Iduno Loc: Near Tampa Florida

I currently maintain a single catalog but was thinking about breaking it up into several smaller catalogs. I would like to hear your thoughts on single vs multiple catalogs.

Frank T Loc: New York, NY

I have three. One is on the computer and it is also exported to a separate hard drive. The reason I did it this way was that if you just back up the photos, the processing isn't saved with them. If you export as a catalogue you get all the settings saved with the photos. The third catalogue I have is everything prior to 2011 and I did that just to relieve the clutter.

randymoe

Good answer for me. I am new to LR3 and always need advice.

wingincamera Loc: Spanaway, Washington

This question came up on the Lightroom forum
http://www.lightroomforums.net/forum.php
and the recommendation was to keep only one catalog & backup.
Personally I keep two copies of one catalog. The first is with the program on my C drive, and an identical catalog on my D drive which is where my photos are located.
This does not count the two whole computer backups I maintain on separate USB drives, that I perform once a week.

Iduno Loc: Near Tampa Florida

I too poked around the LR forum and they were pretty clear that one catalog was the way to go. If you don't mind sharing, how is your catalog organized?

wingincamera Loc: Spanaway, Washington

I am pretty simple with organization. My folders are arranged by year, then major subjects, and then date. Example:
2012/Landscapes/2012-01-27 subject.
If more than one landscape subject on the same date I will give it a separate folder. It's a little more work in the family or people folders, I have applied key words for names of multiple people in the photos.
One of the things I like about Lightroom is how easy it is to apply key words to photos. I spent most of one day going back about four years applying key words. Now if I want to find photos of Reflection Lake at Mt Rainier Park, all I have to search for is Reflection & Rainier like magic there they are. Or search for photos of family members, just search for their name.