LR - One Master Catalog or Multiple

I have run one master catalog for many years but after watching many experts on the subject they all recommend a catalog for each shoot.

I know you can't search for keywords across multiple catalogs but they say at at some point you master will get corrupt so its better to have multiples.

Plus I now have a program that manages clients with a link to the individual catalog in question.

So I am sure anymore which way is best and safer?

I don't know which is better. I have watched a number of videos lately from "experts" that claim a single master catalog is all you need.

Personally, I start a new catalog each year.

I don't think there is a right or wrong or best or safer way. Just whatever works for you.

Yes that might be a good idea one per year, wedding photogs tend to have a catalog for each wedding they do?

So maybe once a year might be the way to go

I have one catalog, ~50k photos to date.

That being said, I'm not a professional/"working" photographer with shoots that are client/job-specific. My shoots are particular to a day or a topic, but I use collections as well as my file system to break things up by year (and then the date/subject of a shoot). I also have keywords that will deliver photos from all my years of shooting of a given subject/person/place/t​hing!

So, with my one open catalog I have all my photos right there at my fingertips. I don't care to re-open Lightroom to different catalogs!

Well as it gets larger and larger in size, it will begin to bog down your computer. My train of thought is to create a new catalog for each shoot. Up until a few days ago, I would just delete each of my catalogs as I was done editing the photos, but now I realized I should keep them. So I just re-imported all my shoots back into separate catalogs. Your CPU will thank you in the long run.

I have 3 to keep things separate, photos the kids take with their cameras, my regular photos, and my studio work. I just don't want the others to show up in my general catalog.

The catalog files are small, my main has some 45k photos cataloged and is only 431.8 MB on disk. It'll never bog down your computer, it doesn't load the images along with the location info.

I can see wedding photogs having one for each wedding and then moving them to storage when done, maybe keeping portfolio keepers etc in an other catalog, but for general use there's no reason. And since you can't switch on the fly, LR always has to shut down, it's just a nuisance to deal with more IMO.

I thought about going by year, but even that really makes no sense and considering the xmas/NYE holidays, I'd end up with some photos of that here, some there. I guess one could switch at the end of some slow period, but why bother. If I'd move them off the computer into a closet or safe (like maybe wedding and event photogs do after a while?) I can see the point, but if you have all photos accessible all the time, keep them in one.

I don't know what experts suggest to have many catalogs, Martin Evening suggests one and I believe Kelby does too, though I don't have his books.

ETA: if you have a large catalog, you can optimize it (which I guess cleans things up neatly) right under the file menu. Back it up first just to be sure.

and this from Adobe:


How many photos can I have in a catalog?

There is no specific maximum number of photos you can store in a Lightroom catalog. If your catalog grows large and you notice Lightroom slowing, see Optimize Performance for suggestions on how to speed it up.


found here: http://helpx.adobe.com …atalog-faq-lightroom.html, where that Optimize Performance leads to this link: http://helpx.adobe.com …erformance-lightroom.html

One catalog will probably do me for as long as I need it. Four years of DSLR use, plus a few odds and ends from the P&S and film days before that, and I'm only at a bit over 4500 images. To be honest some of those could be culled, but I tend to hate to cut anything that I might find a use for one day. I'm not a professional, nor am I a prolific hobbyist. I can go for 3 or 4 days without even touching my camera. Just depends on what I feel like doing.

One catalog for me as I want to be able to search through older images by keyword and quite often go back and rework older shots as my skills develop.

I have one main catalog that includes shots going back to 07 (~70k shots?) but clearly defined projects, or shoots are easier to deal with in dedicated cats. Develop, export, publish presets, etc are easier to manage that way. Having a good set of smart collections is essential to keeping everything under controi!

picworx wrote in post #16918370
I have run one master catalog for many years but after watching many experts on the subject they all recommend a catalog for each shoot.

Really? I've never seen any 'expert' that I hold in high regard recommend using multiple catalogs. There is nothing that you can do using that method that you cannot do just as well by using collections. And there are loads of things you cannot do with multiple catalogs.

I don't suppose there is a right or wrong way to do it. It's a matter of preference. For my prererence, I'd rather use a separate catalog for each shoot, especially since I copy my originals into a sub folder within the catalog. Some people do that and others don't, but I would highly recommend that if you do copy of originals into a sub folder within the catalog, that you do use a separate catalog for each shoot since it easly can reach over 100 gb fast. But what works for some may not work for others. I have watched the SR Lounge videos on LR and they suggest using separate catalogs for each shoot, but it's just that, a suggestion.

You should just use what method that you think will work best for you.

rdwalton wrote in post #16919433
I don't suppose there is a right or wrong way to do it. It's a matter of preference. For my prererence, I'd rather use a separate catalog for each shoot, especially since I copy my originals into a sub folder within the catalog. Some people do that and others don't, but I would highly recommend that if you do copy of originals into a sub folder within the catalog, that you do use a separate catalog for each shoot since it easly can reach over 100 gb fast. But what works for some may not work for others. I have watched the SR Lounge videos on LR and they suggest using separate catalogs for each shoot, but it's just that, a suggestion.

You should just use what method that you think will work best for you.

I'm not clear as to what you are saying here.

When you suggest you "copy my originals into a sub folder within the catalog", well, that's what I do, as I Import the photos into my one catalog, and so the Catalog shows those photos in their own folder. What are you saying is the improvement by importing them into both separate folders as well as separate catalogs?

The one reason I could see for doing this is if these were "professional" shoots that you did whatever processing you did, exported them for clients, and then moved on, either deleting the shoot catalog or else just "archiving" it, but not keeping it as part of your "working collection" of shoots.

If that's the case, you could make it clear that this is a "job". And then, what do you do with your "personal" photo collection?

tonylong wrote in post #16919478
I'm not clear as to what you are saying here.

When you suggest you "copy my originals into a sub folder within the catalog", well, that's what I do, as I Import the photos into my one catalog, and so the Catalog shows those photos in their own folder. What are you saying is the improvement by importing them into both separate folders as well as separate catalogs?

The one reason I could see for doing this is if these were "professional" shoots that you did whatever processing you did, exported them for clients, and then moved on, either deleting the shoot catalog or else just "archiving" it, but not keeping it as part of your "working collection" of shoots.

If that's the case, you could make it clear that this is a "job". And then, what do you do with your "personal" photo collection?

No, I'm saying that I copy the RAW files into a sub folder within the catalog. The original RAW files don't automatically copy into the catalog on import.

I have one master on a separate hard drive and subfolders per year.

Every wedding gets it's own catalog for me. The reason is because I NEVER perform queries for keywords that would include images from different shoots. Given that, having to look at all of my other shoots and work with a file that contains them makes no sense.

Personal work has a more complex arrangement: I have what I call an 'era', which lasts every few years. Every 'era' has it's own catalog. I have to admit, it's not ideal, because there are in fact queries I would perform that would return images from different personal catalogs.