Lightroom 2.2 Catalogue question

[ejg1890]

I am new to LightRoom - downloaded the trial over the weekend and comparing it to Aperture 2 which I have been using. I do like the results better than with Aperture, at least for the Nikon D9' camera.

Question I have is how many catalogues have people created? Just 1 catalogue for all photos or multiple depending on the type of photos. I was thinking of 3 catalogues - Dive photos (underwater pictures from around the World), Family related, Adventure/Trips/etc.

Is there a benefit to have multiple catalogues vs a single with folders?

Thanks

 

[Denis Pagé]

The question has been beaten to death but the main conclusions are: ONE catalog EXCEPT if you really need to separate family/personal from work images. Wedding photographers are in their own category here with many using one per wedding...

 

[Victoria Bampton]

HUGE catalogs (the definition of huge depends on your hardware specs!) can get a bit slow, so that's the main pro for multiple catalogs. On the other hand, searching for photos across multiple catalogs is a real pain, as is keeping keywords in sync. I do separate work from personal because there is no crossover. At the end of the day, 'as few as you can get away with' is probably as good a motto as any.

 

[calaf]

Currently I run two catalogs, one for work and one for personal.
(I have also prepared a new catalog for my daughter who asked for and received her first camera at Christmas.)
Having resisted the change to digital, my catalog only goes back a year, apart from a few (not great) scans of older prints. A solid collection of slides still needs to be digitised and am considering how best to do that.
However I can see that as time goes by the catalog is filling up quite nicely, so I have been considering the idea of year based catalogs, but I am not sure with the volumes of photos I actually take that this is an absolute necessity.