Help w/ iPhoto/Aperture Library.

[Robdmb]

I have an iMac and my wife and I both have separate logins. I would like to set up an iphoto library that is shared between both users. Specifically, I have an external firewire drive that I use for backup and thought of potentially moving the library to this drive so it could be shared. A few questions:

1. Can the library be shared between users on an external drive?

2. Do I have to create a separate partition on the external drive - it is used fo time machine currently.

3. Would photostream still work in iPhoto if we share a library - my wife and I currently have separate iCloud accounts.

Thanks.

 

[glenthompson]

Better to share the iPhoto library on the internal drive so it's backed up to the external. Use the Shared user under users. Verify that the permissions are set correctly.

Unless you have a very fast USB3 drive, I think you will find using it for the library will be slow. In addition, how did you plan to backup up the library if it's on your backup drive.

Not sure about Photostream in this situation.

 

[flynz4]

I am not sure how important your photos are to you... but keep in mind that iPhoto database is not really meant to be shared. For me, my photos are my single most important "digital asset"... and I have an allergic reaction to pushing myself into sharing (and potentially damaging) something in an unsupported manner.

My strong recommendation is just to have one "master instance" of your library and have one person own that library. Then occasionally... copy the library to the other user account so that it can be viewed and used by whoever is not the "owner".

If you both need to be owners... and independently make permanent manipulations to the database... then my recommendation is to create a shared account (or one of you log into the other's account) to manipulate the single master library.

Personally... I wish that Aperture/iPhoto had the "equivalent" of iTunes Home Sharing... where a library can be shared and viewed/copied to another computer on the network. That would solve my needs. However, at this point in time... that is a wish list... so I keep the master copy of our library... and occasionally I'll copy it over to my wife's account.

/Jim