Catalogue so big

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evaphoto

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Our catalogues need lot of memory, cause they are
getting really big. (one of them) There are 4 folders. 3 of them
contain mainly 12mb raw files and the other one,
the snaps catalogue mainly smaller jpegs. The
.lrdata folder in the snaps folder is about 6GB big.
The other ones about 4''mb, whereas one of the other
smaller ones contains more pictures.
How can that be?

Can anyone tell me why that can be?
 
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Evaphoto, Welcome to LR Forums.


Here's how LR is storing things in general:

1) The orginal image files stay where you put/left them when you imported to LR.
2) The *.lrcat file is the LR database/catalog file, this will grow as you import images to LR. On my system this file seems to average approx 2'-25kB per cataloged image. This file doesn't contain any image/pixel data, rather it contains 'metadata' which consists of true image metadata (Exif, IPTC, etc) and the 'adjustment' data, which LR uses to store and reproduce the Develop adjusments which you've applied. In addition, the web, print and slideshow stuff is stored as well.
3) The *.lrdata folder (I presume you're using Windows, but you don't say) contains the preview cache. These are image files that LR has created to keep on hand to accelerate various display modes, to allow faster scrolling, zooming etc. The size of this folder depends a great deal on the retention time settings you have specified in LR's preferences, and also on the size of the preview images you have chosen to have rendered.
4) Other more complicated things ......(presets, preferences, etc.)

So. if you have chosen to render standard previews in a big catalog, and 1:1 previews in a small catalog, that could explain the disparity you are seeing.
 
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Brad Snyder said:
Evaphoto, Welcome to LR Forums.


2) The *.lrcat file is the LR database/catalog file, this will grow as you import images to LR. On my system this file seems to average approx 2'-25kB per cataloged image.

So. if you have chosen to render standard previews in a big catalog, and 1:1 previews in a small catalog, that could explain the disparity you are seeing.
Click to expand...

Interesting Brad,

My lrcat is 235,'''kb and i have 45'' images (DNG's from CR2 RAWs) which works out at 52kb an image.

As a famous Aussie professor, Julius Sumner Millar, once said "Why is it so?"
 
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Yes,

You can change the preview render sizes each time you import.
You can adjust the preview size, quality and retention time in Library menu > Edit > Catalog Settings > File Handling tab.

If you like, you can delete the preview cache, or any portion of it, LR will recreate what it needs to operate. The preview cache is the folder *.lrdata, and its array of funny named subfolders ' thru F, with all their subfolders.

Before deleting anything at all though, make sure you have a backup, just in case, and make sure you're looking at the preview cache. If you drill down, the file names will be like B'3912DC-xxxx-xxxx-et cetera.lr-preview.noindex
 
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Mark, actually at that point I was talking about the catalog itself. My calculation of kB's per image, is based on a sample of two catalogs. The point I was trying to make tho', was that the catalog doesn't actually contain image pixel data, which is in the multi-megabyte range per image, and not in the kB range we actually see in the catalog.

I don't think my quick calculation was valid for anything except comparing orders of magnitude.
 
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