Catalog Contents - Just DNGs?

[Reg33]

I was doing more reading on dpbestworkflow.org and I'm confused about catalogs.  Is it correct that catalogs should contain mainly the .DNG files?  And do people usually include the derivative folders in their catalogs as well?

And lastly, if I add metadata to a DNG, will the derivative files "inherit" the metadata, as well? I wouldn't want to include derivative folders in my catalog and then find that I'd have to re-tag them again.

Thanks,
David

[ScottBuckel]

I just converted over to Lightroom for most of my cataloging needs and I have jpegs, dng's an derivatives all in my catalog.   

If you add metadata to the raw file, it should carry over.  But if you keyword the raw file, make a derivative, then add keywords to the raw file the two files will not have the same metadata.  If you need to fix this John Beardsworth has a great little plugin for Lightroom (and I think it was a script for iView and Expression media).

Scott

[peterkrogh]

David,
If you can get away with one catalog, that's the way to go. Only catalog derivatives separately if you have too many files for everything to fit in one catalog.

Derivatives will only inherit the annotations if you add the annotations before you create the derivative.  There's no invisible link that lets them stay in sync.

Beardsworth's plug-in does solve that problem.

Peter

[Reg33]

Thank you.  I appreciate your help.
David