Lightroom storage of images and it's catalog

I’m looking into using lightroom to manage my wedding and commercial photography as I have heard many speak highly about it. I’m currently using Capture One 4.0 on a Mac Pro but as always I’m always looking to improve upon the workflow. Right now I have been going back and forth between Bridge and Capture One.
I have a NAS 2TB RAID drive which I store all my jobs on that are in various stages of production. Each job is in it’s own folder on the drive. (Each job can be 15 to 25 Gigs.) When I’m actually working on a job I have another copy of that job on a internal 500GB RAID which is a separate drive from the main drive with the OS and Apps on. The 500GB drive is where the raw file adjustments and all other image manipulation is done. All of the adjustments which Capture One does are save into a folder it makes in that job folder. Each night when I have finished working on and making adjustments to my files and or RAW files, I sync the Job folder on the internal RAID drive and the NAS drive. Now the NAS drive has all of my adjustments and latest files. Then, at the end of the job, the job folder (which houses the image files and Capture One’s folder) is burned to disc. If I ever need the files again, I can just grab the Job folder and even just a Raw files with its Capture One adjustment files from the Disc, and save to the internal drive and I have my corrections again.  Now this has been working for all my Raw files. But the problem is Capture One does not see PSD files at all so when I'm in Bridge, I can't see the Adjustments on my Raw Files, or when in Capture One, I can't see my PSD files.
Question I have here is about how Lightroom works with files.  It looks like it builds a catalog of all the images when you import them.  Does that catalog keep building and getting larger and larger and is it on the same drive as the lightroom app?  If I switch to Lightroom, can I work my files the same way I do now? Internal RAID drive for working on the files, SYNC to the NAS drive to back up and for short term storage, then Burn to disc for long term storage (As of now I have over 100 DL DVD stored), and if needed to be able to pull the job back off of if needed?
MIght seem like a lot of steps here and a complicated workflow, but it has been working for me for a couple of years.If Lightroom can be managed like this it might be a good switch from Capture One for me.
Any input is appreciated.
Thanks,
Pete

I think LR gives you an opportunity to greatly simplify your workflow. The key is its non-destructive editing capability. You will have the original image on your main drive and then you can create multiple "versions" of it for different treatments using LR's virtual copy facility. You can export, print or send the final images to a web site - all within Lightroom.
If you have time I think you should look at your workflow with an understanding of LR's user model and tools. Don't think of it as fitting LR into your existing workflow but a way to start afresh.
There's a couple of really good blog posts that summarise LR's capabilities:
Scott Kelby's “10 Things I Would Tell New Lightroom Users” at http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2009/archives/7180
John Beardsworth's “10 Things I Wish I Could Tell a Slightly Less Novice Lightroom User” at http://www.beardsworth.co.uk/news/comment_1.php?id=1493_0_1_0_C
I wish I'd read them before I plunged into LR from ThumbsPlus and ACDSee Pro.
For what it's worth I discuss my workflow using Lightroom at http://bkkphotographer.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/my-workflow/. I am not a wedding or commercial photographer but I do handle a lot of images.
I hope this helps.
Ian Fuller - Bangkok Thailand
Message was edited by: Ian.fuller. Corrected the links to the tips.

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