Reader Question: Catalogs vs. Libraries vs. Folders in Lightroom
Reader Jeff asks on Twitter, “Would love to better understand the relationship between the terms catalogue, library, and folders as applied to Lightroom.“
That’s a great question, and one that many users can get hung up on. After you read this article, be sure and check out Jeff’s beautiful photography on his blog.
Catalog (or “Catalogue” as my lovely Canadian wife would spell it)
The catalog is the database file that Lightroom uses to store the information about all of the images you’ve imported. Lightroom is, primarily, a database program. That fact is what truly sets it apart from other programs such as Photoshop and Bridge.
I like to think of the Lightroom database, or “catalog,” as being like my address book on my computer. For each entry in my address book, I have information about that person such as their name, phone number, email, and, sometimes, a small photo. There’s also, usually, a link to their web site.
Similarly, in Lightroom, each of your photos has its own database entry. Along with a visual preview, or thumbnail, of the photo, there is information such as when the picture was taken, what shutter speed, what changes have you made to the photo (history), and LOTS more. There is also a link, or address, that tells Lightroom where to find the original photo, known as the “negative file,” that goes with each entry.
This database file, typically named Lightroom Catalog.lrcat or Lightroom 2 Catalog.lrcat is, by default, stored in a folder named Lightroom in your Pictures or My Pictures folder on your computer. You can, however, store this folder and included files wherever you wish. When creating a new catalog, you can also name it whatever you wish.
Default Lightroom Catalog Location
You can also have as many Lightroom Catalogs as you wish. You can only have one catalog open at a time in Lightroom, so I typically recommend to most beginning and intermediate users that they use only one main Lightroom Catalog to avoid the inevitable confusion that ensues.
David’s article and accompanying video titled Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Introduction has some more information about the Lightroom Catalog.
Library
Many users (myself included) mistakenly interchange the terms library and catalog. Back in earlier versions of Lightroom, the catalog (as described above) was known as the library. To prevent confusion with the Library Module, Adobe changed to the current usage of Lightroom Catalog for the database and reserved library for the Library Module.
Whew! That was a mouthful. So…what is the Library?
The term library in Lightroom really just refers to the Library Module. This is the first of the five modules in Lightroom (Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web). The Library Module is where most of your sorting, keywording, flagging, tagging, labelling, and metadata-ing is done.
Library Module
That being said, even Adobe’s official Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 manual repeatedly refers to moving photos “into the library.” I guess that gives us permission to go on referring to our collection of images in Lightroom as the library and the file that stores information about those images as the catalog.
Folder
As I’ve mentioned previously, our actual images (the photos that came out of our camera) are not stored inside any Lightroom catalog or database. Those files reside in a location (typically a hard drive) where Lightroom can find and read information from them. The Folders panel in the Library Module of Lightroom allows us to see the folders on our hard drives where these originals (“negative files”) are located.
The Folders Panel and corresponding location in the Finder.
In the example above (click on it to get a closer look) you’ll see, on the left in the Folders panel, the active folder in Lightroom. That folder is called 2008-10-15 and it is inside a folder called 2008 which is inside a folder called Pictures. You can tell this from the hierarchical display of parent and child folders in Lightroom.
In the foreground, you see a Finder window (like the Windows Explorer window on a PC) showing the exact same two images in the exact same location on my hard drive (../Pictures/2008/2008-10-15/).
So, the take home message here is that folders in Lightroom always correspond to real, live folders on some storage device.
- If you move an image out of a folder in Lightroom into another folder, it will move that actual file (“negative file”) on your hard drive. (The first time you try, it’ll warn you.)
- If you delete an image from a folder in Lightroom, you’ll be asked if you want to remove the image from Lightroom (the entry for that file in the catalog) or actually delete it from the disk (throw it in your computer’s Recycle Bin or Trash.
For more on how Lightroom works please watch this wonderful tutorial from Adobe Evangelist George Jardine.
Collection
I know, I know…this wasn’t part of the question. I just love to talk soooo much that I couldn’t stop sharing. You may hear the term collection used quite often in the same context of catalog, library, and folder. A collection is a grouping of images that you’ve created inside a Lightroom catalog. These are created and manipulated in the Collections panel, which is now accessible from all modules except the Develop Module.
Collections Panel
Collections are like virtual folders.
- Images can be in more than one collection.
- Collections can contain virtually any number of images.
- Removing an image from a collection does not remove it from the Lightroom catalog.
- Moving an image into or out of a collection or collections does not physically move the file on your hard drive.
- A collection is simply a metadata attribute of an image.
Do you have a question you’d like answered? Send us your question on the Contact Us page or tweet it to me @TheLightroomLab.
Filed Under: FAQ • Featured • Getting Started • Importing Images • Organizing • Tutorials • Workflow
About the Author: Scott Rouse is an Adobe Certified Expert (ACE), photographer, teacher, and graphic- and web-designer in Missoula, MT. His photography focuses on wildlife and adventure sports and can be viewed at 
I would disagree that LR is “primarily” a database program. A real database would be more robust and could handle more entries than LR seems to be able to. That makes it difficult to maintain a large catalog (think of wedding, sports or event shooters that might have thousands of images in a given day). I’ve had to export numbers of folders to keep Lightroom running and not locking up every hour.
What would be really nice is if you could tell me how to have LR keep track of all my photos, even those in other catalogs. That would make it more like a relational database and then I might whole heartedly agree….
Carlos,
Thanks for your comment. There certainly are optimization issues from time to time in the Lightroom database. (It is, after all, a database program in every sense of the word.)
Here are a few of tips for those who may be experiencing sluggishness or crashes:
1. Keep frequent backups of the Lightroom Catalog file. This doesn’t back up your images, but is a big help if you experience a corrupt catalog file. (Set these up from the Catalog Settings dialog box.)
2. Also in the Catalog Settings, try clicking the “Relaunch and Optimize button occasionally. I recommend that you make sure you’ve completed step 1 first.
3. Try not to have too many top-level (root) folders in your Folders panel in Lightroom. This was a previous bug that has since been fixed in the Lightroom 2.2 update, but it’s still good practice. If you have lots of top-level folders listed, right-click on one and choose “Add Parent Folder.”
If you have lots and lots of images, you can work with more than one catalog. I recommend that most users stick with one, main catalog to avoid confusion, however for some users multiple, smaller catalogs may be the norm.
For example, wedding or event photographers may want to create a catalog for each wedding or event they are documenting. It would be rare that a photographer would need to look at photos from more than one event simultaneously (short of searching for marketing or portfolio shots), so having each event in its own catalog serves as a handy organizational and optimization method and safety net in case of catalog corruption or loss. (You wouldn’t lose all your events…just one…hopefully.)
There’s lots more that can be said about optimization and working with multiple catalogs. I’ll have more content on that in the future.
Thanks,
Scott
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Carlos:
LR is a photo database. It isn’t very typical to disagree with a fact that the article states, then ask the author to instead provide you with other tips you are more interested in. It sounds like you understand what a DB is, but you should also be able to figure out that LR does use one for its backend.
Great post, Scott! I found this very helpful. For years now I’ve used iPhoto to import and organize all of my photos, and now that I have upgraded to Lightroom 2, I have decided to switch and use only LR now. Will be a bit of a process getting all of my folders organized and synced with LR, but this post has definitely made me less intimidated to do so. Thanks!
Thanks, Adam. Glad it helped. Let me know if we can be of further assistance.
Hi Scott, Great info. Maybe you could clarify for my specific situation concerning wedding photography. I have just started LR and am trying to decide on an organization strategy:
a) If I made a new catalog for each wedding, would there be a way to search keywords from all weddings from 2008 (ex: spring, outdoor, ceremony)? I’m assuming not.
b) I like the idea of having a catalog/year. If that catalog were to contain 30,000 images, would LR run very slowly? I want to be able to use the Collections feature to collect my best shots from each wedding to use for promo/etc.
c) I think I understand the process of importing/exporting/or opening catalogs between separate computers. Would this mean you must be creating a separate catalog per assignment?
Thank you!
Hi Julie,
a) You assume correctly. There’s not a way to search through multiple catalogs at once, as Lightroom can only have one catalog open at a time.
b) The more images in a catalog, the slower Lightroom will run. The degree to which the speed of Lightroom is affected will vary greatly depending on the size of your images and the speed of your computer. 30,000 images is not necessarily too many images for one catalog.
c) Personally, I do use multiple catalogs. However, this can get frustrating/confusing very quickly, so I strongly encourage Lightroom beginners to work with one catalog. The exception this, though, would be event or wedding photographers like yourself. It makes sense to me to have a separate catalog for each wedding. There are very few times when you’d need to images from more than one wedding at one time.
As you pointed out, you may want to have a collection of your best images for promotional use, etc. I would suggest that you create a separate “Favorites Catalog” in which you collect copies of your portfolio-grade images. (Not that I’m insinuating that all of your images aren’t portfolio-grade!)
Good luck and feel free to let me know if you have any additional questions.
-Scott
I guess my problem is I want to get away from having to Manage folders. I want to be able to say “import files” and not think about the file location again. Why is there no way to just tell LR to import the files, ignore the folders and let me rely on the IPTC/meta data for organization? It seems like we are going backwards in file management here.
James,
I typically import files into folders by date, which Lightroom can do automatically for me. Just set it once in the Import dialog, and the setting will stick. That way I can rely on metadata (date, keywords, location information) for finding all my photographs.
-Scott
This article has been very helpful to me, however I am still a little confused on the LR catalog. I am a wedding photographer. I shoot roughly 3,000 RAW images per wedding. I have always put all those original RAW files onto an external HD. I have been importing those files into LR to be able to view and make my selections. Once that is done, I have no use for the other ~2,000 original images to be in LR. I am only working with the edit after that. Can I get rid of those files in my LR catalog to keep it from getting too full? Will it effect my original folder stored separately on my HD? It may be a stupid question, but I am a newbie..
Courtney,
It’s certainly not a stupid question. It’s one that comes up all the time.
There are many different opinions on what images one should “keep” in Lightroom or how many Catalogs one should have. For most photographers, I recommend maintaining one main Lightroom Catalog in which you would keep all of your photos. Once you’ve decided a photo is not worth keeping, then throw it away (remove it from the catalog and delete the original file). This solution is not for everyone, however.
For wedding photographers, I recommend a multiple catalog solution. WARNING: Having multiple catalogs can be a bit confusing and is not recommended for the beginning user.
As a wedding (or event) photographer, you rarely have the need to access images from more than one wedding at the same time. Let’s say a client calls from the Smith/Johnson wedding for reprints. You would then access their specific catalog and just see images from that one wedding.
My advice for wedding photographers is to create a new catalog for each wedding (or client). If you shoot engagement or post-event images you might keep those in the same catalog as the wedding images for that couple. As I’m sure you’ve realized, it’s imperative that you maintain an archive of all of your clients’ images. I’d advise you to keep the Lightroom Catalog file, previews, and original images (known as “Negative Files” in Lightroom) all together. Keep all of the images taken from an event in the Catalog (except for blank frames and obvious rejects). You can gather your picks/selects into Collections or Smart Collections within that Catalog for easy manipulation.
Once you finish editing that wedding (or client’s photos), make a new Lightroom Catalog for the next client.
It’s important to note that it’s a bit difficult to move back and forth between images kept in separate catalogs. Just keep that in mind when deciding on a multiple catalog solution.
To answer your questions about a single catalog, if you “get rid” of the files in your Lightroom Catalog to keep it from getting too full, it may or may not affect the original folder stored on the hard drive. When you remove photos from a Lightroom Catalog, you are presented with a dialog box that asks if you’d like to delete the file from disk or just remove the file from the catalog. If you choose to delete from disk, the image is removed from the catalog, and the original file is moved from your hard drive to the Trash Can/Recycle Bin. If you, instead, choose Remove from Catalog, you’ll no longer see the image in Lightroom, but the original file will remain in its place on your hard drive.
Hope that helps.
-Scott
Hiya Scott, great tutorial and it’s been a great help. I do however a question.
1.I am a fashion photographer and what ends up happening is that I make a folder for each shoot, 1000 pics each, and it’s cluttering. I saw however that you can make different catalogs for each shoot (as with any wedding/event). But if i already have the pictures, how do i move them to another catalog?
Thanks in advance!
Percy,
Great question. It’s a relatively simple process to move images out of a large catalog into smaller catalogs. Let me say first, however, that I don’t recommend it for most users. In your situation, it may make sense, though.
To move (or, more accurately, “copy”) images to a separate catalog, simply select the images or folders you’d like to move and choose “Export as Catalog…” from the File menu. In the dialog that appears, name your new catalog and choose a location for it on your computer or external drive. If the “Export negative files” box is checked, a duplicate copy of your original files will be included in the newly created folder. You may choose not to export those original files if they are already located where you want them to be. Once you’ve created your new catalog and you can see your images in there, you can remove them from the original catalog. (Make sure, when removing those images from the original catalog, that you just “remove them from the catalog” rather than “deleting the images from disk” if you didn’t choose to “Export negative files” earlier.
The article, Moving Images from one Computer to Another, helps to demonstrate the process.
Best of luck,
Scott
Hi Scott, Thank goodness I found you!
My question leads on from Percy’s I think. I will try to keep this as uncomplicated as I can……
I have two catalogs on two different external hard drives. I do this so I can alternate between laptop and desktop. They are backed up each import to my desktop computer’s hard drive. I have bought a new, bigger hard drive and want to copy my best photos, from the two established catalogs/ hard drives, and make a new catalog and file storage on the latest hard drive!! Should I just export as Catalog and check to “Export negative file” too??
Did that make any sense at all???
Do you have other suggestions?
Thanks so much for your great advice amongst the pages of this site.
Ness