Wednesday 12 May 2010

Why Two Lightroom Catalogs ?

Following my post on automatically deleting Lightroom backups, I was asked why I have two different Lightroom catalogs.  Well the reason for this is that I like to separate my recent images from my archive of images.

My working catalogue contains the images I am currently working on and the archive contains images that are finished.  Once a month I move the images from the previous month to the archive.

There are a few reasons for me working in this way.  The first is that I find the process of archiving images stops me constantly looking at shots to see if there is any way I can improve them.  If I didn't do that I would still be looking at shots I took in may 2006 thinking "I wonder what that looks like in B&W".

The other main reason, is that it  is really easy to put off keywording and classifying images,  as part of the archival process I like to make sure that they are all classified correctly.  My checklist for archiving is:

  • Delete all the images that don't make the grade
  • Keyword every image with the location it was taken
  • Keyword any shots to identify any dogs & people.
  • Apply Star ratings.
  • Add Title & Descriptions to the good ones.
  • ctrl + A and ctrl + s to write the metadata to the files
  • Export the files to a new library
  • Import in to the Archive.
  • Add pictures to the collections for my various websites
Am I unusual in using multiple catalogues or  is it a common thing.  Why not leave a comment & let me know how you use Lightroom catalogues.

1 comment:

JayM said...

I only recently came across this post by way of Lightroom Killer Tips and agree with your strategy. I've started running multiple catalogues primarily out of desire for better performance. The main database is too big and cause Lightroom to act a bit flaky. Much easier to work in smaller chunks for the edit and then bring everything in. Exporting catalogues is easy that it makes the process pretty painless.