Lightroom catalog how many photos

I'm also still using Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 5. Totally agree, my catalog is almost k images and no problems at all. I just make sure the catalog is in a separate SSD drive with enough free space available. The scale size of the DB is not the issue, only the number of queries and the limited locking might impact performance of the concurrent transactions. However, the way we work with any Raw-Converter, we do not deal with say thousands of transactions per second.

It is a "single user" DB application, thus the simple locking is not a hindrance either. I do not think that anything in the range of even several hundred thousands of images impacts the performance. I do use multiple catalogs for a different reason, however, their size of up tp thousands of images does not impact LR6 at all.

I do not subscribe to software, I never will, unless forced to. Thus I have no idea if LR's often criticized performance has improved.

Strongly disagree with this. I'm a sports photographer and I have two catalogues, one on my desktop with 92k images and a mobile catalogue that I use on my laptop at games that never has more than images at a time. There is absolutely no discernable difference in speed between the two. As Grant Beachy posts above, the idea that you needed to have multiple small catalogues to maintain performance is outdated and has not been the case for many years. I have only found one disadvantage in having a single catalogue and that is that my catalogue backups take longer as they are backing up data for all my images, whereas multiple catalogues would mean that I could possibly go years without ever being asked to backup my catalogue.

However, given backups happen when I quit Lightroom and walk away from desk for the day, it's not exactly a hardship. The article was addressed to those with outdated systems who experience slow processing speed. Glad to hear yours runs smoothly, but it doesn't seem this was meant for you. I agree that there are downsides to multiple catalogs, a couple of which I pointed out in the article. Thanks for reading. Do you even Lightroom? Some Photographers can have super fast computers but some don't.

I did what the writer suggested and it worked for me. I used a Mac 16G HD. I think Photographers are quick to pick up the sword. What are you using a Commodore 64?

Most computers with and i5-i7 from can handle Lightroom with 8GB of ram. Maybe not an Apple System that is stuck with an old OS. Jacob, what's your take in moving from LR to Capture One?

I'm considering the switch I've read reviews and comparisons. But I always look to real-world users. The only draw back i have experience since switching to capture one is that there is no Photo merge function so i still use lightroom only for that.

The image processing is better but the photo import and management leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I never expercienced an issue with the catalog size in LR. I had 40k pictures in it. LR has other perfomance issues. Non or less, I think the perfomance in the C1 catalog is bad. I don't know, but it takes ages to load all the pictures, if the catalog grows.

My current major catalog has about k raw images in it. I find that once I hit k I do run into problems. My current computer is a Macbook Pro, with 16 gigs of ram.

All data files, images, are on external hard drives. I will hopefully be upgrading to a new Imac with more ram later this year. Thank you for confirming that the issue still affects modern systems.. Perhaps the figure of 10, images does need to be updated to 40 or 50K though. Is there an additional drawback to using multiple catalogs with regards to syncing with Adobe Cloud?

As far as I know it's not the catalogs slowing lightroom down unless u need to switch a lot to your library. I have a well specced late iMac , and in my opinion the bottleneck in processing pictures is the more edits you apply on an image especially with brushes or stamps the slower it gets.

I believe that flaw to be in the core design of Lightroom that is unlike PS not working with layers. Of course using an outdated or machine desigend for inter browsing will further slow down your experience, but I never had issues with extensive catalogs either. I wonder what it is about large catalogs that affects someone people's performance and doesn't seem to hinder others at all.

Working on one catalogue for all clients would do my head in too. Plus: If I have a client sitting next to me to select or process their images, seeing other clients images pop up isn't professional at all. Yes Alexander, creating separate Catalogs or folders is one of the best organizational tools that you can use with LR. Each client has a catalogue. In that catalogue are folders named for each shoot date.

For example. So I have a chronological list of shoots for the clients, all in their own catalogue. Most of my clients are repeat customers, some I even have 2 or 3 shoots a week for them. I agree, if I wanted to search my entire back catalogue for 'Pink elephants in tutu' I've have to know which catalogue to start looking in. However, if a client asks me for photos of their beer bottles from brand X, I can call them up within seconds by switching to their catalogue, as it's a known factor, and with the aid of correct tagging, I can quickly sift the 10's of 's of images I have for them.

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Find quick answers to frequently asked questions about catalogs in Lightroom Classic. What is a catalog? Catalogs are different from collections. Collections are an organizational tool within a catalog. See Work with photo collections. To watch a video tutorial about catalogs, see How Lightroom Classic catalogs work. To learn how to back up your images in the catalog, see How do I back up a catalog?

Where are my images and catalog located? How do I open my old catalog in my new version of Lightroom Classic? How do I merge two catalogs or import folders from another catalog? In the Import From Catalog dialog box:. Under Catalog Contents, select the folders that contain the photos you want to import. Click Import. Repeat steps 1 — 4 for additional catalogs or photos that you want to add to the open one. How can I use my catalog on two different computers?

What is. The new lrcat-data file, introduced in Lightroom Classic 11, along with the catalog file. How do I move a catalog to a different drive or computer? When you move a catalog, you're not moving any photos nor are you moving the Lightroom Classic app itself. After you move your catalog, you may need to help Lightroom Classic find it. See How to migrate Lightroom Classic catalog to a new computer. How do I open or switch between different catalogs?

Are catalogs in Lightroom Classic backward compatible? Check the table below to know your catalog compatibility:. Catalog compatibility.

Not compatible with Lightroom Classic Lightroom Classic Not compatible with Lightroom Classic 9. Lightroom Classic 9. Not compatible with Lightroom Classic 8. Lightroom Classic 8. Compatible with Lightroom Classic CC 7. Lightroom Classic CC 7. Not compatible with Lightroom CC Lightroom CC Compatible with Lightroom 6. Lightroom 6. Compatible with Lightroom CC When closing LR and backing up I am now seeing a message about the size of the backup on my Mac is over 4GB and if I want to open I need some form of zip reader to open the file.

What is causing this to occur? This is a bug in Lightroom for Mac. Or maybe that is all in my mind. Your email address will not be published. Scott Kelby. December 16, Best, -Scott P.

Tags Catalog Optimization Performance Speed tuning. Related Posts. By Scott Kelby. January 27, May 12,