I understand your situation. I have a great many images in my catalog, commercial, photojournalism, aerial, etc. If I were in the situation you describe, desiring to separate those areas of your work, I would do it with one catalog and top level folders like this: Drive X:\ All Photos (makes backup much easier) \commercial \2016 2016-12-22-Company ABC Annual Banquet and Awards \weddings \as above \aerials \real estate \misc These folders can be placed on multiple volumes/drives. Lightroom handles that fine. Such a folder structure all in one LR catalog will give you the segregation of categories you need. Ultimately, I think you will tire of opening and closing multiple catalogs in your daily search for images and importing new jobs. As recommended in the ASMP standards for image organization, one should be able to have full access to the file system in the OS outside of the photo/DAM software. I like to go directly to the folder (in the OS) where I know my exported jpgs are located so I can find them for emailing, social media and web site use.
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