New to Surface Pro for Lightroom use questions

[kat.hayes]

I'm a long time Mac and iOS user and just got a Surface Pro 4 to import photos into Lightroom and be able to go through them, and to do some work in PhotoShop and Illustrator. My main computer is an iMac and I don't see that changing any time soon. I want to find a way to work between the two with the Surface being my mobile device that I always wanted my iPad to be. I will put my SD card into Surface, copy them to the desktop, go through them in Ljghtroom, and ultimately I will need to copy the folder with images to my main external hard drive that than gets imported into my main LR database.

1. Is there something like Airdrop that I can use to transfer files from the Surface to the iMac?
2. I think my external hard drive that I connect to my iMac is formatted for Mac Os and I wouldn't be able to directly connect it to the Surface. Is my only option to reformat this drive?
3. What is the built in Windows version of Time Machine?
4. Any general advice or workflow advice based on what I'm trying to do?

Thanks!

 

[FX120]

1: You could use a cloud service like Google Drive or onedrive, or you could just share your library directory in Windows, then open up the shared folder on your Mac and copy your files over. Unlike the iPad, the surface has an user accessible file system so there isn't really much need for something like Airdrop.

2: There are applications for Windows that will let you read and write to a hfs+ formatted drive. See http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-ways-read-mac-formatted-drive-windows/

3: Windows has several backup utilities, previous versions can show you older versions of files, backup and restore will let you schedule periodic full system backups to an external drive or network share.

4: Its been a while since I've used lightroom, but consider setting up a shared directory from the surface, and using that as a working library from your iMac, with regular backups of this directory to an external drive or cloud service. The only downside to this is that your surface must be present/ on when you're working from your iMac on files you imported on your surface.

 

[kat.hayes]

1. Do you mean I can make a folder on the surface that can be shared with any computer on the network, including with Macs?

2. Where are the built in backup utilities?

 

[FX120]

1. Do you mean I can make a folder on the surface that can be shared with any computer on the network, including with Macs?

2. Where are the built in backup utilities?

Yep, windows shares can be opened on your Mac. In Windows, just right click on the folder you want to share, select properties, then click on the sharing tab. On this tab, press the 'Share...' button, it will ask you to select what users you want to be able to access the share, then click the "Share" button to share this folder on the network. On your Mac, just follow this guide: http://guides.macrumors.com/Networking_Windows_with_Mac_OS_X

For backup settings in Windows 10, go to the new control panel (start menu > gear icon), and then select 'Update & Security'. In the left hand pane, there will be a button with a little upwards pointing arrow called 'Backup'. Select the drive you want to back up your files to, then select folders you want to exclude from the backup, as well as the other settings for backup frequency, how long to keep the backup, ect...

 

[RandomKamikaze]

If this were my workflow I'd create the share on the iMac and then connect to it fom the Surface and copy the files over when my work was done.

I have formatted my flash/portable drives as exFAT as this format can move between OS X and Windows seamlessly just like FAT32 but without the 4GB file limit. exFAT works with both Operating Systems without any additional configuration, drivers or work.

With backup I just didn't like the built-in software. This is good: http://www.todo-backup.com/home/

 

[maflynn]

I recommend onedrive, GoogleDrive or DropBox and use those application's automatic syncing to keep and synchronize your images from one computer to another.