What is the best way to start and manage a catalog?
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I am finding little either here or online or YT videos on catalogs. That is the most important creation for programs like Neo or Lightroom. I want to create my catalog on my internal 1TB drive while running NEO on my external SSD drive that I boot my mac OS to.
I want to know recommended folder structures, i.e... Catalog/NEO/Year or NEO/Catalogs/Description or what works and now to have a few catalogs and how to manage and use said catalogs. How do catalogs work and how to use multiple and how to manage and where to put them?
I found one YT video on catalogs by Jim Nix for LuminarAi but even that video covered little about Catalogs. He mainly showed how the Trash system worked. Which is another question, why would throwing out the Trash in an app ever throw away the original file on the person's hard drive? I don't understand.
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Hello ,
I will be happy to answer your questions:
1. "How do catalogs work and how to use multiple and how to manage and where to put them?"
Luminar Neo automatically creates a Catalog when you first install it. A Catalog contains all information about your files, including metadata on flags and edits you make.
If you’re working with multiple Catalogs, you can switch between them in a click.
- To open a previously created Catalog, choose File > Catalog > Open.
- In the Finder or File Explorer window that opens, navigate to the Catalog you want to work with. It will appear as a folder.
- Select your Catalog and click Open.
- Your current Catalog will be closed and the selected Catalog will be opened.
2. "Which is another question, why would throwing out the Trash in an app ever throw away the original file on the person's hard drive?"
This is how the emptying trash works for now. However, we will pass your suggestion to our developers so they can take it into consideration!
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Thank you Austin. Is there any downside to having multiple catalogs? Is it more efficient, or less? Can they be on multiple hard drives in different locations? I do appreciate your time and responses. I am just trying to learn. Truthfully, I appreciate Single Edits as I did not like Lightroom in this regard.
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Randal Queen - Yes, single edits are stored in the catalog.
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Thank you Roy. I think why I am still trying to wrap my head around the catalog and it's role, is I am new to Skylum software and I am confused why a company would push a non-destructive editing tool, and then allow the app to throw away original files on the hard drive.
If I allowed Lightroom to do that, and toss original files to the trash, I wouldn't have a lot of my images and the need for NEO, now would I? I would have my edited images from LR and Neo would hold little interest. But I kept all my original files and now want to understand the catalog before starting my trek using Neo. Without a manual, it's hard to know, never using any Luminar software, what's what and with this release being official yet buggy, it's just more complicated. Again, thank you for your answer. -
Hello Randal Queen,
In fact, it is absolutely ok to use several catalogs especially if you have many photos. Moreover, you can surely store your catalogs on multiple hard drives in different locations. Note that best to keep your catalogs on internal drives to ensure smooth performance.
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