Saving current catalog and starting new one -question

[dgillilan]

Hi, I have a rather large catalog and I have several backups of it, including the previews and images backed up on HDDs.
I would like to save the catalog, and probably export it to Capture one, but I want to start a new one also in LR.
I am thinking that I just need to backup my LR cat file to HDD along with the preview file, and then start a new catalog in LR and name it something meaningful, with a date perhaps also.
Does this sound right to you all who have worked with more than one catalog ? I will want to use the  older catalog from time to time of course.
Thank you for any help,
Debra

[bassman51]

All you need to do is start a new catalog with any new name you like ("Debra's 2017.lrcat").   Presumably you've been backing up the current one, and there's no particular reason to not leave it exactly as is.  You can open any catalog on your computer from the File menu in LR.  And you can have any number of catalogs on your system.   Just remember that you'll need to open them all with new releases of LR in case there is a catalog upgrade involved.

Just out of curiosity, why do you want a new and empty catalog?

[dgillilan]

Thank you bassman, your reply was most helpful. I do have several thousand images in my catalog and I thought it might be best to start a new one.  I guess I could keep this one and keep backing it up and I put my LR catalog and image backups on other HDDs also.
Do you recommend just using one catalog no matter how many images, or when is a good time in general, that most people would agree is a point to start a new catalog in LR (Or any cataloging software)?
Thanks, Debra

[john beardsworth]

Do you recommend just using one catalog no matter how many images, or when is a good time in general, that most people would agree is a point to start a new catalog in LR (Or any cataloging software)?

Yes, just one - that's how it is designed. It's hard enough to manage thousands of images in one place without fragmenting control across different catalogues.

There are some reasons for using a number of catalogues, but they are particular needs and not general use.

[Simon Garrett]

"I do have several thousand images in my catalog..."

I have nearly 75,000 in mine and have noticed no slowing down.  Searches are near-instant.  As John B says, there could be reasons to have multiple catalogs, e.g. for professional photographers wanting to separate work for different clients (or to separate proferssional from personal) but for home users I would think the benefits are in favour of a single catalog.  LR is designed for catalogs of hundreds of thousand images. 

[schertz]

"I do have several thousand images in my catalog..."

I have nearly 75,000 in mine and have noticed no slowing down.  Searches are near-instant.  As John B says, there could be reasons to have multiple catalogs, e.g. for professional photographers wanting to separate work for different clients (or to separate proferssional from personal) but for home users I would think the benefits are in favour of a single catalog.  LR is designed for catalogs of hundreds of thousand images.

My experience is the same as above. I have over 113,000 images on an external 4 TB HD spread across 2 partitions and image search by metadata is very fast and access for editing is reasonably quick (by Lightroom standards).

Mike

[Tony Jay]

Hi, I have a rather large catalog and I have several backups of it, including the previews and images backed up on HDDs.
I would like to save the catalog, and probably export it to Capture one, but I want to start a new one also in LR.
I am thinking that I just need to backup my LR cat file to HDD along with the preview file, and then start a new catalog in LR and name it something meaningful, with a date perhaps also.
Does this sound right to you all who have worked with more than one catalog ? I will want to use the  older catalog from time to time of course.
Thank you for any help,
Debra

In your situation stick with a single catalog - simple!

Tony Jay

[JoachimStrobel]

I have 20+ catalogues and like it a lot (one for each year since 2002 plus old slide scans). However, there is one big caveat. You can only copy your photos from one location to another from within a catalog, otherwise LR will not find them again. But, the other catalog that contains the same photos does not know about that. So, you need to have no photos in two catalogs, that is a recipe for disaster otherwise.

[bassman51]

Thank you bassman, your reply was most helpful. I do have several thousand images in my catalog and I thought it might be best to start a new one.  I guess I could keep this one and keep backing it up and I put my LR catalog and image backups on other HDDs also.
Do you recommend just using one catalog no matter how many images, or when is a good time in general, that most people would agree is a point to start a new catalog in LR (Or any cataloging software)?
Thanks, Debra

I'm at 80,000 or so in a single catalog.   Note that you can have the images themselves spread over as many disks as you want.   I'd strongly recommend d sticking with a single catalog - it is much simpler with no real downsides.  The only downside I can think of is that the catalog backup will take a bit longer (you are backing up your catalog, right?)

[dbritch]

I have about 230,000 images in my catalog, and nearly all Library operations are painfully slow.  For example, if I select All Images, and click on the Metdata filter, it takes approximately 30 seconds for LR to draw the 4 menus at the top of the screen - Date, Cmera, Lens, and Label.  I've wondered whether this is because of the size of my catalog.

I'm running LR CC under Windows 10, with the application on an SSD, my catalog on an SSD, and my images on a few spinning hard drives.  I have 16GB of memory, and Cor i7 3770.

[john beardsworth]

When did you last optimise the catalogue? I work with one that's three times that size, and without such slowdowns.

[JoachimStrobel]

There are many views on that topic. I have a digital photo catalog for every year since 2002. Each contains 1000-4000 photos. Each one is sorted in best, very best, poster quality etc etc. These catalogs are a mess, as the contain also Iphone photos, analog scans and friends&familiy photos  next to  DXOed Raws. So I have many collections per catalog. There are also pre-2002 catalogs from analog scans which of course do not have time stamps and are sorted by numerous timelined collections.
 The 100 best photos from each year are then exported as "export catalog" and re-imported in a master catalog but only as links. That is the catalog that needs attention when moving photos between harddisks from within their original catalog. And that is the one that gets synced to LR mobile.
I take photos on occasion and know precisely where I have been and took which photo when. Lately I experimented with "mogrify" to label the Jpegs ( It copies the metadata into the lower right corner) and then reimported these jpegs into the master catalog. For exports I then work with the loaded photo's JPEG. This also decouples the sources.
This keeps all nice and tidy. Sure, one catalog for all also works and I am not saying that my workflow is the best, but works well for what I try.

[Rhossydd]

I have a digital photo catalog for every year since 2002.
These catalogs are a mess,
That is the catalog that needs attention when moving photos between harddisks from within their original catalog.
I experimented with "mogrify" to label the Jpegs ( It copies the metadata into the lower right corner)
This keeps all nice and tidy.
I am not saying that my workflow is the best

It sounds a total mess to me.
36k images in one catalogue here, it works very well and is simple to administer and back up.

Maybe you should read up on DAM and find a more elegant workflow.

[john beardsworth]

There are many views on that topic.

Just don't consider them all of equal merit. In certain circumstances, there are good reasons for breaking up control of your photo collection and workflow. But in general, Lightroom works best with a single catalogue.

[JoachimStrobel]

Catalog backup is not the issue and hence single versus multiple catalog backup neither.
The backup of the photos is an issue. Keeping all photos in one catalog implies having the source also in one folder or on one disk (sure there is disk spanning and Raid, but this is not for the faint hearted, and sure, you can distribute your photos around your disks having one catalog, but I seem to read an awful lot of posts from people who have lost their photos that way, at least under Windows).  The amount of  60 years worth of photos will mandate a break at one stage, which is simpler when done along catalog boundaries.

[Rhossydd]

Keeping all photos in one catalog implies having the source also in one folder or on one disk

Not at all.
My images are across three hard drives in multiple folders and sub folders. No problems at all keeping them in one catalogue or keeping them backed up.

You really do need to learn more about how LR works and what it's capable of. A single catalogue makes the best use of LR's DAM facilities.

[JoachimStrobel]

I appreciate your concern about my knowledge of LR and DAM in general.

[bassman51]

Catalog backup is not the issue and hence single versus multiple catalog backup neither.
The backup of the photos is an issue. Keeping all photos in one catalog implies having the source also in one folder or on one disk ...

This is not correct.  LR is perfectly happy to have the image files spread across as many folders and disks as you like.  I find it convenient to keep all of the images under one master folder, but that is really not a requirement.

[Hoggy]

I appreciate your concern about my knowledge of LR and DAM in general.

They only say that cause they don't know you relish the idea of making things very hard on yourself.