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Unless a recent Photoshop Lightroom version allows you to manage the photos outside of its library-database, it isn't. At least version 1 & 2 copied all files to an SQL database/hidden directory in the users folder.

Windows (Live) Photogallery is much better in this regard, as it indexes the files but keep the files were the are stored. Also all metadata changes are stored back to the file itself. The same goes for Windows Explorer and OSX Finder+Spotlight.

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LR doesn't have true multi-user, but numerous solutions exist that are pretty seamless for handling multiple systems using the same database.

I have my LR catalog on Dropbox, and all of my photos on an AFS share on FreeNAS, which isn't always available (I have a VPN to home, but it depends on the speed of my connectivity). I generate 1:1 previews and don't expire them, so I can use LR with the same settings and edits on both my iMac and MBP. The only issue is having LR running on both, at once.

See: http://johnny.chadda.se/sync-your-lightroom-catalog-using-dr... (and many others).

That's not true at all. Lightroom can add photos at their current location, or import them to a location of your choice. There's no "hidden directory".

Lightroom supports sidecar (xml) changes, or syncing metadata to the files. Your choice.

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