Posted by mattk on Jun 10, 2013 in Lightroom Tips | 1 comment

I think Lightroom is all about showcasing your photos and making them look great. To me, nothing ruins that more than that annoying photo info overlay that appears in the top left of the photo in the Library and Develop module (see image below).

I’m in Colfax, Washington right now teaching a workshop along side of Bill Fortney and friends. While in the classroom today, I noticed that overlay on several of the screens from people in the class and you’d be amazed at the sigh of relief when I showed them that you just have to press the I key to turn it off. Yup… that’s it. Press the letter I to cycle through the different info overlays and eventually turn it off altogether.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day.

Posted by mattk on May 21, 2013 in Lightroom Tips | 24 comments

For years, catalog questions tend to be the most popular questions I get at my Lightroom seminars. One of those questions is whether or not to create multiple catalogs in Lightroom. See, back in Lightroom 1, it became fairly common knowledge that when your catalog grew to a certain size in photos (say 20,000) that it would slow down and you should create a new catalog so Lightroom would keep running quickly.

But that’s not the case anymore. Lightroom doesn’t have a photo limit that anyone has hit. Adobe doesn’t even recommend creating multiple catalogs anymore. So the first thing I tell people is to stick with one catalog. Keep it simple. I’ve got 70,000 photos in one of my catalogs and I don’t notice it to be significantly slower than a smaller catalog.

Now, does that mean you should never create multiple catalogs. Nope. It’s like many other things out there. Know what the rules are, then know how and when to break them. I know wedding photographers that create a new catalog each week for each wedding. Honestly, if I were a wedding photographer I’d probably do the same. I know people that create a catalog for their personal photos and one for their professional photos. Me personally, I don’t agree with that one. But hey, if it works for you then go for it.

My point is, if you have a good reason and are an advanced enough Lightroom user then creating multiple catalogs may be the way to go. But keep it mind, multiple catalogs is an “advanced” thing to do in Lightroom. You’re not going to find a lot of support for it, you’re going to complicate your workflow, and you’re not going to find a clear cut path on exactly how to make it work well.

But I think for most people, one catalog will work just fine. Load it up with as many photos as you’d like and don’t sweat it. It keeps things simple and, in my book, simple is usually good when it comes to managing our photos.