Lightroom 2 Catalogs and Folders

Hello,
I am new to lightroom 2 and digital photography in general. I am having a hard time understanding how to organize my files and how to use catalogs. I have been taking an online class through Lynda.com, and have watched this section several times and am still stuck. I really do not want to go much further until I understand catalogs and develop a logical organizational flow. I am using a Mac. Any help?
Thanks

Hi All:
based on the good work of Dorin above (post #19), he did a timeline of various releases of Lightroom from Adobe and it shows that from "version x RC" to "final release version" was around 1 month.
as it is already exactly one month now, it must not be too much longer till they will release the LR2.3 Final Version.
As for what Robert said in post #23, well, there's never any "guarantee" on a problem-free piece of software, or, for that matter, anything one purchases or anything in life, actually!! Yet, one can make educated extrapolations, right? From the range of comments thus far on LR2.3RC, it appears that it is the best version yet of LR2.x. This leads to the conclusion that it is probably a "good bet" that this version will likely lead to the least amount of issues, right? Maybe not "zero issues", but most likely, the least amount of issues from the various LR2.x versions available.
So by waiting, say, merely 1-3 more weeks approximately, i can go directly from LR1.4 (which i've been using for many months) to LR2.3 Final Release Version. It seems like it is a prudent and conservative move or plan.
What do the good folks here think, please?
thanks in advance for helping me to mull this over. If i were a PC expert, i'd be thinking about this less. as i'm just a somewhat competent user, and not a whiz, i thought that a bit of care and planning it out intelligently can possibly reduce frustrations later.

Similar Messages

Reorganize catalog and folders

I have a large photo repository (40,000+ images).
Prior to 2011 I was using Bridge/Photoshop and organized the files by client.
In 2011 I started using LR and let it import new sessions using the year/yyyy-mm-dd folder structure. I now use LR exclusively 99% of the time, and would like to "re-import" my older images into the year/yyyy-mm-dd structure and do away with my haphazard prior organization for those images. Is there a way to get LR to reorganize the files (i.e. move all the old images into year/yyyy-mm-dd folders) while keeping all other catalog/editing metadata intact?
How does this sound for an approach:
Synchronize to make sure the catalog is up to date
Save Metadata so that all metadata is written to sidecar files or into the image files for formats that support it
In LR "remove" the folders
Import the folders with the "Move" option but disable renaming.

I pretty-much agree with dj - usually not a good idea to delete & re-import. Another thing you lose is published status, so you may have to republish everything.
On the other hand, there can be compelling reasons to restructure folders, and if you are willing to suffer the losses mentioned (and those not mentioned, if there are any), then why not knock yourself out...? - just make sure you are doing it for the right reasons. As dj said, just to isolate photos for clients may not be a good enough reason, nor just to re-arrange date format. Or, maybe those are plenty good reasons - dunno... (I confess, I like to have neatly organized folders, consistent across the entire collection, so I'm a big proponent of better restructuring capability in Lightroom, even if only via SDK/plugins).
But before you go to it (if you do), consider backing up your catalog, and all your photo files (in their original hierarchy), since if you abort before completion, both will be required to recover.
I really hope Adobe grants photo moving/renaming in the SDK so restructuring plugins can be written - if losses due to delete/re-import are too aversive, consider waiting a year or so for Lr5 plugins to assist.
Rob

Lightroom Catalog and Apple Open Directory Users

We are attempting to run Lightroom in our photo journalism classes and we are unable to setup the application because it will not create the Catalog file.
All of the users in Open Directory have their OSX 10.8 home folder stored on our Apple Server. This enabled them to log into any one of the computers in the lab and have access to their data/documents.
Lightroom refuses to create the Catalog file because it treats the home folder as a network folder.
My predecessor found some way around this in the past but he didn't document it and I can't find any evidence of it either.
Can anyone help me out here? Surely there are other people out there trying to use Adobe Products who also utilize Apple's "Open Directory" (its like apple's version of Active Directory).
The only help online I've found was to try and create symbolic links but even after making symbolic links from the local HD to the Network user Home folder lightroom still refused to create the catalog file.

its been almost a year and we still don't have any good answers to this issue.
Lightroom is not usable for any domain/directory enabled accounts because their home directories are stored on the network.
Is there anything else we can do? We do not want them to "share" their catalogs but we really need them to be able to store their catalog on their network home because they do not always use the same computer and policy disallows saving documents or files to the local hard drives for students.

Power Failure caused all Catalogs and Folders to go Missing, LR3.4

Running LR 3.4 on a PC with Vista 32 bit when there was a power failure in the area. I switched off the 'power' to the PC.
When the power was restored I restarted the PC and LR and all the catalogs, folders and files have all gone missing
and LR wants to start importing like it has just been installed. The last time the lrcat was backed up was on 20th June.
Wondering whether there is a more up to date lrcat hidden somewhere in the PC as it is running fine or is there any other
way to recover my last two days' work and restore back to the point just before the power failure?
Appreciate any suggestion before I recover from the 20th June back up.

Jasonized, you are my saviour. I cannot thank you enough for getting me back to where I was just before the power failure. Everything that had gone missing have now been recovered except the enhancements to the last photo that I was working on at during the power failure. The lrcat file plus the lock and journal files were not in the recycle bin but was somehow saved into my LR V2 backup folder in E: drive ! I systematically searched all my drives and found it there.
This forum rocks ! I am smiling again.
Thank you ! Thank You ! Thank YOU !
ben

Lightroom catalog and activity on different hard drive

New to Lr. I have downloaded the 30-day trial and the process is so automated that I doesn't provide an opportunity to install on a drive other than the boot drive (C:\) . I have a very small solid state drive that I use only for my OS and other key programs. I have a 2TB drive for data.
How can I force the program and catalogs onto the larger data drive? If my only option is to work from the C:\ drive this will be a deal breaker for me.

It's pretty easy to have the catalog file and photos on the 2TB drive, that's what takes up most of the space.
I don't know if you can install LR CC to a different drive, I never tried.

I have a new Mac Pro computer and have migrated my files from my older computer to the new computer. In trying to open a Lightroom catalog on an external hard drive I keep on getting the message "lightroom cannot use the catalog named " " because it is

I have a new Mac Pro computer and have migrated my files from my older computer to the new computer. In trying to open a Lightroom catalog on an external hard drive I keep on getting the message "lightroom cannot use the catalog named " " because it is not writable and cannot be opened. I have fixed all the "permissions" and yet it will still not open. How do I fix this?

Hello Forum Members,
I figured it out. You have to select the actual logo of the Lightroom catalog and then click on "get info" and allow what ever your new user name to "read and write". That worked!
Henri Silberman

Very Large Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata File

My Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata file is very large, about 12GB; Is this because of my preview settings? I only have about 10,000 photos in my Lightroom catalog and I'm concerned as to how large this file will get as my catalog grows.

I have 129,980 in my lightroom catalog. The photos go back to January 2000 and are only about 350GB but this previews file is over 116GB. This seems excessive.
Is the alternative to simply take a moment to build previews when I go to a folder? Most of my folders are pretty small.

Shared Lightroom Catalog???

I use Lightroom exclusively for my photos.   I initially used it with my desktop Mac (PowerPC G5) and then started using it also on my laptop (Macbook Pro). Both computers have all photos on external drives. There is a separate Lightroom catalog on each computer corresponding to each computer with it's individual external drive.   You can imagine my problem now, I'm sure. I have, effectively, TWO Lightroom catalogs, each with unique images, but also I've copied some photos over between them. The problem is growing exponentially.
Here's what I'd LIKE to do.   I'd like to install a shared NAS drive (perhaps an Apple Time Capsule drive) on my central hub in my house (my whole house is wired for Ethernet so that's not a problem), then put all photos on that single hub, thereby using a single Lightroom catalog and with it's images from either computer. If I have to travel somewhere and take some photos with me, I can deal with that because that it is typically the exception, not the rule.
Has anyone tried to do this?   I don't need to nor expect to hit the shared catalog from both computers at the same time. I'll be using one or the other, but not both. But I'd like to bring these two environments together.
I'd love some insight from forum members who've attacked this problem and solved it. I just don't know if Lightroom will allow the catalog to be on a shared drive, thus accessed by either computer.    If it will, then I imagine the work I need to do is:
1)     create a large shared NAS drive.
2)     copy all images to that drive.
3)     pick one of the two Lightroom catalogs and make that the master and somehow point it to the NAS drive.
4)     import the remainder of the photos on the NAS drive to Lightroom.
5)     make sure that both computers reference the Lightroom catalog on the NAS drive.
or maybe not. Maybe there's a better way. I'd like your input.
if this won't work, then has anyone successfully merged two Lightroom catalogs together.   One of my catalogs has about 80,000 images, and the other about 35,000 images.   At least 50% of all images are keyworded and I'd really hate to lose my keywords and collections that I've created.
anyway, insight is welcome. Tell me if I'm nuts too.
Thanks in advance.
Dennis

The closest think to this that will work is to put all the images on a large Firewire 800 drive with the LR catalog on the same drive, possibly in another partition. And alternately plug the drive into one machin or the other.
It is Networked drives where one can't put a Catalog, as John says.
Don

No Catalog or Folders in workspace

Along the left hand side of the LR4 work space there is usually seen:
Navigator
Catalog
Folders
Collections
Publish Services
In my LR4, Catalog and Folders disappeared. Where did they go?? ... and how do I get them back?
Chuck

They haven't gone anywhere, you've probably inadvertently hidden them. Each of the 4 panels below the Navigator can be individually hidden or displayed. Simply right-click on either the Collections or Publish Services headers and you see the option to select or deselect those 4 panels. So simply click once on the Catalog line, then repeat for the Folders line.

Images (and image folders) in the same folder as Lightroom Catalog?

I'm just switching over from Aperture 3 to Lightroom 4. I'm wondering if its ok (or smart) to keep the images (and image subfolders) in the same folder that the Lightroom.lrcat and Previews files are kept in. I'm trying to better organize my Pictures folder so that there are a whole bunch of separate sub-folders. Thoughts?

In Lightroom, there is no specific location where the photos should go. You can put them wherever you want, based upon your storage needs and hard drive setup.
So, with regards to your specific question, yes you can put the photos in the same folder as where the .lrcat is located, I can't see any harm, but I also don't think you need to do the work to make that happen. You can pretty much leave your photos where they are (which is easier and less time consuming) than moving them to the .lrcat folder, and easier and less time consuming than moving them at all.
In fact, I strongly suggest you change your thought processes from "Where do I put my photos" to "How can I organize my photos". Now that you are a Lightroom user, you organize your photos from within Lightroom, not by moving them here to there, but by adding keywords and other metadata. Organizing, now that you are LR user, is not folders ... it is metadata. Searching, now that you are a LR user, is not done in your operating system and in folders, it is done in LR by searching for keywords and other metadata.

Sharing a lightroom catalog - Does housing the catalog and images on an external hard drive work?

I will be managing a small portion of a client's overall image workflow by updating their web prescence on a regular basis with new work and retagging/uploading old work. I believe this requires the catalog and the image library to be housed on an external hard drive that can travel between the two of us. We are both working on PC's with LR 5.3.
The workflow would look something like this:
Client downloads new images onto external hard drive and imports into LR
"ClientCatalog" is created
Flags Picks and Creates a Collection from those Picks
Hard drive is handed off to me where I open "ClientCatalog"
Make suggested edits to images
add detailed tags and metadata
upload to various social media sites and websites
return hard drive to client
Is there potential problem with this workflow? My assumption is that if everything is housed on the external hard drive then there are no worries about the catalog containing all the latest updates. Can anyone fill me in on potential problems I might have overlooked? Are there any "safety protocols" you would add in to this workflow (besides mirroring everythign on another hard drive) that you would suggest?

Photwell wrote:
I ran into this problem with my own catalog a few weeks ago. I plugged my external hard drive into a different USB and everything was gone.
Not gone, just mis-addressed. It can be re-addressed as necessary. I believe it is enough on MacOs, to name the drive. On Windows, the details vary by OS version (Google for instructions) but this is for Win7:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/change-drive-letters-windows-7.htm
and it is a good idea to assign a drive letter quite a bit later in the alphabet, to restrict the chance of ever finding that letter already taken. For example, it could be X: for external drive, or P: for plug-in drive, or whatever makes sense to you...
After doing this, on re-starting Lightroom and opening the Catalog, the images will at first go offline (previously used location not found). To get them back online, it will be necessary to re-browse the parent folder for all your image folders, to reflect its new location under the new drive reference. That done, the Catalog location info for all the images and subfolders located under that parent folder, will be updated automatically. If this parent is not currently showing in the LR Folders list, you can right-click and choose "Show Parent". LR's display then reorganises to reflect this actual hierarchy.
regards, RP

Photoshop Lightroom "Preferences" and "Database/Catalog" files?

Lightroom 5
This Adobe TechNote lists the locations for the Lightroom 5 http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/preference-file-locations-lightroom-41.html
Lightroom 4
This Adobe TechNote lists the locations for the Lightroom 4 http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/preference-file-locations-lightroom-4.html
Lightroom 2 and 3
This Adobe TechNote lists the locations for the Lightroom 2.x and Adobe TechNote lists the locations for Lightroom 3.x Preference, Presets and Database/Catalog files. The location information provided in the Technote is summarised below:
Mac
The Photoshop Lightroom application is the Adobe Lightroom 2.app file, located in the Applications folder.
The preference file is the com.adobe.Lightroom2.plist file, located in the[username]/Library/Preferences folder.
The following Photoshop Lightroom database files are located in the[username]/Pictures/Lightroom folder:
Lightroom 2/3 Catalog.lrcat (the catalog itself)
Lightroom 2/3 Catalog.lrcat.lock (this file prevents you from overwriting data)
Lightroom 2/3 Catalog Previews.lrdata (the file that holds the preview data assigned to your photos)
Windows XP
The Photoshop Lightroom application is the Lightroom.exe file, located in the Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 folder.
Preferences are located in the Lightroom 2 Preferences.agprefs file, located in the Documents and Settings/[username]/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom/Preferences folder.
The Photoshop Lightroom database file, Lightroom 2/3 Catalog.lrcat, is located in the Documents and Settings/[username]/My Documents/My Pictures/Lightroom folder:
Previews are located in various folders in the Documents and Settings/[username]/My Documents/My Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom 2/3 Catalog Previews.lrdata folder. They are organized and coded for the application to read, not for users.
Windows Vista / Windows 7
The Photoshop Lightroom application is the Lightroom.exe file, located in the Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 folder.
Preferences are located in the Lightroom 2/3 Preferences.agprefs file, located in the Users/[username]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom/Preferences folder.
The Photoshop Lightroom database file, Lightroom 2 Catalog.lrcat, is located in the Users/[username]/Pictures/Lightroom folder.
Previews are located in various folders in the Users/[username]/Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom 2/3 Catalog Previews.lrdata folder. They are organized and coded for the application to read, not for users.
Lightroom 1.x
This Adobe TechNote lists the locations for the Photoshop Lightroom 1.x Preference and Database/Catalog files. The location information provided in the Technote is summarised below:
Mac
>The preference file is the com.adobe.Lightroom.plist file, located in the [username]/Library/Preferences folder.
>The following Photoshop Lightroom database files are located in the [username]/Pictures/Lightroom folder:
* Lightroom Database.lrdb(the Lr 1.0 database)or the Lightroom Catalog.lrcat (Lightroom 1.1 and higher)
* Lightroom Database.lrdb.lock (the file that prevents data from being overwritten inadvertently)
* Lightroom Previews.lrdata (the file that holds the preview data assigned to your photos)
Windows:
>Preferences are located in the Lightroom Preferences.agprefs file, located in the Documents and Settings/[username]/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom/Preferences folder.
>The following Photoshop Lightroom database file is located in the Documents and Settings/[username]/My Documents/My Pictures/Lightroom folder:
* Lightroom Database.lrdb (Lr 1.0 database) or the Lightroom Catalog.lrcat file (Lightroom 1.1 and higher)
* Lightroom Database.lrdb.lock (the file that prevents data from being overwritten inadvertently)
* Lightroom Previews.lrdata (the file that holds the preview data assigned to your photos)
>Registration information is located in the Windows registry, in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Adobe/Lightroom/1.0/Registration key folder for Lr 1.x
Make sure you don't delete any of the database/catalog files. The only file you might need to delete or remove is the preference file.
Note: database files were created by Lightroom version 1.0 and use the extension lrdb. Subsequent versions use catalog files for the same purpose and have the extension lrcat

If you don't mind losing some if not all of the work you have done already start a new catalog.
To keep all existing work:
Make sure that the copied NEF files on the external have the same folder structure as previous.
Copy the Lr4 catalog to the external and launch it on the laptop by double clicking it. A copy of the catalog will get upgraded for Lr5. This will retain all your work although you will need to reconnect the Folders in the Catalog by pointing them to the new drive.
You can keep th Catalog on the EHD or move it to the Laptop.....

Technical question: Is it possible to work on the same Lightroom catalog across two computers and have the catalog sync? If so, how??

Technical question:
Is it possible to work on the same Lightroom catalog across two computers and have the catalog sync? If so, how??
Here's a little more information on what I am trying to do.
I have a desktop computer with 4tb worth of pictures that has Lightroom and Photoshop on it. I also have a laptop with Photoshop and Lightroom. I would like to be able to edit those same pictures with their current edits that are currently on my desktop on my laptop. If this can be done, I'm sure I need to be on the same wifi network for my laptop to be able to access my desktop's photo library. I am technically savvy enough to map a network drive, but how do I get my two Lightroom catalogs to sync when I make a change on one of my computers? Would i be working only on one catalog? Or two separate catalogs that would need to be manually synced to the other computer? Would it be beneficial to put my lightroom catalog on something like dropbox?
I'd appreciate any information or tutorials if someone knows how to do this.

I do this by having my LR catalog and photos on an external drive that I swap between the two computers. I am on Windows and have the same drive letter assigned to the drive on both computers.
Because the photos are on a portable drive I back up the portable drive to another hard-drive every night or after important work, because portable drives are susceptible to damage or loss.

Why do i get the following message when i attempt to open my backup file for lightroom cc? "Lightroom cannot use the catalog named "Lightroom Catalog" because it is not writable and cannot be opened". This message just started coming up after downloadi

why do i get the following message when i attempt to open my backup file for lightroom cc? "Lightroom cannot use the catalog named "Lightroom Catalog" because it is not writable and cannot be opened". This message just started coming up after downloading lightroom cc (previously using lightroom 5)...am i backing up properly or not???

Open Pictures folder and move the files named lrcat-journal and lrcat.lock to Desktop.
Make sure that , they are not inside Pictures folder any more and try to open backup from Lighrtroom and check..
Any LRcat file with .lock extension , move it to Desktop.

I went to download the new lightroom update but my computer went dead at 51 percent. I got back on and it was gone so i reinstalled now when i click to open it sats the lightroom catalog named lightroom 5 catalog cannot be opened because another applicati

please help I need to open my my lightroom to edit and it says lightroom catalog cannot be opened bc another application already has it opened.... I went to download the update but computer went dead when came back on it was gone so I reinstalled. now wont open but ps will help birth session to edit

Make sure you don't have another copy of Lightroom actively running on your computer. If not, find your catalog file in Finder/Explorer. Look for a file with the same name, but with a .lock extension. delete that file. Now Lightroom should open the catalog again.

Lightroom 2 Catalogs and Folders

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