Lightroom

Catalogs in Lightroom

Catalog headerGood morning! 🙂

I thought I would share some interesting information about Catalogs in Lightroom today.

I’m sure you already know how to create Catalogs in Lightroom, but did you know that you could hold Ctrl/Opt key when starting Lightroom to select which Catalog you want to open? Or you can use the same keyboard shortcut to create a new Catalog.

Another topic I want to share today (still talking about Catalogs) , have you ever wondered why there are so many files in the same folder as your Catalog? Also, notice how the content of the folder suddenly changes when you open the Catalog in Lightroom:

Before:

Catalog Folder 1After:

Catalog Folder 2Here’s what these files are and what they do:

  • .lrcat file – the Catalog, keeps all settings
  • .lrdata – previews
  • .lrcat.lock – a lock file that protects your database from getting corrupted
  • .lrcat-journal – this file contains data that are waiting to be written into the database

And this is all for today. More information on Catalogs will follow shortly so stay tuned 😉

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