5 Things You Need To Know About Lightroom 5 Catalog

In this video, photographer Terry White share 5 tips for using the catalogs on your Lightroom 5.

You catalog can be stored anywhere on your computer – any drive/folder but also on synced folders (dropbox/skydrive etc.) and even on the creative cloud folder (but this might fill up quickly – so keep notice).
Automatically write changes into XMP – when turned on your changes to any image will be shown when you open it on other software (bridge, photoshop etc.). When off Lightroom will run faster but won’t reflect your changes to your images (unless you saved the image.
Optimize catalog – inside file>Optimize catalog – this might improve the performance of Lightroom.
Build smart previews – these take up a fraction of the original file and you can do anything with them in Lightroom (but not in Photoshop for example) and if you don’t have the original images (say you are using an external hard drive which you left at home/work). Once the original images are available again (say you connected he external hard drive) – all the images will automatically be updated.
Moving lightroom folders – many people move image folders outside lightroom – this is not recommended as you will need to go into Lightroom and reconnect the folder to its new location. A better option is to move the folder in Lightroom (in the Navigator pane) – this way Lightroom will know where are all the files.

In the past White discussed another aspect of Lightroom catalogs in the video entitled: “How To Combine Multiple Lightroom Catalogs Into One“.

As always, you can check out more useful Lightroom guides and tips on our LensVid Lightroom section.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.