(Note, this is an excerpt of an article that appeared in the January 2021 issue of Photoshop User magazine.)

I consider the catalog file to be the second most important component of the LrC system (with the first being your photos). The catalog file has a .lrcat (that’s LRCAT not IRCAT) file extension. This is where all the work you do in LrC is stored, along with all the information LrC knows about your photos. When it comes to the catalog file you need to know where it is stored and you need to keep it backed up frequently and consistently.

Know its Location

To make sure you know where your catalog is located, go to Lightroom Classic > Catalog Settings > General (PC: Edit > Catalog Settings > General), and you’ll see the location of the currently open catalog.

Ideally, this is exactly where you expected your catalog to be located. However, it is not uncommon for people to discover the catalog they have open is not at all where they expected it to be stored. If your catalog is not where you expected, or not where you want it to remain, then you’ll want to check out my article on moving your catalog to a new location.

Next, click that Show button to open the folder containing your catalog, and let’s take a look inside. Along with the .lrcat file can be several .lrdata files, which are supporting players to your catalog and contain some type of preview used in normal operation of LrC. If that catalog file is currently open in LrC you’ll also see some other files that automatically go away when the catalog is closed (notably the .lock and -wal files). That’s all fine.

Clear Out the Old

Now, if you’ve updated to the latest version of LrC (currently version 10), then you may also see your old catalog file from when you were using the previous version of LrC. In my case, the file named Lightroom Catalog.lrcat is my old catalog. When I opened the new version of LrC I was prompted through the process of upgrading a copy of the old catalog and renaming the new copy to be used with the new version. In my case, the current (updated) catalog is named Lightroom Catalog-v10.lrcat. I’ve been using the new version without problem for a few months now, and have plenty of backup copies. I’m not going to go back to LrC version 9, so I no longer need the old Lightroom Catalog.lrcat file, and I will delete it to recover that disk space. Clearly, you need to be just as certain as I am about which catalog is which. This is why we started by looking at the name of the currently used catalog in the Catalog Settings dialog. Once you are sure, you can safely delete any old catalog files that you no longer need.

While we’re in this folder and looking at the name of the catalog, if you don’t like the name of your catalog, and want to rename it to something else, check out my article on how to rename your LrC catalog (and its supporting files).

Back It Up

Next, let’s ensure that catalog file is backed up on a regular basis. Head back to that Catalog Settings dialog, and note the Back up catalog drop-down menu at the bottom. I have mine set to prompt me to backup the catalog every time Lightroom exits. I don’t actually run the backup every time, but I do like to have the option and the reminder. This way, if I have done a lot of work I can exit LrC, then when prompted, click Back up, and if I don’t have time, I can click Skip.

Note, this prompt that appears when you exit is the only place where you can configure the location for the backup copy to be stored. I am a big Dropbox user, so I send my backup copy to be stored within my Dropbox folder. This ensures that my backup copy of the catalog is going to be synced to the cloud and my other computers automatically and quickly. If you don’t use a cloud storage service, then simply pointing that location to another drive is good enough.

Each time that backup process runs it creates a copy of your catalog at that moment in time in the location configured on that backup prompt, and then compresses it into a .zip file to save space. LrC never ever removes old backup copies of the catalog, so it falls entirely on us to periodically remove old backup copies to keep your drive from filling up. How many to keep? I usually just keep the most recent 3 or 4, and pop into that folder once a month or so to clear it out. If you ever needed to recover from a backup catalog you would go to the most very recent, not the one from 3 months ago, so out with the old and in with the new.

Set Default Catalog

Word to the wise, I can’t tell you how often I encounter people who follow this exercise only discover the catalog they have open is stored among their backup copies. Don’t feel badly if this happens to you. You will want to follow my previous link for how to move your catalog to a new location though so that you don’t accidentally delete it when you are clearing out the old backup copies. The reason your working catalog seems to magically appear in your backup folder is LrC’s default preference for what catalog file to open when the program is launched. Here’s how to change that so you are making that decision and not LrC. Head over to Lightroom Classic > Preferences > General (PC: Edit > Preferences > General). In the Default Catalog section, if you have never changed this yourself, you’ll see that it is set to Load most recent catalog.

That means if you happen to open a catalog in your backup folder out of curiosity and then close that catalog (quit LrC), then the next time you launch LrC it will open the catalog in the backup location because it was the most recent catalog you opened. To avoid that fate, simply click the drop-down menu and choose the specific catalog you want LrC to open every time you launch the program. If you use multiple catalogs, then choose Prompt me when starting Lightroom to see a list of catalogs to choose from, and you are on your way.

Taking these simple steps, and re-checking in on your catalog throughout the year will help ensure you are in control of your Lightroom Classic experience, and help you avoid a lot of frustration.

The post Moving Forward on the Right Foot appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Under Normal Circumstances

Before we get into that, I wanted to share what files are typically found in the folder where your Lightroom Classic catalog is located. Now, this screen capture shows what it looks like when the catalog is open.

Here’s that same folder after Lightroom Classic has been shut down.

When Lightroom Classic is closed the .lock and -wal files are removed under normal operation. However, if Lightroom crashed or the computer crashed, those files can be left behind, which can get in the way of opening the catalog again. If that ever happens to you, you can simply delete the .lock file and Lightroom Classic should open normally.

The .lrcat file is your catalog, and the .lrdata files are preview caches that contain the previews used by Lightroom to represent your photos. If you’ve never created smart previews then you would only have one preview cache. The Helper.lrdata serves as a cache for the Folder panel search. If you’ve synced your Lightroom Classic catalog to Lightroom cloud and you have not configured a custom destination for photos downloaded from the cloud then you might also see a Mobile Downloads.lrdata file, which is where those photos are stored.

What Can Happen

Now, if you have not been as diligent as I have in keeping that folder under control over the years, you might end up with a situation that looks something like this.

Now, not meaning any judgement here as we all have our own messes to clean up from time to time. And to be fair, no one should just start deleting files unless you are sure about what you are deleting, so it is easy to see how this kind of thing can build up. Let’s try to sort out what is important to keep. I’ve highlighted the keepers in red.

By the presence of the .lock and -wal files we can tell that the Lightroom catalog in question was open when this screen capture was made. That also helped me to determine that was the keeper catalog. The second clue was the modified dates on that catalog file was recent compared to the much older dates on all the others.

So, here’s what you’d want to do to clean up a similar situation.

1. Quit Lightroom Classic (make sure you have a good backup in place for good measure). Closing Lightroom will remove the .lock and -wal files automatically. We’d also want to see if that cleared out any of the temp files too.
2. Delete all of the other .lrcat (and associated .lrdata) files you no longer want. Based on the file names of the catalogs it looks as though those are older catalogs from earlier versions of Lightroom Classic where a copy was upgraded and the old one was left behind. This is the normal process when you upgrade a copy of the catalog, so it’s a good bet that there are a lot of us with old unused catalog files just hanging around. Just make sure you are 100% sure about which catalog file is which before you delete (and you have a good backup too).
3. Delete all of the files with the word “Temporary” in them. Those are intended to be removed under normal operations, but if there was a problem or a crash they can get left behind. Looking at the modified dates there aren’t any very recent, so I think it is safe to nix them all.
4. (Optional) For good measure, you might consider renaming your catalog file to something more meaningful.

When all of that is done your Lightroom Classic catalog folder should be pared down to just the essential bits you need and nothing else. Hope that helps!

The post Which Files Can I Delete? appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

OK, on to today’s tip
My buddy Terry White and I were talking about this recently, and we know there are some folks out there that could get burned thinking they’re covered if their Lightroom catalog gets corrupted because they automatically back-up their computer every day, so they know they have a recent backup of their catalog.

But is that backup is corrupted, too? How would you know, until it’s too late?

That’s why you should use Lightroom’s built-in catalog Backup feature (that window that pops-up when you Quit Lightroom asking you if you want to backup your catalog). The reason is — it checks the integrity of the catalog you’re backing up (see below) so you know that what you’re backing up will work if you get in that situation.

If it doesn’t pass the integrity test (and you see the warning below), you know your backup isn’t going to bail you out if you need it, and hopefully, you have another recent backup somewhere.

Terry (who was kind enough to share these screencaps from a recent catalog problem he encountered), did a video detailing the hows and whys it’s better to use Lightroom’s built-in catalog backup feature. I’ve embedded it below:

One more important thing!
I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s so important it’s worth repeating. Backing up your Lightroom catalog does NOT back up your photos themselves. For more on that, check out this post on my daily blog.

Hope you find that helpful and that it has you rethinking your catalog backup strategy.

Here’s to a kick-butt, awesome, even better than usual week ahead!

Best,

-Scott

P.S. Washington, DC – I’m there with my Lightroom seminar Friday, August 17th. Come on out — it’s 100% money-back guaranteed! Info and tickets here.

The post Why You Should Use Lightroom’s Catalog Backup Feature Even If You Backup Your Whole Computer Daily appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

While the process of backing up your catalog is easy, first you might want to know why you need to backup your Lightroom catalog and then how to do it, step-by-step. So, first read this:

Are You Backing Up Your Lightroom Catalog?

After reading that, you might ask, “Where should that backup be stored?” So, read this:

Are You Backing Up Your Lightroom Catalog To The Right Place?

OK, that’s the plan — stop what you’re doing; backup that catalog, and start this week off like a boss!!

Have a great backed-up feelin’ Monday!

Best,

-Scott

P.S. Come to my Lightroom seminar in Raleigh, Lansing, or Washington DC
This month (well, in just a few days), I’ll be in Raleigh (July 11th), Lansing (July 13th), and Washington DC on August 17th. Come on out and spend the day with me learning all the cool stuff in Lightroom Classic. http://kelbyonelive.com

The post It’s “Back-up Your Lightroom Catalog” Monday! appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Exporting a Catalog

Let’s walk through the steps for how this can be done.

Step One:
There are a couple of ways to export a catalog, but my favorite way is to put all the photos I want in the new catalog into a collection first. This way it doesn’t matter if the photos are stored across multiple different folders, as you can just drag and drop them all into a single collection to pull them together.

Once you have them all in the collection, Ctrl-click (PC: Right-click) the collection name and choose Export this Collection as a Catalog from the contextual menu that appears. This will open the Export as Catalog dialog box.

Step Two:
On the Export as Catalog dialog box, choose where you want the exported catalog to go and give it a name. Since I am planning to take this catalog on a trip I selected a folder on the external drive I am taking with me and gave it a name that made sense to me.

Step Three:
At the bottom of the Export as Catalog dialog box are three checkboxes. For this purpose I am checking Export negative files to include copies of the original photos along with the exported catalog file so that I can work on them in Develop and even send to third-party plug-ins. Checking Include available previews may cause the catalog export process to take a tiny bit longer, but it will save you the time later by not having to re-render them again.

Note, if you don’t need copies of the source photos you can choose Build / Include Smart Previews and use those instead. This takes up much less disk space than including negative files, but still allows for editing in Develop (albeit with smaller versions of the photos).

Step Four:
Click Export Catalog (PC: Save) to start the process of exporting the catalog, negative files (photos), and previews to the external drive.

Nothing about this process will change anything in my original catalog. All I am doing is duplicating the data about the photos in that collection in a new catalog file. If I go to File > Open Catalog, and select the new .LRCAT file, I can open that catalog file into Lightroom and verify all the work I’ve done—from keywording to virtual copies to Develop edits—on those photos is contained in this new catalog. By including the negative files it even replicates the same folder structure on the destination drive so I know these photos are where they should be for the trip.

From there it is just a matter of safely disconnecting that drive (close the catalog file first) from the first computer, connecting it to the second computer, and opening that catalog into Lightroom when I want to use it. To open that catalog file directly into Lightroom, just use your file browser to open the folder on the external drive and double-click the .LRCAT file. Now you are ready to head out on your trip, continue working on those photos in any way you wish, and import new photos you take along the way knowing that you can bring all of this work back to your original catalog.

That said, there is one mistaken assumption out there that I’ve seen quite a few people make. If you delete some of the original photos you exported with that catalog you cannot expect Lightroom to mirror those same deletions back in the original catalog when you import from that catalog. It just doesn’t work that way. You can only transfer data about your photos between catalogs, and once a photo is deleted the data about it is gone, so there is nothing to transfer. Long story short, don’t bring photos that you plan to delete, or better yet, instead of deleting just apply reject flags to them because that is data that will be imported back and you can delete all rejects from your main catalog.

Importing Back to Original Catalog

OK, now I have returned from my trip. I worked on each of the original photos I exported with the catalog and I have imported new photos taken while away. Here’s how to bring that all back into the original catalog.

Step One:
Connect the external drive to the original computer, open your original catalog into Lightroom, and go to File > Import from Another Catalog, then select the .LRCAT file on the external drive and click Open to launch the Import from Catalog dialog box.

Step Two:
First deal with the decisions in the New Photos section. Click the File Handling drop-down menu and choose between Add new photos to catalog without moving (i.e., add to catalog and leave on external drive), Copy new photos to a new location and import, or Don’t import new photos. I want to copy the new photos to my master storage drive, so I chose Copy new photos to a new location and import. Once you make that choice you need to tell Lightroom where to save the copies, so next to Copy to, click the Choose button and select the destination folder.

Step Three:
Decide how to handle the changes made to existing photos. Click the Replace drop-down menu and choose from Nothing, Metadata and develop settings only, or Metadata, develop settings, and negative files. I do want to replace metadata and develop settings in the original catalog with the work I did on the road, and I did not make any changes to the pixels in any of the negative files, so I chose Metadata and develop settings only. Under the Replace drop-down menu I have the option to Preserve old settings as a virtual copy. This is useful if you want to either compare the new work with the old work, or if you just want multiple versions of the work you did, but I am going to leave that unchecked so that the original files are simply updated.

Step Four:
Confirm all of the settings are configured the way you want them and click Import.

Lightroom then goes through the process of updating the changed original photos with the new work, copying the new photos to my main storage drive and importing them into the original catalog. This catalog export and import function is the only way to transfer all of the data stored in the Lightroom catalog between two catalogs, and the process is pretty straightforward when you understand the role of the catalog file throughout each stage.

Once the catalog import process is complete you have one more decision to make, which is, what will you do with the small catalog and the associated photos on the external drive that are now safely migrated to your primary system? The simplest choice is to just delete that catalog file, its preview cache, and the copies of the photos from the external drive. Consider it a temporary catalog that acted as a sort of transfer station while you were traveling and has outlived its usefulness. This will avoid clutter and confusion down the road.

The post Exporting and Importing a Classic Catalog appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

While Lr Classic doesn’t care what you call your catalog, you should. Under normal operation it isn’t something you’ll likely encounter, but if you should ever need to restore from a backup, if you move to a new computer, or if you ever get around to finally cleaning up your computer, you’ll really want to know what your latest, greatest, working catalog is called. One person I was helping had catalogs stored in multiple locations on his system, with names going back to Lightroom 2, and names that looked like, “Lightroom 2 Catalog-2-2-2-2-2-2.lrcat.” I estimated he had GBs of data locked up in old catalog files that he didn’t even realize were on his system. Now, I know (hope) that this is not typical of most Lr Classic users, but I’ve seen enough systems to know he’s not as edge-case as it may seem.

The first thing you need to know is where your catalog is located, and I’ve written about that before. Once you’ve got that location identified, you can take the following steps to rename your catalog file to something meaningful to you, or at least get rid of all those -2-2-2-2’s appended to the file name.

Side note, those -2 that get appended to the catalog name happen when you upgrade a catalog from a pervious version. Lightroom will create a copy of the catalog file in the same location as the original, which results in the -2 getting appended to the name to prevent it from overwriting the original.

Ok, so after you’ve located your catalog in your file browser of choice (Finder or Windows Explorer), you need to close Lightroom. Closing Lightroom will clear out those temporary files (.lock & .lrcat-wal).

Next, you’ll want to decide what you want to call your catalog. You don’t need to get fancy, just keep it simple and meaningful (to you). If you only have one catalog, then “Lightroom Catalog” works fine. I do recommend removing the version of Lightroom from the name, as I’ve seen that confuse people after they upgrade versions (such as the person I mentioned at the start).

Now you can use your file browser to rename the catalog file just like you would any other file on your drive. In my example, I’m going to change the name to Lightroom Catalog. On both Mac and Windows you can Control-click/right-click a file and choose Rename from the contextual menu that appears.

Leaving the file extension (.lrcat) alone, I enter my desired name, so the end result is Lightroom Catalog.lrcat.

You’ll notice that the preview caches (.lrdata) still retain the old name, so you need to rename each preview cache to match the name you gave the catalog, but keep the word “Previews” and “Smart Previews” as well as the file extension. So when I am done I have Lightroom Catalog.lrcat, Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata, and Lightroom Catalog Smart Previews.lrdata. Note, if you’ve never created smart previews you won’t have that cache file.

With everything renamed, double-click the catalog file to open it into Lightroom and make sure all is well. Since you’ve changed the name of the catalog, go ahead and update the Default Catalog setting on the Preferences so the correct catalog opens each time you launch Lightroom. Move forward into the world with confidence!

The post How to Rename Your Classic Catalog appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Here’s how on a Mac:

1. If you are not sure where your catalog is located on your drive, open Lightroom, and go to Lightroom > Catalog Settings > General (PC: Edit > Catalog Settings > General), and click the Show button to open your file browser to that location.
2. Navigate inside of the selected folder, and look for the file with the .lrcat extension (you may need to change the view of your file browser to display file extensions).
3. Control-click/right-click the catalog file and choose Make Alias.
4. Drag the alias (not the actual catalog file) to your desktop.

Here’s the steps for Windows:

1. If you are not sure where your catalog is located on your drive, open Lightroom, and go to Edit > Catalog Settings > General, and click the Show button to open your file browser to that location.
2. Navigate inside of the selected folder, and look for the file with the .lrcat extension (you may need to change the view of your file browser to display file extensions).
3. Right-click the catalog file and choose Send to Desktop >

Now all you need to do is double-click that alias/shortcut and Lightroom Classic will open that catalog file specifically every time.

One thing to note is if you have an older version of Lightroom installed, then in some cases I’ve seen that older version retained as the default program associated with .lrcat files. In those cases, trying to open a current Classic catalog in an older version of Lightroom presents an error (because you can’t open a new catalog in an old version). To avoid this from happening, uninstall any older versions of Lightroom you are no longer using. If you need to keep an old version of Lightroom for some reason, then just make sure the current version is the one that is registered on your operating system as the default program for .lrcat files.

Bonus tip, if you use a Wacom tablet you can even register one of the Express Keys to launch that specific catalog file and skip the alias/shortcut trick.

One last step to take is to go to Lightroom > Preferences > General (PC: Edit > Preferences > General) and configure that specific catalog to be the Default catalog. This way if you should launch Lightroom itself, it will open that catalog specifically, and not any other.

What About Multiple Catalogs?

If you are one of those rare (and amazing!) people who needs to use multiple catalogs, then you can create multiple aliases/shortcuts (one for each catalog) and keep those on your desktop (or in a special folder on your desktop to keep things tidy). Make sure you name them in such a way as to help you know which catalog you are opening when double-clicking.

Once that is done, on the Preferences > General tab, instead of choosing a specific catalog as the default you can choose Prompt me when starting Lightroom to be presented with a list of catalogs to choose from each time you launch Lightroom instead of using one of the aliases/shortcuts. In other words, if you use an alias/shortcut to open a specific catalog you won’t be prompted with a list, you’d only see that when launching Lightroom from your Dock/Taskbar/Start Menu. Make sense? Hope so.

The post A Simple Tip to Ensure You Always Open the Right Catalog appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Disclaimer: Let’s just acknowledge that in the grand scheme of things your photos and videos will require far more storage space than your Lightroom catalog and its related files ever will. However, because this is so obvious we all take steps to manage our disk space relating to our photo storage. The files related to running (and backing up) Lightroom tend to accumulate in the background, and it isn’t until we find ourselves running short on disk space that we start to wonder what is going on behind the scenes. My goal is to simply shed a little light on the subject so that you can make the decisions you need for your system. There is not a one-size-fits all answer here, and you shouldn’t just run out and make changes to your setup if you aren’t having any problems. I just want you to be more fully in the driver’s seat as you make decisions down the road.

When you look under Lightroom’s hood you find that there are a number of files that work in concert to make Lightroom function, and all of these require some amount of hard disk space. By default, all of these files exist on your startup drive, and for many of us that drive is already chock-full of lot’s of other files too. Increasingly our startup drives are solid state drives for improved performance, which tend to be smaller in storage capacity. This combination of factors can leave some of us running low on free space, which becomes a performance drag of its own. Let’s take a closer look at what these files are, where they can be found, and what you might be able to do to manage them over time.

The Catalog

As the most important of all of the Lightroom-related files this is a great place to start. By default the catalog is created within a folder named Lightroom within your Pictures folder. If you are not sure where your catalog is located you can go to Lightroom > Catalog Settings > General (PC: Edit > Catalog Settings) and find its name and location displayed along with other important information about the catalog itself. Click the Show button to open a new file browser window with that folder selected.

All of the work you do in Lightroom is automatically stored in that catalog file, and as a result the file size of the catalog grows over time. The size in bytes of that catalog file will depend on how many photos you have imported and how much work you have done on those photos. This catalog, managing about 30,000 images, is about 515 MB, which is not much of a disk space issue. My main catalog on my desktop is over 3GB and manages over 150,000 images.

However, there’s a saying in backpacking that “every ounce counts,” so for some people shaving some megabytes off their catalog might be attractive, but what can you do? The easiest thing to do is to run the File > Optimize Catalog function. Those with really large catalogs are the only ones likely to see any real difference in file size as a result, but those are also the people most likely to be interested in reducing its file size (and possibly improving performance). There is no harm in doing it, so give it a try.

Managing Catalog Backups

While Classic doesn’t have a function to back up your photos it does have an automated mechanism for creating backup copies of the catalog file on a regular basis. If you go back to Catalog Settings > General you can configure Lightroom to periodically create an exact copy of the catalog file on a schedule of your choosing. The next time you exit Lightroom on that schedule you will be prompted to run the catalog backup process, and it is only on that dialog box that you can choose where you want the backup copy created (ideally you’d choose a different drive than the one used for your working catalog). Worth noting that as of Lightroom CC 2015/6 we have the ability to adjust that schedule from the Back Up Catalog dialog box too.

Each time this process runs an exact copy of your catalog (the .lrcat file) at that moment in time is created in the backup location, and then (as of Lightroom CC 2015/6) the backup copy is compressed into a zip file as a way to reduce disk space (and to keep people from opening a backup copy of the catalog by mistake).

Using this backup feature can help protect you against data loss through drive failure (if they are being saved to a different drive) or catalog corruption (which is rare, but can happen and is not always obvious at first), and I highly recommend using it, but even though the backup copies are now compressed, Lightroom will continue to keep creating them until the chosen destination drive is full. Each time the process runs a new (compressed) copy of the catalog is created and there it will remain until the user (you) removes them. This is easy to do, but I’ve encountered many people who have never given it a second thought and have every backup copy of the catalog ever created still sitting in that folder.

I periodically go to the folder where they are created using my file browser and delete all but the most recent few. If you think about it, should you ever need to restore a backup catalog you would choose the most recent one right? But what if the data you were hoping to retrieve wasn’t in the most recent catalog copy, wouldn’t it be nice to have a few iterative versions on hand to go back through? Yes, this is more redundant redundancy, but I personally enjoy the peace of mind of having them around. The really important part is that you need to be in control and not let automated tasks run unchecked. You may just have gigabytes of drive space waiting to be reclaimed.

Important public service announcement, before you go deleting all of your old backup copies make sure you know where your working catalog is located first (this is shown on that Catalog Settings panel we saw earlier) and that it is not somehow located among your backups. You’d be surprised how many people I’ve encountered who only discovered their catalog was among their backups after they deleted it by mistake. How could this happen? The Default Catalog setting found in Preferences > General is usually to blame. By default, it is set to Load most recent catalog, so all it takes is a curious user opening an old backup copy of a catalog, then closing Lightroom to set that old backup copy as the “most recent” and the next time that person launches Lightroom that backup copy opens. Please take a moment to change your Default Catalog preference to anything other than Load most recent!

I’ll wrap this up in next week’s post with a look at Classic’s preview caches. See you then!

The post Keeping Lightroom Classic’s Files in Check: Part 1 appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

Here’s how to find your catalog:

1. Launch Lightroom.
2. Go to Lightroom (PC: Edit)>Catalog Settings and click on the General tab.

Once the Catalog Settings dialog opens, you’ll see the location of the open catalog displayed at the top, as well as its file name, date created, date of last backup, date of last optimization, and its file size on disk. If that location is where you expected, then great. Gold star for you! If not, you might want to consider putting it in a location you prefer.

You can keep your catalog on any locally connected drive (you can’t open a catalog over a network), so whether it’s an internal drive or an external drive is entirely up to you. There are pros and cons to both options. Storing a catalog locally means you can always open the catalog without having to connect an external drive. Storing a catalog on an external drive gives you the flexibility to open that catalog from any computer (running Lightroom) on which that drive is mounted. I’ve used both options at different times over the years, and all things being equal, performance is usually at least a little better when stored on an internal drive.

Should you need to relocate your catalog to a different drive, or just a different folder on the same drive, here’s how:

1. Close Lightroom.
2. Open your operating system’s file browser (Finder or Windows Explorer), and navigate to the folder containing the catalog (.lrcat) and its associated preview caches (.lrdata). You can click the Show button in the Catalog Settings dialog (before closing Lightroom) to open your file browser to that folder.
3. Copy the folder containing the catalog to your desired location.
4. When the copy operation is complete, double-click the catalog file (.lrcat) to open it into Lightroom.
5. Take a look around and make sure all is well (and it should be).
6. Set that catalog in its new location as the Default Catalog.

By setting that catalog as the Default Catalog, the next time you launch Lightroom it will open that catalog. Once you’re satisfied all is well, and you have a good backup in place, you can remove the original catalog from its previous (unwanted) location.

If you want to take things to the next level to ensure you always open the correct catalog, you can create an Alias (PC: Shortcut) directly to the catalog file and leave that on your desktop. On Mac, Right-click the catalog file and choose Make Alias, then drag the Alias to your desktop (or wherever you wish). On Windows, Right-click the catalog file and choose Send to>Desktop (create shortcut), and it will create a shortcut on your desktop. From then on, when you want to open Lightroom, just double-click that Alias/Shortcut and you’ll know that you’re always opening that specific catalog at that specific location.

The post Do You Know Where Your Catalog Is? appeared first on Lightroom Killer Tips.

One day, you could start Lightroom just like usual, but get a warning message that your catalog is corrupt (see below):

Or worse, you might just get a dialog that says “This catalog could not be opened due to an unexpected error” and your only choices will be to:

(a) try it again (unlikely that it will suddenly work, but certainly worth a try, right?)

(b) Quit and start sobbing quietly, or

(c) choose a different catalog ’cause this one is dead (btw: that’s the only three choices that dialog will give you). I hope you never see either, but at least if you see the one above, there’s a button you can click to let Lightroom “Repair Catalog” and of course, you’d hit that button and see if Lightroom itself can fix the problem. If it does, you can breathe a big sigh of relief. If it can’t you’ll see the message below:

Having a corrupt catalog is pretty rare thankfully, but it does happen (and it has happened to me). Of course, I hope you never see either of those scary dialogs, but at least if you see the one above, there’s a button you can click to let Lightroom “Repair Catalog” and of course, you’d hit that button and see if Lightroom itself can fix the problem. If it does, you can breathe a big sigh of relief. If it can’t you’ll see the message below:

So, now what?
Now would be when you use your backup catalog; you simply replace your damaged catalog (drag it into the trash [its file name has the file extension .lrcat], and copy your most recent backup to the folder where you normally store your Lightroom catalog — launch that catalog and you’re back up and running). That all works if you have a backup at all. This is why it’s so important that you backup your catalog periodically.

If you don’t have a backup, you’ve lost all your edits. All your organization. All your star ratings, pick flags, photo books you created, collections — everything — you are starting over from scratch with Lightroom. I don’t want that to happen to you, and the fix is easy — all you have to do is not totally ignore the dialog below that appears when you quit Lightroom.

When this dialog box appears (again, it appears when you quit Lightroom or close your current catalog), you’ll have the option to Back Up (strongly recommended) or to Skip this time (only click that if you know you have a recent backup). It’s also important to understand what those time lines mean above. Essential, they mean this:

If you choose ‘Once a month, when exiting Lightroom’ that means that if your catalog got corrupted, and you had to use your backup, you would only lose ALL the changes you made in the last month. You’ll be back to what your catalog looked like a month ago. That’s a lot of edits down the drain, but at least you don’t have to start over from scratch.

If you choose ‘Once a week, when exiting Lightroom’ that means that if your catalog got corrupted, and you had to use your backup, you would only lose a week’s worth of edits. That could be a little loss, or a lot, depending on how often you edit and organize in Lightroom during a given week.

I would choose ‘Once a day, when exiting Lightroom’ if you use Lightroom every day. If your catalog gets corrupted, and you have to use your backup, you’ll only lose the stuff you did yesterday. IMPORTANT: If you choose this daily backup method, you are going to have A LOT of backups accumulating and taking up needless space on your drive. Anything older than a few days you won’t need, because you have a fresh updated new backup every day, so go back and read my article on how to get rid of those outdated backups.

NOTE: These backups will be saved into a folder named “Backups” and that folder will be in the same folder where your current Lightroom catalog lives on your computer.

I hope today’s post encouraged you to pick some kind of timeframe to backup your catalog, so if something does go wrong, you’re not starting over completely from scratch.

Around 1,000 Lightroom Users in Three Days!
I’m in Los Angeles today teaching my Lightroom workshop. Looking forward to meeting a whole bunch of you there (I’m going to be training over 1,000 photographers in person at my Lightroom seminars this week). Wednesday I’m in San Francisco and Friday in Seattle. So looking forward to seeing everybody. Hope our paths cross along the way.

Best,

-Scott

P.S. Mark your calendars — the Photoshop World Conference 2018 is in Orlando next year, May 31st – June 2nd. Hope you can come out and spend a few days getting insanely good at Lightroom. Details here. 

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