Lightroom Library/Catalog

Okay,

Am I doing this right?

I have ALL the images on my hard disk in one single catalog, in Lightroom.

As I add more an more, should I really have them in seperate catalog's? For example, say I do Mark & Sophie's (mad up names!) wedding. Would you import them in with your exsisting catalog, or create a new catalog just for them?

What's best practice?

It just seems there is (harking back to PhotoShop) 3 or more ways to organise your images... wasnt LR set-up to be a simple solution for photog's?

I will always have a single catalog and import new images into it until a) LR tells me its too big or b) LR allows multiple open catalogs.

With the current limitation I could only see benefit in multiple catalogs from someone who would never need to look across them (eg a Wedding Photog whop only needed to access images from one particular wedding at a time?)

For me, DAM is pointless unless it's for ALL your images. And LR is supposed to be an e2e DAM application.

EOSAddict wrote in post #3473097
With the current limitation I could only see benefit in multiple catalogs from someone who would never need to look across them (eg a Wedding Photog whop only needed to access images from one particular wedding at a time?)

Nail. Head.

That's probably what I'll do... keep my catalog for 'my' pictures, and a seperate catalog for each subsequent wedding, to keep the catalog free of bumf.

I think that Adobe plan to incorporate the ability to open multiple catalogs at a future date.... the only issue is the size of the .lrcat file as the number of images grows. I have 10k images and the file is 120MB

Yeah I wasn't quite sure as to its use either, I currently organize my photos separate of lightroom and import them at their location so when accessing photos I just use the folders their in through the library. The only exception to that would be the quick collection which I use for keeping a running tab of my favorites.

I import all images into LR off the CF card and manage all my workflow within LR using colllections. Still in the experimental stage but iut seems to work. I like I can now do packages of work on my laptop using Catalog import/export.

Like I'm away this week so have laptop with me and intend sorting out all my kewords.

Yeah that is the one thing that intrigued me about them, When I'm away I post on the laptop and I either need to export to a thumb drive or something to bring them over, In some cases I have very different photos on the laptop over the PC which hinders things sometimes.

Vitruvius wrote in post #3473957
Yeah that is the one thing that intrigued me about them, When I'm away I post on the laptop and I either need to export to a thumb drive or something to bring them over, In some cases I have very different photos on the laptop over the PC which hinders things sometimes.

I think I have worked out the best way to deal with this. I have exported a baseline catalog of ALL my images to my laptop (excluding the original negatives) and then all I need to do is import/export any changed images... this should keep them synchronised. Then, If I bring any new images in on my laptop all I need do is export just those with the negative files back to the Master catalog on my PC.

I keep one master catalog of all my images... the nice thing with 1.1, is you can now select a subset and export as its own catalog, which is sweet for pros (which I am NOT, BTW)...

Example:

If I just shot a wedding, I import them into my master catalog and tag them. I then export those images to their own catalog "Jon and Judy's Wedding".

For that catalog, I could then setup a fancy identity plate with client's names. If clients ever come in to review their images, or even later, to request reprints, I could bring up their personalized catalog with just their images, and a professional looking interface to boot!

(I might then even archive that catalog, and its images to DVD for filing away.)

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #3474577
For that catalog, I could then setup a fancy identity plate with client's names.

One thing I've noticed with catalogs is that some things are common to all, like presets but some things are unique -- just like identity plate.

I have 2 catalogs at the moment, the main one, and a test one. I wanted each to have it's own and distinct look/feel. The test is a play area for ballsing things up, breaking things and generally making a mess and learning from it in the process. I set up an identity plate for it, set some preferences including panel end markers and various settings. I also deleted some keyword sets and one of my copyright presets.

Back in my main catalog all the preferences changed, the keyword sets were also missing as was the copyright preset. But the identity plate didn't change (i.e. the one I had set up for the main catalog before). Note that identity plate is not part of Catalog Settings menu item.

So there are pros and cons but I think for the most part many people will have just one main catalog for the bulk of their pictures.

this thread hasn't been posted to in 7 years, but figured it was as good a place as any...i'm looking for some advice on how best to manage my catalog.


i am migrating from a jumble of hard drives (both internal and external), to a Drobo-based storage solution.

should i just nuke all of the existing file location/catalog stuff, and start from scratch by importing all my files to LR from the Drobo?

or is there a better solution?


maybe this is a good time to upgrade to LR5.

I've just started learning Lightroom but my suggestion would be to have Lightroom move the files to the Drobo so you can maintain any edits you've made as well as keywords, flags, etc.

I separate each individual session/wedding etc into their own category in LR, when I'm done with the editing and ready to export I export the catalog too into the same folder then back up everything on an external. This way if I happen to crash my computer or even want to work on another computer the entire catalog is there with all the edits if I want or need to make changes or export a different size etc

narlus wrote in post #16832597
this thread hasn't been posted to in 7 years, but figured it was as good a place as any...

Wow... this is an old post... didn't even realize I've been using LR for 7 years now.

(Starting a new thread might keep some confusion down to visitors of the thread... esp as some of our suggestions and methods from years ago may have changed... plus I'm not sure if all the references to separate catalogs for Weddings really applies here.)

In any case... I'll second DGStinner's suggestion to have LR move the files to the Drobo (for exact reasons he mentioned.)

triciatakespics wrote in post #16832631
I separate each individual session/wedding etc into their own category in LR, when I'm done with the editing and ready to export I export the catalog too into the same folder then back up everything on an external. This way if I happen to crash my computer or even want to work on another computer the entire catalog is there with all the edits if I want or need to make changes or export a different size etc

This approach (using separate catalogs for different "sessions" (such as weddings) is pretty common for those doing "professional" work, but as has been noted for those of us doing "personal" work which involves many outings in various "fields", having one catalog serves us quite well, without having to guess and search for our various images.

Lightroom Collections and keywords are designed to make images and shoots easy to locate, all within your one catalog!

And, as has been said, you can use Lightroom to move your images from one drive to another, all while using your "master" catalog to keep track of things!