Lightroom Question

[Berter]

can you have multiple lr catalogs stored in the same folder or do they have to have their own individual folder?

 

[Mully]

You will have far less problems in LR if you only have one catalog for everything. Back up everything.

 

[Berter]

catalog is getting to big, running slow. going to divide my work by genre but don't want to have to redo all of my presets and settings.

 

[Buckster]

How big is it? I'm not experiencing any troubles here:

 

[KmH]

You likely need to review/refine your LR preferences and some of the file management settings.

This issue comes up fairly regularly, and I've moved the thread to the forum where those threads that discuss the issue are.
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...estion-about-cleaning-out-my-lr4-catalog.html
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...60-question-about-lrprev-files-lightroom.html

Use Collections to sub-divide your catalog.

If you don't already have them, here are a couple of very helpful, inexpensive books:
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers, The

The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers

 

[Big Mike]

I believe you can have multiple catalog (files) in one folder.

I use multiple catalogs, but I have the catalog files in the same parent folder as the photos for that catalog. I really don't even bother much with where they are, when I switch from one to another, I just look under 'recent' in the file menu.

 

[kathyt]

I believe you can have multiple catalog (files) in one folder.

I use multiple catalogs, but I have the catalog files in the same parent folder as the photos for that catalog. I really don't even both much with where they are, when I switch from one to another, I just look under 'recent' in the file menu.

This is what I do. I have a catalog for client work and a catalog for personal stuff. It will slow you down when your catalog gets too big. You can also create catalogs for different years. It helps with keeping track of them.

 

[JacaRanda]

I believe you can have multiple catalog (files) in one folder.

I use multiple catalogs, but I have the catalog files in the same parent folder as the photos for that catalog. I really don't even bother much with where they are, when I switch from one to another, I just look under 'recent' in the file menu.

In addition to this, make sure your backup catalog is on a different drive if you have more than one.

Yes you can have mutliple catalogs in the same folder.

 

[KmH]

While you can indeed have multiple catalogs, Lightroom can only access 1 catalog at a time.

From the DAM book - The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers
Pages 332-333

Working with multiple catalogs in Lightroom is a tricky business, mostly because you can't open more than one at a time....
Here are a few tips for a Lightroom multicatalog workflow.

• Do it because there is a reason to. Don't just make new catalogs for every shoot - you'll have less comprehensive access to your collection as a whole, and can spend a lot of time opening and closing catalogs. You are also likely to do work to the same file in more than one place and you may have difficulty resolving between the two.

• Know which is the primary copy of the catalog. Name catalogs in a way that makes sense.If you have a copy on a laptop and a desktop, make sure you know which has the most recent copy of the work.

• Clean older catalogs out once you're done with them.

 

[Big Mike]

I use separate catalogs for weddings, portraits & other (includes personal).
I also have a separate catalog for my (wife's) point & shoot camera.

 

[KmH]

There is cataloging software that can open multiple catalogs at the same time - Phase One Media Pro - which was known as Expression Media before Phase One bought it from Microsoft 3 years ago.
Another advantage of Media Pro is the much wider range of file types it can handle compared to Lightroom.