Creating different catalogues

[ashleykaryl]

Does anybody here have any views on the relative pros and cons of having more than one catalogue in Lightroom? At present I have just one catalogue for all my images and sometimes I wonder if there is a better way when I find myself scrolling through work images I have just done for an assignment mixed in by date alongside shots my daughter has taken of the dog on her compact camera or whatever. There are loads of images in the catalogue that I don't want to delete but equally I see no real reason to view them every day while scrolling through folders to reach my work images. I presume others have similar situations with their catalogues, especially if they shoot a wide range of subjects. 

Thanks

Ashley 

[johnbeardy]

Sure, have temporary catalogues for specific projects or for themes where you need separation (eg you shoot something you don't want the kids to see, wedding jobs until they're closed), but too often I see people tying themselves up in knots by adopting too many different ways of managing their pictures. You'll soon find some pictures are in more than one catalogue, with different metadata/adjustments, while others aren't recorded anywhere. So in general, I'm against breaking up control of your pictures,

John

[ashleykaryl]

Thanks John, that makes a lot of sense. So far I haven't made any use at all of collections but I guess it's the obvious way to move forward, so you have just one catalogue but creating collections for specific jobs to cut down on clutter. I shall have to spend some time and discover the various ins and outs of working with collections in Lightroom, since there appears to be various options.

[johnbeardy]

Keywords first, then collections, and make sure you play with smart collections.

John

[BobSmith]

I make collections as I need them... but I never trash them.  I just expand or refine them as needed in the future.  I'll typically make a collection the first time I need to access something from a particular job/client that's old enough to not be readily accessible in my "Working" folder.

I tend to make collections like this.  First I make a collection set for Acme client.  Then I make a really broad smart collection intended to find anything I've ever done for Acme client.  I do that by look for either Acme as a keyword OR "Acme" contained in the folder name.  On things that haven't been keyworded they're almost always in a folder somewhere in the directory structure that includes the clients name.  That smart collection finds loads of things, most of which will be images made for Acme.  From there I filter down to whatever I need and put those in other collection in the Acme set.  I'll also add more keywords and ratings if that might help future searches if need be.  Maybe a collection of Masters; or a collection of Acme DNGs... whatever is most useful for what I'm currently looking for.  If I come back months later and need other Acme files I may make other collections to put under the Acme collections set, but I'll use those existing collections to help build those.

Bob Smith

[ashleykaryl]

Thanks Bob, this is starting to make more sense now and I have just spent half a hour studying some video tutorials on youtube. I think the right way to start is by setting basic smart collections with simple criteria and then refining them over time as required using the edit feature. I no longer have any interest in stock photography, so I think there are certain images that I will keyword in different ways now that means more to me doing a search than if it were merely being done for some photo library.