P: Working on two catalogs at once

[prettynerdyphoto]

Bridge recently updated so that more than one window of bridge can run at the same time which has been incredible. In the meantime, I can only open up one Lightroom catalog at a time. I want to be able to export one wedding and while that loads open up the next wedding catalog to start working on that. Instead I have to wait the 20-40 minutes to export all the images before I can close one catalog before I can open another catalog.

[DenmarkOne]

If your chosen workflow is not optmal for you, you could consider using collections instead of seperate catalogs. Create a new collection(or collection set) when importing a new wedding, then possibly adding categories as sub-collections (Collections inside collections). 

Doing it this way would allow you to start working on the next wedding while exporting the previous one.

[prettynerdyphoto]

It’s not a good idea to import multiple weddings into one catalog and
separating by collections. What happens if a catalog ever corrupts? Also
wouldn’t that make the catalog have to load far too many images over time?
One catalog per wedding or per session is the best way to keep all the
images safe in case there’s ever an issue with the base catalog. This is a
suggestion to add the feature of being able to open more than one catalog
at a time.

[prettynerdyphoto]

This was the only way I knew to recommend a feature for Lightroom to add in the future which is why I'm posting about it. It's not a good idea to load multiple weddings into one catalog and separate them by collection for multiple reasons, mainly to avoid the loss of work should the catalog ever be corrupted. But also because multiple weddings means tens of thousands of images which is a lot to ask a computer to load at any one time.

[Ian Lyons]

@prettynerdyphoto 

There's an 'Ideas' forum for feature requests. Please advise if you want this thread relocated to the Ideas forum.

[prettynerdyphoto]

Yes please, must have misunderstood, my apologies

[dj_paige]

It’s not a good idea to import multiple weddings into one catalog andseparating by collections. What happens if a catalog ever corrupts? Alsowouldn’t that make the catalog have to load far too many images over time?One catalog per wedding or per session is the best way to keep all theimages safe in case there’s ever an issue with the base catalog. This is asuggestion to add the feature of being able to open more than one catalogat a time.
By @prettynerdyphoto

I copmletely disagree with this. ONe catalog is perfectly safe if you make regular and automated backups. No need for many catalogs, and many disadvantages from having many catalogs.

[Califdan2]

I support this idea.  Not necessarily for the use case of having multiple catalogs (say one per wedding) but more for other use cases.   For example,  discovering way too late that you had started using a 'not quite current' backup catalog as your prime catalog at some point in the past and never noticed.   Now you're trying to fix that and need to recover work done in that gap by using "Import from another catalog".   Being able to use two catalogs at once can make figuring out what is misisng much easier.   

In similar situations, I have gone so far as to set up my laptop next to my desktop and opened one of the catalog on each device so I could see them both at once and flip back and forth without having to do a 'relaunch' each time.   But that too is a cumbersome activity requiring copying a bunch of stuff to the laptop.