seen Terence Devlin mention a few times about using 'external managed libraries' instead of referenced libraries, but I'm not sure how to do that. The other vague conclusion I've come to from reading around is that I should probably use iPhoto Library Manager to achieve my goals here, and although I'm aware of what IPLM does, I'm not totally clear about how I would use it most effectively in my situation.
Whew - sorry for such a long rambling 'question'! This has probably been addressed elsewhere in the boards, but I've been reading for hours and can only get glimpses into a possible strategy for my situation - I thought just asking might nip it in the bud.
THANKS!

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
A long question with, I'm afraid, a short answer.
a fairly large photo library that I keep on NAS, and definitely want to keep it there.
Stick with what you have. iPhoto needs to have the Library sitting on disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Users with the Library sitting on disks otherwise formatted regularly report issues including, but not limited to, importing, saving edits and sharing the photos. That pretty much rules out having a Managed Library on that NAS.
In some more detail:
My photos are currently folder-organized, mostly by date, but the level above date is by major categories (such as child's name, etc). I realize the date organization becomes redundant if I migrated to iPhoto, and even the categories seem redundant too if I can tag them all instead, etc.
Here's a fast way to tag them:
Start at the bottom of your Folder hierarchy and drag a folder of images to the Album Heading in the iPhoto Window. iPhoto will import the pics and make an Album of the same name as the Folder. Now: Want to tag all those pics with the same keyword: Select all (Command - a) and apply the keyword.
You can work through your images quite fast in this way.
Alternatively, use an app like Keyword Manager which has Nested Tags as a feature. So, for instance, you can set a hierarchy: John is your Son so tagging 'John' will also add a 'Family' tag and so on. In my case I have tags like 'Seattle' that add 'Washington State' 'U.S' and 'Travel' to the pics. WIth auto completion all I have to type is Sea...
but my impression is that to achieve what I'm trying to, I would need to import the entire library into local iPhoto library FIRST, then go backwards and migrate that iPhoto libary back onto NAS
No, all you need to di is start a Library, then move it to an appropriately formatted disk. You don't need to complete the Library first.
we have an iMac & a MBP, and would love to be able to share the NAS library on our respective iPhotos, and be able to keep "sync'd" up to what the other has done.
Again, noting that the NAS is not the way to go here, you can simply enable iPhoto Sharing or use the same Library with both machines - very easy.
I know that these a pretty short answers, and by all means post back if we can be more helpful.
Regards
TD

Do I need to get rid of iPhoto for storing/accessing photos on wifi network?

My wife is a food blogger and takes 1000s of pictures a week. Our iPhoto library is close to 400gbs. I just converted her MacBook to an SSD to improve performance and the plan is to just store the most recent month's photos on the MacBook and put the rest on an NAS. We previously tried a USB hard drive to do this and it was much too frustrating for 2 reasons. One, we back up everything via crashplan so it was a pain to always make sure it was plugged into her MB as she would carry it around from the office, living room, kitchen, etc. We also have 3 young boys so portable hard drives plugged into a laptop that is always at arms reach is a recipe for disaster. (Already had one ruined because of that) So we need some sort of wireless option. We understand it may be slower, but we won't access those files very often so it's not a huge deal. Everything I've read about various NASs (Synology, My Cloud, etc.) all say they don't work too well with IPhoto/Apeture. (Currently use iPhoto) So any recommendations on better options? I want something fairly simple for her. What about transitioning to Lightroom or non-Apple to allow easier remote storage and access? Anyone have any success with wireless remote storage/access of iPhoto?
Thanks!

Again -- what you are doing will not work
but again
You do what you want - but at your own risk
You ask - you have gotten the same answer multiple times - you now choose what you are going to do in spite of the advice - If you had your mind made up and were going to do what you wanted no matter what why did you bother to ask?
LN

Windows 8.1 Photos app doesn't display photos from Home Server V1 network drive

I have my photos stored on a Home Server V1 network drive (\\homeserver\photos) and I have added the drive to the Pictures library. When I open the library in desktop Explorer I can see all the photos
and my Photos live tile shows photos from the network drive. When I open the Photos app I can see all the folders. However, when I open a folder I get the message 'There are no files or folders in this view.'
Any help is appreciated.
I am running Windows 8.1 with the latest updates.

Adding another voice to this - I hit exactly the same issue myself yesterday. I haven't got the device with me now, but as the original poster says:
I have \\server\photos mapped to my p:\ drive in Windows 8.1, and this is in my pictures library.
The p:\ drive has many (100s) subfolders, which I can browse using Windows explorer and desktop apps like Picasa.
When I start the "photos" app, I see all my folders (each with a thumbnail picture), but when I click into a folder I just get the "There are no files or folders in this view".
It's probably worth saying that as this is Home Server v1, I had a bit of fun and games to get permissions right to access the share:
I log into Windows 8.1 (on a Surface Pro 3) using my Microsoft account
I've mapped the home server photo drive to "P:\" on my SP3; when I did this I provided the admin user ID and password for the home server and told windows to remember the credentials.
I added p:\ to my pictures library in Windows 8.1 on the SP3.
FWIW - I use a similar mechanism to add music from my home server to my music library, but the XBox Music app seems to be able to see individual tracks OK.
Any ideas?

Using Front Row to view photos stored on a network drive.

Good evening.
I am setting up all my files on a network drive. I've got Front Row "seeing" my movies on the drive and my music too.
What I'm looking to do is have it "see" my photos. Here is what I would like to do if possible:
I have my photos on the network drive in a Photo directory. In this directory are several sub-directories listing events, i.e., Xmas 2005, Weddings, etc.. How do I get iPhoto to get these photos and keep them in the same directory structure that I have set up so I can choose which photos to veiw? Also, as I add more photos to the network drive, how can I get iPhoto to automatically bring them in with no intervention (similar to the way new movies show up in the Movie Alias folder when they are added to the network drive).
Thanks.

Well you can partially do what you want. In iPhoto there is now an option to not copy photos into it so it will just generate links to the originals instead when you drag that photo folder into iPhoto.
However, there is no support for automatically detecting/adding new content.
One option would be to create an automator workflow that would add a photo to iPhoto and create a watch folder on each subfolder in your Photos directory. When new photos are dragged into that folder, the automator workflow would get launched with the input being the photos in question. Then the workflow would add the new photos to iPhoto and you'd be all set...

View Photos over Network

I'd like to view photos on an HDTV with good quality at 1920x1080. Can anyone help me implement the following idea?
I have a desktop and laptop both running Vista and PSE 5 and they are connected over a wired network. The HDTV is connected to the laptop as a second monitor. About 15000 photos are on the desktop and cataloged in the Organizer.
I would like to open selected (using tags, collections, etc.) photos on the laptop running PSE using "View Photos in Full Screen" so I can zoom and move around the photos on the HDTV.
Is there a way to have the PSE catalog on the laptop "look" for photos on a mapped network drive that is on the desktop?
Obviously, the procedure cannot alter the catalog on the desktop so I don't lose photos, tags, etc.
I have used a similar, but piecemeal, procedure where I exported, say, all photos in a collection to the laptop. I then showed the photos on the HDTV using "View Photos in Full Screen" and it has better image quality than a slide show plus I am able to zoom, etc. I am not concerned with the "production" qualities, such as music, slide transitions, etc. But I would like to be able to do this for all 15000 photos over my network without copying.
Can you forsee any performance bottlenecks like network speed, laptop RAM/CPU, VGA vs. HDMI connection to the HDTV, etc.
Any ideas?

Hi Jeffree,
does this happen on both computers?
Unfortunately, several posters to these discussions have had that problem and so far I can't find any definite answers or rhyme or reason to it.
You can try rebuilding both the libraries.
You can try just sharing some of the albums instead of the entire library.
I have an iMac with 512 memory and iBook with 640.
They are wirelessly networked with a older NetGear router. I can share just fine with both computers, so I don't think it is a memory problem.
Could it be a signal problem? How far are the computers from each other when sharing?
Lori

LR photos, network storage and Windows Home Server photo sharing?

I'm trying to integrate my photos, now on a local desktop hard drive into my new Window Home Server network and Lightroom.
I've read up on network storage and LR. I do have a question about photo sharing through Windows Home Server. WHS has a Photos folder for sharing photos over the network. I'm assuming that I should store LR related photos in another folder (I know about the catalog having to be on the local computer where LR resides) and then copy photos to be shared to the Photos folder?
I'm also wondering about the utility of having LR photos on the network storage and only accessing them through the local computer vs having photos on the local computer and having copies on the network.
I'd appreciate hearing from anyone about how they have organized LR, WHS and network storage.

See this FAQ:
http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshopelements-6-7-faq.htm#_Storing_the_catalog

Photos on a network

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for