Different Catalogs

[john w c]

Lightroom Version Number

12.1

Operating System

1. macOS 11 Big Sur

In the Lightroom Q&A section of the January 2023 Photoshop User magazine a distinction is made between an OS catalog and an app catalog. What’s the difference and what's preferable and why? Thanks

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Errrrr… We might need some context on that one! In Lightroom world, there is no such difference, so we’d need to understand what they were suggesting. I think Terry took that column over from me, so I’m not sure what wavelength he was on.

 

[Rob_Cullen]

The difference? Beats me! A Catalog is a Catalog wherever it may reside. Like a Word document- you can store it in many locations.
But you might get better performance if the Catalog is on the system drive as opposed to an external drive. (It cannot be on a Network drive or a 'cloud' location.)

 

[PhilBurton]

The difference? Beats me! A Catalog is a Catalog wherever it may reside. Like a Word document- you can store it in many locations.
But you might get better performance if the Catalog is on the system drive as opposed to an external drive. (It cannot be on a Network drive or a 'cloud' location.)

@Rob_Cullen . I also have no idea. I've never heard of a Windows "catalog," even on some of the Windows geek forums that have been known to visit on occasion. There is of course the Windows "directory" of folders, subfolders, files and file shortcuts. Completely different from the Lightroom catalog. And to note: Photoshop does not have a catalog as such

 

[clee01l]

In the Lightroom Q&A section of the January 2023 Photoshop User magazine a distinction is made between an OS catalog and an app catalog. What’s the difference and what's preferable and why? Thanks

Without a context reference, this is purely speculation.

An OS catalog (file) would more properly refer to LrC and the catalog that it creates and maintains while an App catalog is probably a reference to the way Adobe stores the same information in the Adobe Cloud


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Paul_DS256]

OS catalog and an app catalog

Any chance you can cut/paste/scan how the article defines them and/or the context they are talked about?

 

[john w c]

In the Lightroom Q&A section of the January 2023 Photoshop User magazine a distinction is made between an OS catalog and an app catalog. What’s the difference and what's preferable and why? Thanks

This is what I referred to:

 

[bobsomrak]

That clip from the article has no mention of APP

 

[BobT]

Without a context reference, this is purely speculation.

An OS catalog (file) would more properly refer to LrC and the catalog that it creates and maintains while an App catalog is probably a reference to the way Adobe stores the same information in the Adobe Cloud


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I think Cleetus has it. You need to look at it from outside the Adobe box.

 

[Conrad Chavez]

Looking at the attachment that john w c posted seems to clear it up. Like bobsomrak said, the Q&A never mentions an “OS catalog.” The question is simply about organizing photo folders in the OS file system (macOS Finder, Windows Explorer) versus organizing in Lightroom Classic after importing.

I agree with the published answer in that there are benefits to organizing on the OS desktop before importing into Lightroom Classic. On the point made about it being “where there images live anyway” and “start with a good foundation,” I would have pushed that even further in that you want the folder organization to be something you can work with if you need to be able to locate images in that folder structure using applications other than Lightroom Classic, and also if for some reason you were no longer using Lightroom Classic in the future (perish the thought!).

Also, if you want the folder structure to be self-organizing in the future, it should be a structure that can be extended automatically by the Destination panel in the Import dialog box or by other software. For example, I picked a date-based structure because the Import dialog box in Lightroom Classic can automatically build that out using the Destination folder organization settings every time I import.

And if you think you might need to do some bulk renaming of existing files, definitely do that outside of Lightroom Classic before importing, because for some reason Lightroom Classic still can’t do a bulk renaming task that is often needed: Find and change text in a filename. You can easily do that in macOS Finder or Adobe Bridge, but not in Lightroom Classic.

 

[PhilBurton]

Looking at the attachment that john w c posted seems to clear it up. Like bobsomrak said, the Q&A never mentions an “OS catalog.” The question is simply about organizing photo folders in the OS file system (macOS Finder, Windows Explorer) versus organizing in Lightroom Classic after importing.

I agree with the published answer in that there are benefits to organizing on the OS desktop before importing into Lightroom Classic. On the point made about it being “where there images live anyway” and “start with a good foundation,” I would have pushed that even further in that you want the folder organization to be something you can work with if you need to be able to locate images in that folder structure using applications other than Lightroom Classic, and also if for some reason you were no longer using Lightroom Classic in the future (perish the thought!).

Also, if you want the folder structure to be self-organizing in the future, it should be a structure that can be extended automatically by the Destination panel in the Import dialog box or by other software. For example, I picked a date-based structure because the Import dialog box in Lightroom Classic can automatically build that out using the Destination folder organization settings every time I import.

And if you think you might need to do some bulk renaming of existing files, definitely do that outside of Lightroom Classic before importing, because for some reason Lightroom Classic still can’t do a bulk renaming task that is often needed: Find and change text in a filename. You can easily do that in macOS Finder or Adobe Bridge, but not in Lightroom Classic.

As others have pointed out in various posts, you can have a different folder organization in Lightroom than the one for Windows or MacOS on your hard drive (or SSD). That said @Conrad Chavez makes some very good points about extensibility.

Since I rely on collections and smart collections to organize my photos, it was a no-brainer for me to organize the photos in Windows based on file date and in Lightroom also on file date, using YYYY-MM-DD folder naming. For good and valid reasons, other people will pick other organizing principles. Some people but not me, use folders to manage their workflow. I use a combination of colors, stars, and keywords.

The only caution I would raise is that if you rename files outside of Lightroom, in Lightroom you will have to locate the "missing photos."