Multiple Catalogues

[JosefLoneEagle]

As a real estate photographer new to LR, I was thinking of making a different cataloque for each individual shoot using the address as a name.  This way I only have to deal with a few images with each one with little chance for confusion and once I deliver the shots to my client and no longer needed the shots, I could just delete it.  Am I being too picky, and like to create a hornets nest?

[JP Hess]

That's one way to do it. To each his own. If that's the way you want to try to manage your business, that is your business. Just remember that deleting the catalog isn't going to delete the images. That will have to be handled separately.

[dj_paige]

I suppose this could be one of those situations where that particular strategy makes sense, in a short-sighted way. Also, how do you know the client won't need the shots a year from now?

But suppose you want to create a portfolio of your best shots, which could be used to obtain more business. Throwing away your work like that doesn't help, if that's a future goal of yours. And even if you don't throw away the work, having things in separate catalogs means you essentially can't put together a portfolio of your best work (well you can, but its a lot more work than if you have one catalog).

And this idea of "only have to deal with a few images" indicates you don't know how to use Lightroom Classic. I never have trouble finding the photos I want to find and work on just those, Lightroom Classic provides many many many tools to do this.

So, on balance, I am generally against multiple catalogs, one per shoot. In this case, I don't see the benefit, but in the end that's your decision. In fact, I'd recommend one catalog, with folders (or keywords) to indicate the address, and star ratings to select your best shots.

[JP Hess]

I would probably use a single catalog and keywords for the different clients. Seems to me it would be much easier to manage that way. Then, if you really wanted to get rid of the images, all that would be necessary would be to do a keyword search, highlight the images and get rid of them. But one never knows when images might be needed in the future. Disk storage is cheap, and holding onto the images isn't going to affect Lightroom performance.

[Just Shoot Me]

IMHO this is a BAD Idea.

Use one catalog file. Import all images into that one catalog and use the OS folder structure or keywords or collections to separate clients/jobs.

[ManiacJoe]

Separate catalogs could get the job done, but not necessarily done well.

I would tend toward one catalog, maybe using the city and street address as subfolders for organization.

I tend to organize my non-personal photos by year on disk for ease of archiving.