Lightroom CATALOGS Explained - Easy Tutorial

If you're trying to understand how Lightroom works, catalogs are the first thing you need to wrap your head around. Lightroom's catalogs are database files containing all sorts of information about your photos, from organization (5 star ratings, color labels) to your post-processing settings themselves.
In fact, the separate .LRCAT catalog file is also why Lightroom is considered non-destructive software. You can edit your photos in Lightroom without touching the original RAWs, because all your edits are stored in that LRCAT file instead.
Observant viewers will notice that I put a mustache sticker on my laptop for this video. I guess that's to honor the fact that I will desperately need to get a haircut before long, and given the quarantine, I cannot. The mustache sticker will now stand as a permanent monument to this time in history.
(In the previous video's description, I mentioned rain, and some pleasant rain noise videos popped up in my KZbin feed afterward. Hopefully this time I'll get videos on how to cut my own hair.)
If you have any questions about Lightroom catalogs, let me know below!
~Spencer
/ spencercoxphoto
👇👇👇
This video is not sponsored! You can support Photography Life and Spencer Cox Photography by buying anything through my affiliate links!
Here is all the photo equipment I use: bhpho.to/3XUv32a
And here’s my video gear to film this video: bhpho.to/3Yt8th1
#Lightroom

[@ZachDahle]

I wish you could do every tutorial for me for anything ever. Clear, concise, and to the point. Love it! Well done

[@jhoang861]

Omg I went through a dozen videos about lightroom and was so frustrated. Then I watched yours. I love how you teach. Very clear and to the point. Thank you so much!!!

[@3kohsamui]

Spot on, I also went looking everywhere for this exact information and was frustrated to the point of giving up Lightroom all together ... really helpful, thanks!!

[@bottledgroovephoto]

same here! by far the easiest to understand

[@williamcollins5417]

Did i ever...almost went crazy

[@londonken]

The clarity in you tutorials is excellent. You give space for the information to sink in.

[@harriska2]

First time LR user and this is the very first video I've watch. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[@earlglass6328]

Now, this is the most thorough and concise explanation on Lightroom, catalog storage. It also covers the basics of files and folders. After watching countless so called heavy hitters and adobe evangelist, this is by far the very best. I will continue to follow you! Thanks!

[@RogerJones-mountfield]

Really helpful, thank you, I had nearly given up with cataloging in Lightroom, now I understand it far more, I’m looking forward to your other videos now 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[@darrinlalla9008]

This is the best explanation I've seen. There are so many that speed thru their own personal setup. Thank you for this.

[@marcusvanlyden8501]

This was exactly what I was seeking, clear simple explanation, no super hype or how great are we (we don’t really do that in the UK, so I find it off putting in some tutorials from the Northern Americas). at a reasonable no nonsense pace, one of the better educators on KZbin, great work, I appreciate your hard work for others benefit, thanks for this, Marcus

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

That’s great to hear, thanks for the feedback and glad you found the explanation useful.

[@evanlomioan]

I really appreciate you publishing great quality contents like this.

[@davidzacharias582]

Excellent explanation! Concise, complete, and easy to understand. Five stars!!

[@leninmoreno4020]

Loving this series!

[@PATVB]

Clear, concise, and intelligently communicated. I have been "trying" to teach myself Lightroom for about 6 months now. Pick it up, get discouraged, walk away, repeat. Even bought a video course online which I never watched, videos too long and too intricate. I'm so glad I found you, or rather Google found you for me.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

I’m really glad to hear it! Hope you enjoy Lightroom. After the first learning curve, it’s great and pretty intuitive.

[@adriankrucker2159]

Even though I've had LR for about two years, these videos are very enlightening. Thanks, Spencer.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Very happy to hear it, Adrian! Hope you enjoy the rest as well.

[@silviasanchez648]

Oh, well... Finally I understand the whole catalogue/organisation part of Lightroom. Thank you so much for this video, looking forward to the next one.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Very happy to hear it, thanks, Silvia!

[@0lars0887]

Best video on the planet.... Was looking for this for over 3 months I think.

[@manyoffers7119]

This was amazing. I've watched Linkedin Learning, Adobe tutorials and You Tube stuff and this is the clearest I have heard it explained.

[@h.sheikh]

Great video - loved how you succinctly, clearly and comprehensively explained all things catalogues. If not already, could you please do a video to show how can we merge catalogues (if at all), move catalogues, recover back ups, and also what the different types of files associated with the catalogues are (I noticed there are 2-3 different files)? Thanks

[@bernadethreytana382]

Really excited to try this feature out! Amazing work !

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

I'm sure you'll find it useful!

[@butchcassidy3562]

Great job. Very clear and articulate. Keep up the good work!

[@hasanali948]

Absolutely the best tutorial on Lightroom that I have seen. Many thanks.

[@fflphotos4362]

As others have said (they are very familiar with LR), I found your videos to be a very concise review of the features of LR. I deeply appreciate your time in producing them and will subscribe to be able to receive more. Having taught for 32 years, I am impressed with your teaching skills. Thanks

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Thank you for the kind feedback! Hearing that from someone who has taught as long as you means a lot.

[@catguzman5124]

This was was so helpful as I try to finally manage my different LR catalogs--thank you! 👍

[@doraprokosh4706]

Excellent presentation Spencer. I had difficulty understanding the LR Catalogue in relation to my photos but you have just cleared the fog. Thank you. Have enjoyed previous photography videos you have presented and am very impressed with your presentations. Clear, detailed and to the point. Look forward to more LR videos.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Thanks for saying so, Dora! Glad you’ve found the videos useful so far, and hopefully now the Lightroom catalog will be a bit more intuitive to use.

[@kukrejasanjay]

Great going..hope to see this grow into a full fledged Lightroom tutorial series.. 👍

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Thank you, Sanjay! I have many videos on Lightroom planned and a lot of time to film them, so I’m hopeful that this will be a pretty complete guide by the end.

[@SN-id10]

What a fabulous teacher!

[@josephortizcruz7020]

Thank you so much for your explanation. The best tutorial so far, concise, clear, and easy to follow.

[@mediocre_guy]

Wow. You're like so good at doing tutorials. I've been using Lr for years yet I feel like I just relearned everything from your video. Very beginner friendly as well.

[@james2749]

Nice vid! Well explained and no fluff. Thanks!

[@GreatYarmouthbeach]

first video i have found that i could follow had lightroom for 8 years and you explain in simple to follow terms thanks will def follow keep up the good work.

[@pamelajensen2009]

Well done explaining LR!!

[@racker9999]

Excellent presentation. I agree with many other commenters; you clearly have a future in the industry. P.S. your video lighting and sound are perfect!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Wow, thanks! Glad you found it so useful. It definitely took some setup and practice to get the audio and lighting like this, so I'm happy to hear it works well!

[@siavashranjbar7059]

very useful and thorough information. very clear and easy to understand. amazing work.

[@juliahuang9590]

You explained all these concepts so well! Thank you, I finally understand some of the things I didn't before!!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Oh good! Glad to hear it.

[@obraxton1938]

Very well put together. Very detailed!

[@davon8561]

Thanks for great video Spencer. You explain so clearly and well .

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Much appreciated, David!

[@hurleygreen927]

GREAT VIDEO with easy to understand information..thanks!

[@Peter-io2xs]

Great job Spencer. Thanks and keep them coming..

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Thank you! More coming soon!

[@NathanielStockwell]

Thx for the clear and straightforward explanation!

[@magicalred7802]

Excellent, clear presentation. Thank you.

[@steveholliday7909]

Nice job, clear, easy to follow. Appreciate it!

[@toddlichtenwalter2041]

You are an excellent teacher, natural skills . Bravo!

[@jplimages]

Thank you for clearing that up for me. You explained it perfectly.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Sure thing! Glad it was helpful.

[@adrienevd]

I find lightroom so frustrating but with the help of your video I understand it better! thank you so much

[@rozennvirton6477]

Thank you for your complete and comprehensive training. Very good!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

I'm glad you found it useful, thanks, Rozenn!

[@mrskarshsphotos]

wowowowo...thank you, so clear and easy to understand!

[@genewhitney5993]

Great video, Spencer! Clarified a couple of points I was unclear about. Thanks.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Glad to hear it!

[@Devincoconuts]

Thank you so much for this video! Super well done and you explained it very clearly!

[@skamaraju]

Your explanation of catalog is superb and simple.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Thank you!

[@ThrottleRaaja]

awesome explanation dear. Wonderful. your way of teaching is professional tutor.

[@troymitchell1233]

looking forward to coming presentations!!!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Sweet! Should have some new LR videos out shortly.

[@carljarvinen1189]

Thanks, nice to get a review of this topic every so often....

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Absolutely, Carl, never hurts to go over Lightroom catalogs again!

[@jmgcg]

Congratulations, very calm super well explained, great examples. This is a fantastic video for new users,and even old ones. Five stars, a falg and a Red label 😊 and go to a smart collection. Congratulations again,really good

[@Rdavis6593]

Good video. I got some very useful information. Thanks.

[@michael0803aa]

Super informative and useful! Great tutorial!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Much appreciated, Michael!

[@AsianGargamel]

Very helpful information, thank you 🙏

[@susysclips]

A clear explanation, thank you

[@kirill1569]

Very concise and informative video! High Quality

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Glad you liked it!

[@AliZaidi]

seriously AWESOME explanation!! I've never understood the catalog until this video ... PLEASE make a tutorial regular on LR !!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Really appreciate the feedback! And I’m happy to hear that you know understand Lightroom catalogs much better.

[@AliZaidi]

@@PhotographyLifeChannel Is there a way, that you can help me with my D.A.M ?? I honestly am begging for help and I can't find anyone who will sit down and help me out with my it

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

@ALI - What issues are you having? If it’s something general with Lightroom, maybe you’ll find Chapter 2.1 and 2.2 of this video series helpful for organizing your photos and general DAM applications. If it’s more specific than that, let me know some more details and I’ll try to help.

[@PhotoStian]

Thank you! This was informative

[@SJ-gj7mx]

Such a good video

[@m1ch4Lko]

Very informative!

[@JimmyTRUELOVE]

You're a great presenter!

[@paululanday5420]

It's working thanks my friend

[@jimpon]

very clear! thanks

[@chidi6394]

very informative, thank you

[@girogiro-vh5pz]

Very good! Thanks!

[@frednorman1]

Great video. Thanks

[@ceciliarademeyer4949]

Excellent tutorial - thank you so much.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

You’re very welcome! Thanks for the feedback!

[@collegemtl]

so clean and perfect explain , thanks a lot , new subscriber here , bell notification on , hands down and blessings

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Let’s gooo! Welcome aboard! Really glad you found this video so useful.

[@silviasanchez648]

Revisiting this video and looking forward to the next video!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Thank you, Silvia! Next chapter will be up Monday, and then I’ll do some on the post-processing side of Lightroom. Might take a break and do non-Lightroom videos in between though.

[@silviasanchez648]

@@PhotographyLifeChannel Great! Lightroom is really a big unknown for me. I'm learning a lot from your videos.

[@friskid1733]

Thanks bro that was really helpful

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Glad it helped, thank you!

[@leevitammelin1795]

Thank you very much , now I will understand the functionality

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

That's great, glad to hear you liked it!

[@Tomasz_Piekarski]

Very informative, a big thanks from me!

[@caceyCronin]

Brilliant at last a video that makes it very clear for a beginner. Thank you so much, please write a book if you haven’t already.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Very glad to hear it! I don't have a book on Lightroom, although I wrote a guide so long that it basically qualifies. Here's the link: photographylife.com/how-to-use-lightroom-a-tutorial-for-beginners I *have* written a book about landscape photography, which is going to be released later this year :)

[@laurelb8372]

Good easy to follow instructions

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Glad you liked it!

[@HRWG99]

Very clear. Thanks

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Happy to hear it was clear, thank you!

[@kbqvist]

Thanks, very well organized and well presented :-)

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Thanks, Karsten, glad it was useful!

[@ahmedbenjbara3710]

great vid

[@stevekingswell9143]

Nice & clear thx

[@alekseipopov9919]

Thank you!

[@PreschoolPlay]

Amazing video thank you so much!!! I have a problem in that I have created several catalogs and I think some are on my one drive and some are not. I want to combine them all, do you have a tutorial on that?

[@lauriefamily5540]

Thanks Spencer..I had the chance to play with Lightroom 3-4months ago, and didn't really get it. Im about to go purchase it now and jump in, but keen to view as much as I can re file/folder set up so I am better armed when I get it. Ive watched many Tube videos, but a lot of them rush it - yours (and one other) go at a good pace and break it down. Thank you so much for explaining what a Catalogue is as I was very confused on it. Looking forward to your next video about importing etc........

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Thank you, Laurie! Glad you found it so useful. I just put up the new video on importing photos and wanted to give you a heads up!

[@thyalyssatran]

Hi! This was so helpful! I was wondering if you ever made that video about using the same catalog across multiple hardrives?

[@me33]

Thank you so much!

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

You’re very welcome!

[@alexandre9497]

Hi Spencer, thanks for your video. Pretty useful! I have been looking for this answer for a while but do you know whether we can move the catalogue on a NAS? So From home, I can switch between my fix computer and my laptop. Else I agree I could copy it on an external hard drive, but... I agree it is not a big deal to move my small hdd from one computer to the other one.... but it would be so much more convenient having access to a NAS. Hope you can answer me or give me some tips... Cheers, Alex.

[@ykl1204]

Great video, Thank you!! If we create a folder within LR desktop, transfer images into that folder, is that the same thing as "exporting" the images?

[@anikhossain2579]

Thank you very much

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

You're very welcome!

[@marcusdekker]

Great vid. Explained everything clearly and concise. I just moved all my pictures from my hard drive to an external harddrive using windows explorer. When i opened up Lightroom, it said the catalog was missing (it's probably on the external drive), so i created a new one....so now i have to teach LIghtroom where all my pictures are. How will i do that? I guess by making a new folder, within lightroom, called "my pictures" and that will be the top folder on my external harddrive with all my pictures in it......

[@mattisdaae8145]

Loved it! When do you do multiple computers?

[@geoffcastillo]

Great video! Did you end up making one about how to handle catalogs across multiple computers? Would you save out separate catalogs on the particular external hard drive the images are on?

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

I haven’t made one yet. You could try keeping the catalog on the external drive if it’s fast enough (ideally an SSD), or keep separate catalogs and then use “export as catalog” to transfer photos from one computer to another. If you alternate between these two computers frequently, I’d go with the SSD method. Otherwise, the second method is going to give you better performance in Lightroom.

[@davidletz9123]

Hey Spencer, great explanation! Question: can I create more than one catalog?

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Absolutely! There’s no limit.

[@toddlichtenwalter2041]

Thank you. Is there a way to to have LrC, or another software that you know of, add words from the title of images into the keyword list automatically?

[@lorenzoamonini3222]

thanksssssss

[@tomclemons344]

Tom Clemons Finally, a clear explanation. Btw, love the mustache. Where did you get them?

[@wesleypeters2547]

Thanks for your succinct, well paced, tutorial. I have a question for which I have not been able to find an answer. Forgive me if I'm in the wrong area of need. After spending hours and hours in Lightroom Classic working on photographs, and saving them all, I have a problem. When I want to find a photograph using my computer's directory listing to choose its icon, then select the shot I want. However, both the icon and the image that appears are my photos before all my Lightroom efforts. Is there a simple way to sync/update the directory to include changes made in Lightroom?

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

No, there’s no way to get edits in Lightroom to show up outside the software other than by exporting the image as a TIFF, JPEG, or so on. That’s because Lightroom isn’t a destructive editing software; it doesn’t bake anything into the original images themselves. If you want to see the edits in your situation, you need to find your photographs using Lightroom’s directory, not your computer’s.

[@wesleypeters2547]

@@PhotographyLifeChannel Many thanks for your information! I finally understand.

[@alwaysinout]

Hi ... do you create a new catalog for every new set of photos or keep them all under one catalog ?

[@richardchenn]

hey, thanks for the tutorial! What do you mean at 7:35 when you mention that we need to commit fully to doing all of our organization of our folders within lightroom? How do we go about that?

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Like, if you have a photo in one folder that you want to drag into another, do that in Lightroom rather than outside Lightroom. Same any time you’re creating new folders for your photos, or moving folders from one place to another. Click and drag them within Lightroom’s folder browser, rather than the folder browser on your operating system directly.

[@KellyPettit]

Found this while searching for Lightroom catalog and wow, you are such an amazing teacher. Seriously, so clear and simple to follow. You have a special talent here. May I ask a question? I had to make a new catalog and then "add" my photos to it. But of course, the edits are all gone. New "RAW" images are there without the edits. Can I import the edits? I don't know how. Thank you. I've subscribed.

[@PhotographyLifeChannel]

Sure thing! You can do what you’re interested in. What you need to do is open the old catalog, and highlight all the photos you want to have the edits for. Go to File > Export As Catalog and do not select “export negative files.” After exporting this, go back to your catalog that is missing all the edits. You should be able to do File > Import From Another Catalog and select the file that you just exported from your old catalog. And that will sync the edits! All that said, I question why you created a new catalog in the first place - it’s usually not worth it and not a good idea. It may be best to stick with your previous catalog and clean it up if there’s something wrong with it, rather than starting a new one from scratch.

[@KellyPettit]

Thank you for your time! Yeah, I'd prefer to go back to my old catalog after all the edits but I must have done something funky. My iMac updated and then Adobe updated Classic and relaunched without my catalog. When I went back to my old catalog Adobe said it needed to be updated, I clicked "OK" and none of my folders were there. Just a new LR classic. Now it appears the original is no longer usable. Not sure what I did. @@PhotographyLifeChannel

[@PowerAirSimulations]

i have a weird issue where the edits are being saved in the original folder where the image is in. so if i have 2 pictures in a folder on a ssd that i put all folders in just for light room pictures. i also have a separate ssd for the light room catalog. if i start working on the 2 photos and i edit them with light room and Photoshop and other software it saves every edited photo in the same folder that the original is in. so if i edited a photo 3 times i have the original photo with 3 edited photos of the same original. i thought all this info was saved in the catalog, im so confused .

[@klongcamba9969]

Hi Spencer, do I need to create multiple catalogs? Or 1 catalog will be enough? Thanks 🙏🏻