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Archive 2013 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?

  
 
FlyPenFly
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


I've been dividing my Lightroom into by year just in case one library goes corrupt it doesn't poison the whole darn big huge collection of images I have already done.

This is of course on top of other backups I've been making. Is there any sense in keeping multiple libraries around divided by year?



Jul 12, 2013 at 07:08 AM
howardm4
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


not in my opinion. and you lose the ability to do metadata search over N years


Jul 12, 2013 at 07:29 AM
James_N
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


No; primarily because it negates the purpose of a digital asset manager.

While I imagine its possible I've never heard of a library/catalog becoming corrupt. Sure they can be problems but as far as I can tell they are usually caused by user error like accidentally deleting files.

Personally I've been using Lightroom since its first beta in January 2006 and currently have a catalog of approx 150K images and I've never had problems. I have Lightroom configured to backup my catalog daily to a separate hard drive and keep 7 days' worth of backups.



Jul 12, 2013 at 07:37 AM
Alan321
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


+1 for a single catalog. Only a single catalog gives you access to the full search and selection and collection facilities across all of your images at one time.

Just make lots of backups of the catalog as you go, and by that I mean lots of separate backups on separate drives, both on-line and off-line. It is important that you give yourself time to recover from old backups before any problem with the catalog passes through the entire backup set.

Catalog problems are not restricted to random faults. They can include cases where you alter or delete more images than you expected to due to more images being selected than you realised. Such cases will not cause a crash or error message and may take a while to become evident.

I backup every time I exit Lr. Those backups go into my general backup system but I trim the original backup set after a month or so to avoid filling the primary drive (a relatively small laptop drive). On an Apple system Time Machine helps to maintain a long-term chronology of backups to one or two drives.

- Alan



Jul 12, 2013 at 08:00 AM
aubsxc
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


One catalog to rule them all and in the Lightroom bind them...




Jul 12, 2013 at 08:56 AM
mhayes5254
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?




One. Mine has about 50K images from 1889 to now.



Jul 12, 2013 at 10:55 AM
Chris Dees
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


I use one library, just under 100K images.
After every major image adjustments I backup and after a few months I keep one backup per month and delete the others.



Jul 12, 2013 at 11:28 AM
Littleguy
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


You can do both - best of both worlds.

Work in an individual catalog. Then when finished - import into the master catalog for easy searching.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/the-complete-picture-with-julieanne-kost/lr3-merging-individual-lightroom-catalogs-into-a-master-catalog-/



Jul 12, 2013 at 11:55 AM
mhayes5254
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


I do not see any benefit to doing both, except when traveling. In that case, I will import the catalog from the laptop when I get home and discard the smaller one..


Jul 12, 2013 at 01:11 PM
aubsxc
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


Littleguy wrote:
You can do both - best of both worlds.

Work in an individual catalog. Then when finished - import into the master catalog for easy searching.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/the-complete-picture-with-julieanne-kost/lr3-merging-individual-lightroom-catalogs-into-a-master-catalog-/



I do this frequently. I build computers as a hobby and may have 4 to 5 fully functioning workstations at any given time. I use LR on multiple machines and merge them into a master catalog periodically.



Jul 12, 2013 at 02:29 PM
rockant
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


aubsxc wrote:
One catalog to rule them all and in the Lightroom bind them...



My Precious!




Jul 12, 2013 at 03:01 PM
John Caldwell
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Lightroom 5 - 1 Library or Multiple?


Littleguy wrote:
You can do both - best of both worlds.


I too often work this way and have done so since LR2. Smaller catalogs are snappier than a catalog containing 180K images.

John Caldwell



Jul 12, 2013 at 03:27 PM





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