Catalog Settings Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter TheToad
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

TheToad

Guest
Hello,

I am new to Lightroom and have a couple of questions about the catalog settings. I have all of my photos stored on an external hard drive. Should I have the location of my Lightroom catalog on that drive also? It is currently located on my local hard drive in my pictures folder (the default setting I assume). If I decide to move all of my photos from my current external drive to another external drive what happens to all of my photo editing I did in Lightroom if I don't move those folders with them?

Also, should I check the tab to automatically write changes into XMP? I was using Adobe Camera Raw before and that is the method I used. I'm pretty sure it was the default setting.

What is the best resource you guys have found for getting the most out of Lightroom 2? Any particular websites, books, etc. that you could recommend?

Thanks in advance.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Welcome aboard.
Point one, your set up is probably the best from a performance view. Accessing the same drive to write/read both the database and files can slow LR significantly. If you want to move the image folders, LR can easily move them or if you move them at an OS level LR will just require "synchronising" with the new location. Your help explains this.
Point two, this is a personal preference. As a single user I have it checked, saves forgetting and keeps my files up to date in case of any failures.
Point three. There are many and varied resources and whether they will meet your needs will depend on your personal preferences to style, etc.
I suggest you google and look here for resources: http://www.adobe.com/support/photoshoplightroom/
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hi TheToad, welcome to the forum!

The only thing to be aware of with 'automatically write changes into XMP' is that it can slow you down a bit, particularly as it'll be writing to an external drive for the XMP's and the database too. If you did decide to turn it off, LR always write the settings into its own database. You can manually write to XMP at any time by selecting in Grid view and using Ctrl-S/Cmd-S to write to XMP. How well either option works depends on your machine specs and usual workflow.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks for the quick reply guys. Very helpful. I use Kelby training from time to time (just watched Matt Kloskowski's Lightroom courses), and I purchased your eBook earlier this morning Victoria. Combining those two resources along with these forums should have me up to speed in no time. Thanks again.

TheToad
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks for your kind words !! May I suggest you take a moment to fill in your signature with info such as Victoria and I have, thanks
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You should be all set TheToad!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
New LR user, spent the last 2 weeks reading the Kelby book and bringing over my scattered 35,''' pics since the year 2'''.

Currently all my images and catalog sit on a 1 TB external, after searching and reading this post, I should change the location of my catalog to my internal hard drive for better speed?

I just copied the catalog and nearby files to my desktop to see if it would work, and it did. So now all changes are being written to the catalog on my internal drive.

I found it interesting that LR said my db was 35' gig, but when I copied over all the files, it was almost 1' gig.

I'm on an imac with 4 gig of ram

Thanks for any direction, more posts to come
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
allergyking said:
New LR user, spent the last 2 weeks reading the Kelby book and bringing over my scattered 35,''' pics since the year 2'''.

Currently all my images and catalog sit on a 1 TB external, after searching and reading this post, I should change the location of my catalog to my internal hard drive for better speed?

I just copied the catalog and nearby files to my desktop to see if it would work, and it did. So now all changes are being written to the catalog on my internal drive.

I found it interesting that LR said my db was 35' gig, but when I copied over all the files, it was almost 1' gig.

I'm on an imac with 4 gig of ram

Thanks for any direction, more posts to come
Click to expand...

The recommended is to have your catalog on the internal drive and files on a fast external. This is so that reading and writing to both files and the database does not bottleneck.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Done, thank you very much for clarifying.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
allergyking, re: total file sizes

1) the catalog file *.lrcat; should be in the less than 1-2 GB range. Is that a typo in your post, did you mean 35' MB? instead of gig as you said?
2) the preview cache, the *.lrdata (package on Mac, folder on Win) is likely around 1' GB.
3) the original image files, 35''' images * 1' MB (Just guessing at file size), and we're back to the 35' "gig" in your post, (maybe this is what you were referring to.)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
My bad, my lrcat is 35' meg, lrdata is around 1' gig and total files are 35,''', on an external, less than 2'' gig, bunch of small ones from my early days
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top