Multiple Catalogs - Retain Publish Services

[pish180]

I'm using multiple catalogs because I have tens of thousands of images and I needed a better workflow.  This seems to be the best practice.   The problem I have when using many catalogs is that each catalog needs to have the published services configured manually upon creation.  This is very time-consuming.  I would like to create a new catalog and then already have SmugMug configured so I can do my edits, and upload the images to SmugMug.  Can you think of a better way to do this? 

I really hope I am missing something and this can be unified.  

I tried the obvious, monitor the catalog directory after I configure the Publish Service (SmugMug) to see if a config file or directory is created... but nothing meaningful happens.  

[john beardsworth]

Why do you need many catalogues? A single catalogue would appear to eliminate the problem.

A main catalogue could be copied, and you would then remove unwanted stuff, carefully.

But publish services are stored in the catalogue and you can't move them from one to another with the Export/Import Catalog commands. I recently wrote a plugin / workaround but I don't think there is a smarter way to achieve what you describe.

[JohanElzenga]

Tens of thousands of photos is a relatively small catalog. My catalog is close to 200,000 photos, and I have heard about catalogs with millions of images. Use a single catalog, that makes much more sense.

[pish180]

I've tried this in the past.  I had several challenges and ended up going to multiple catalogs.  

Issues included:
Editing from multiple computers and transferring and syncing the catalog. (BIGGEST ISSUE)
Updating file locations and drive letters - (Very time intensive) 
Time to import and generate Smart Previews (take forever)
Potential corruption and time to repair the catalog and or generate new Smart Previews (Very time intensive) 

My current workflow looks something like this:

Take Photos with SLR in RAW -> Import images into IPAD using USB cable. -> Import photos into LR and create a collection. -> Pick Photos with flags and delete unwanted -> Possibly start editing them on the iPad -> Sync to LR Classic on PC -> Finalize edits -> Move collection out of LR and files off of Adobe Cloud to Local storage and LR Classic -> Upload to SmugMug

Thinking about this now I could use a separate catalog for my laptop and then when I get back to my desktop import the catalog?  How do people manage 1 giant master catalog and editing from many computers?  Thoughts?

[JohanElzenga]

Lightroom has 'Export as catalog' and 'Import from Another Catalog' for that. When I am on a trip with my laptop, I import the images in my 'Travel Catalog' on the laptop. When I get back home I use 'Import from Another Catalog' on my main computer and import the travel catalog. After that is done, I clear out the travel catalog to get it ready for my next trip.