# Does Lightroom Make NAS Applications like Photostation Unusable?



## jackjohn777 (Oct 19, 2015)

Apologies in advance if this doesn't make much sense. I've tried to explain it as best I can

My LR catalogue is stored on my mac, but all my photos are stored on my Network Attached Storage (NAS) device (Synology Diskstation). 

My NAS device has an application called Photostation on it, which organises/present all the photo files saved on the device, and offers the capability for the owner/users to give their friends and family access to whichever photos or albums they want via e.g. sending them a link to give direct access to an image or album, or by registering them as a type of user, and allowing them to sign in to the device remotely whenever they want to simply view whichever photos have been given security access to. However given I always shoot in RAW then all that will be sitting on my NAS device are DNG files, and therefore since all the processing work I do in Lightroom won't be visible (including any virtual copies I then work on) does this mean that Lightroom users can't utilise applications like Photostation and devices they've bought like the Synology Diskstation to their maximum potential, or is there a way that all the Lightroom updates can be visible on the NAS device when a user views the photo files you're storing? 

Basically I want people to be able to remotely see the finished version of all my public photos rather than just a preview of the raw file, and I don't want to have to duplicate all the images I'm storing by exporting those I've worked on as e.g. jpegs and putting them on the NAS alongside their RAW version. This would be time consuming and take up a lot more space. I also want my partner to be able to easily look through all the family photos I've been taking (including all the ones I may have already processed/adjusted using LR) on the NAS from her own computer whenever she wants to, but maybe this simply isn't possible given my workflow.

Sorry if this is more of a Synology NAS question, but I thought I'd try asking here as it seems to be the way Lightroom works non-destrutively that's causing me the problem, rather than the way the NAS works, given that obviously the latter just displays whatever files you save on it. 

If what I'd ideally like isn't possible, and I suspect it isn't, then any alternative solutions that would give me what I'm after would be gratefully received. 

Thanks in advance.


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## clee01l (Oct 20, 2015)

You'll need the CC version of LR to access the Lightroom Mobile site. Any collections that you choose to sync with Lightroom Mobile will be stored on Adobe's Creative cloud service,  Those collections that you choose to share to the Public can be viewed by anyone that you provide the link to.   Here are some photos that I shot Saturday http://adobe.ly/1RORihA and made public.

If your original images are stored on the NAS, they will not have the LR adjustments applied.  You have to export to publish the images to get a derivative image file that has the edits applied. If you want to use Photostation, you will have to create and export/Publish the files containing the changes and let PhotoStation have access to these.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 20, 2015)

Just a thought....I don't know how Photostation works in regards to DNG files, but assuming it does "read" them I imagine it will only be by showing the embedded preview (i.e. it isn't going to be doing a raw conversion of the actual file, right?). In which case you could, in Lightroom, select all the DNG files that you want to share and use the Library menu bar option Metadata>Update DNG Preview & Metadata. As it suggests, Lightroom will then update the embedded DNG preview to incorporate your edits, which your partner should then be able to see. 

It won't work for VCs however, as there's no physical file so not only will Lightroom be unable to update them, Photostation won't even see them.


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## jackjohn777 (Oct 20, 2015)

Jim Wilde said:


> Just a thought....I don't know how Photostation works in regards to DNG files, but assuming it does "read" them I imagine it will only be by showing the embedded preview (i.e. it isn't going to be doing a raw conversion of the actual file, right?). In which case you could, in Lightroom, select all the DNG files that you want to share and use the Library menu bar option Metadata>Update DNG Preview & Metadata. As it suggests, Lightroom will then update the embedded DNG preview to incorporate your edits, which your partner should then be able to see.
> 
> It won't work for VCs however, as there's no physical file so not only will Lightroom be unable to update them, Photostation won't even see them.




Thanks guys.

Jim - You are absolutely right, Photostation does show the embedded. Your idea sounds great, and I can live with the virtual copies being missing for now. However the query I have is around the impact of selecting the option you suggest. I wouldn't want to sort through 10,000 photos and growing to pick out the ones I want to select the option for and those that I don't, so if I simply kept this option permanently selected for all photos in the catalogue (or updated them all), then does this cause any potential issue for me either now or going forward? Does it hugely increase the file size and considering the volume of photos then this could be very significant? Is it always reversible? Basically is there any reason not to do it? Is their a reason it isn't selected as default if you can simply switch back to the RAW preview whenever you want?


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 20, 2015)

To be honest, not being a DNG convert, I really don't know the answer to your questions. I have a feeling it's not like having "Autowrite XMP" enabled, meaning that the preview won't get automatically updated should you make further edits, which means you'd have to remember to run that command again. I'll try to find the time to do some research, but maybe a DNG user (such as Victoria or John Beardsworth) will drop by with the answers.

To be honest, a more streamlined method might be to use Publish Services, i.e. create a publish collection or collections of just the images you want to share, publishing the jpegs to the NAS for sharing. Every time you do further edits it should be a simple matter of clicking on the Publish button and only the edited images will be re-published.


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## jackjohn777 (Oct 20, 2015)

Jim Wilde said:


> To be honest, not being a DNG convert, I really don't know the answer to your questions. I have a feeling it's not like having "Autowrite XMP" enabled, meaning that the preview won't get automatically updated should you make further edits, which means you'd have to remember to run that command again. I'll try to find the time to do some research, but maybe a DNG user (such as Victoria or John Beardsworth) will drop by with the answers.
> 
> To be honest, a more streamlined method might be to use Publish Services, i.e. create a publish collection or collections of just the images you want to share, publishing the jpegs to the NAS for sharing. Every time you do further edits it should be a simple matter of clicking on the Publish button and only the edited images will be re-published.



Thanks Jim, I'll wait and see if anyone else comes by or your research proves successful. I'm not sure the Publish Services option will cover my needs, because for example one need is that my partner can flick through every single image I've have ever taken or recently taken (they're usually of our family), whether the images have been edited or not (Importantly I do want her to see any I have edited at this pt though instead of the unedited version), without me having to hand her my laptop. I assume the Publish Service option would mean to do this I'd have to create a collection that is my entire catalogue and if I've understood correctly then export those circa 10,000 images in the collection to the NAS as jpegs (despite all the unedited raw files already sitting on the NAS) which would then take up a lot of extra space to meet a relatively basic requirement, and get quite messy. This is also without then getting in to giving e.g. parents access to only particular sets of photos. Essentially what I need is exactly what Photostation of the Synology NAS offers, it's just the fact that the LR edits aren't showing on the preview of the NAS DNG file that is stopping things, so hopefully your original suggestion will deliver what I need when those questions above are answered. 

Thanks for all your efforts and advice.


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## clee01l (Oct 20, 2015)

jackjohn777 said:


> ... it's just the fact that the LR edits aren't showing on the preview of the NAS DNG file that is stopping things...


In the Library (on version 6.x at least) there is a submenu item on the Metadata menu described as "Update DNG Previews and metadata".  Do you have and have you tried this option?


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## poseidon (Oct 21, 2015)

what about exporting finished work as jpg to the diskstation? that's how I solved it for me...


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## clee01l (Oct 21, 2015)

poseidon said:


> what about exporting finished work as jpg to the diskstation? that's how I solved it for me...


I suggested that in my initial reply.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 21, 2015)

jackjohn777 said:


> Thanks Jim, I'll wait and see if anyone else comes by or your research proves successful. I'm not sure the Publish Services option will cover my needs, because for example one need is that my partner can flick through every single image I've have ever taken or recently taken (they're usually of our family), whether the images have been edited or not (Importantly I do want her to see any I have edited at this pt though instead of the unedited version), without me having to hand her my laptop. I assume the Publish Service option would mean to do this I'd have to create a collection that is my entire catalogue and if I've understood correctly then export those circa 10,000 images in the collection to the NAS as jpegs (despite all the unedited raw files already sitting on the NAS) which would then take up a lot of extra space to meet a relatively basic requirement, and get quite messy. This is also without then getting in to giving e.g. parents access to only particular sets of photos. Essentially what I need is exactly what Photostation of the Synology NAS offers, it's just the fact that the LR edits aren't showing on the preview of the NAS DNG file that is stopping things, so hopefully your original suggestion will deliver what I need when those questions above are answered.
> 
> Thanks for all your efforts and advice.



In one of your earlier posts you said you wanted a more selective approach regarding which images to share, but now you say you want to share all of them? 

No matter, I think the ONLY way you can do what you want, i.e. use Photostation, is to update the DNG preview. How you manage that is something you'll need to figure out, in particular the ongoing update of the files that you edit as I don't believe there'll be an easy automated method (though you could use a Smart Collection to show, e.g. files edited in the last month, and update the DNG preview just for those files on a monthly basis). Something like that would maybe work. 

Personally, I'd still look at the Publish Services route.....even if you included all your images in a series of Publish Service collections (not all in one collection), you could keep the increase in disk space down below 25gb and still give your partner a good quality jpeg to look at. Once setup it becomes much easier to manage.


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## jackjohn777 (Oct 24, 2015)

poseidon said:


> what about exporting finished work as jpg to the diskstation? that's how I solved it for me...



Yes it would give one solution, but then one issue is I'd have 1000s of duplicate images on my NAS, which then has storage implications too, and there are a few other implications I'd prefer to avoid as well. I'd ideally like only one file per photo i.e. if it's not been edited then just the RAW preview and if it has been edited then the preview shows the LR edits, but as mentioned the catalogue is on my mac and the photo files are on the NAS, so probably not possible, and that would mean Photostation on the NAS would be useless to me which is a real shame as otherwise it gives everything I want re different users having different access to different photos remotely. 

Thanks anyway.


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## jackjohn777 (Oct 24, 2015)

Jim Wilde said:


> In one of your earlier posts you said you wanted a more selective approach regarding which images to share, but now you say you want to share all of them?
> 
> No matter, I think the ONLY way you can do what you want, i.e. use Photostation, is to update the DNG preview. How you manage that is something you'll need to figure out, in particular the ongoing update of the files that you edit as I don't believe there'll be an easy automated method (though you could use a Smart Collection to show, e.g. files edited in the last month, and update the DNG preview just for those files on a monthly basis). Something like that would maybe work.
> 
> Personally, I'd still look at the Publish Services route.....even if you included all your images in a series of Publish Service collections (not all in one collection), you could keep the increase in disk space down below 25gb and still give your partner a good quality jpeg to look at. Once setup it becomes much easier to manage.




_______________

Sorry for my delayed reaction to the responses Jim, but I did explain the different needs in my original post (covering some having remote access to a selection of photos or an album(s) or in the case of my wife all photos, and again mentioned that one need re all photos for my wife in a later post, but as you say no matter.

I think Clee01 saying 'In the Library (on version 6.x at least) there is a submenu item on the Metadata menu described as "Update DNG Previews and metadata". Do you have and have you tried this option?' sounds promising, although I'm using LR4, so I'll have to see if that's even an option for me. 

Thanks anyway.


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## jackjohn777 (Oct 24, 2015)

clee01l said:


> In the Library (on version 6.x at least) there is a submenu item on the Metadata menu described as "Update DNG Previews and metadata".  Do you have and have you tried this option?



BINGO!! This worked perfectly!! Thanks ever so much Cletus. Now I just need to work out if this can happen as a default without me having to do it on every image manually or as a group update.

Actually one interesting side point is that although unsurprisingly you can only use this function for DNG files you've edited with LR, you can't do something similar to those images that were imported as e.g. jpegs from perhaps your iphone and are then edited i.e. for those files Photostation still shows the original file / preview as imported rather than the LR edited/improved version. I could just update the jpeg file in these cases, but I always like to have access to the original file, as it was taken just in case, and would rather not make duplicates of all these files.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 25, 2015)

jackjohn777 said:


> BINGO!! This worked perfectly!! Thanks ever so much Cletus.



Wow, why didn't I think of that?


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## flingo (Feb 20, 2016)

jackjohn777 said:


> Basically I want people to be able to remotely see the finished version of all my public photos rather than just a preview of the raw file


I started with that same scenario in mind when I entered the Lightroom world at beginning of 2015. 

Here is my answer to that question:
GitHub - flingo64/PhotoStation-Upload-Lr-Plugin: Photo StatLr (aka PhotoStation Upload) is a Lightroom Publish and Export Service Plugin that enable the export /publishing of photos and videos from Lr to a Synology Photo Station. It uploads the photos/videos and all required thumbnails. It can download comments and ratings and do a real two-way synch of various metadata (tags, ratings, labels).
I worked on it the last 12 month and pretty happy with it now.


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## Hoggy (Feb 25, 2016)

jackjohn777 said:


> Actually one interesting side point is that although unsurprisingly you can only use this function for DNG files you've edited with LR, you can't do something similar to those images that were imported as e.g. jpegs from perhaps your iphone and are then edited i.e. for those files Photostation still shows the original file / preview as imported rather than the LR edited/improved version. I could just update the jpeg file in these cases, but I always like to have access to the original file, as it was taken just in case, and would rather not make duplicates of all these files.



Although you might want to check out Flingo's plugin option, it *IS* possible to convert JPG and single-layered TIFF files to DNG..  In which case the DNG preview possibility becomes available for them as well.  As a bonus, those files will also get DNG's file-verification 'protection'.  The only downside is that they'll be a bit bigger - at least in the case for the converted JPG's (I think _TIFF_ might turn out to be smaller, but I'm not certain about that).

I actually converted all my [old] JPG's to DNG just for that file-verification bit alone.  The original *image data* will still remain untouched.  But you may want to (or not) offload the real original JPG's to Blu-Ray disks or something if your concerned about that.

Also of note about the "Update DNG preview and Metadata" option:  it takes its cue from the settings in preferences/file handling at the time of issuing that command..  So you may want to verify that they're set correctly for the preview size you might want them to have (likely 'full size' in your case).

As far as I know, though, it's not possible to have LR do that preview updating automatically..  Maybe Victoria or somebody knows of a way to do that..  But you might have to go with Jim's idea of smart collections for that.


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