How many images per catalogue?

[boggo]

Hi, I am quite new to Lightroom and plan to put all my 3'' ''' images into lightroom and catalogue them all with metadata. I have seen lots of threads with people having trouble with large catalogues, and was considering what the general consensus was in terms of upper limits or other strategies people use to organize that many photos? I will be using Lightroom 2.3 on a quad core PC with 4GB Ram.

If I split the catalogues up then searching will require opening up multipule catalogues = not so nice.

Thanks for any help!

John

 

[johnbeardy]

I don't think there is a consensus. 3''k would be the biggest I've heard of, but a good friend is happily running just under 2''k on a dual core PC. So I would advise you to go ahead, placing the catalogue on your fastest hard drive with plenty of space for previews (review the preview keeping preference), reviewing your backup procedures too.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

John, if you find it runs a bit slow, you could always keep the 3''k in an archive catalog, and keep your current working files in a fast 'working' catalog which you then import into the archive when you've finished working. It's a workaround that works well for those who find the main archive a little slow, whilst still keeping the searching benefits.