I think I have finally figured out the answer I was looking for, though. My problem was I tried to read all these tutorials before I started working with Lightroom. As nice as that was with the initial setup ideas-I’ve finally come to realize that I just didn’t understand all of what was being said. There are many parts of this post that I didn’t fully grasp, until I had played with the software a bit more.

Going forward, I will continue to read articles as such, but understand that I might have to toy around before I fully understand what they are getting at.

That being said, I just wanted to let you know that I’m stealing your catalog names, and running with them! RAW, selects, etc-that just perfectly describes the way I wanted to separate my photos. I had a really hard time grasping how the files went from Incubator to RAW, but I finally figured out you import them into RAW, instead of exporting them from Incubator. 3 weeks invested so far, and many more to go before my selects is fully built!

As noted before, I can’t really say much about our future plans, but know that we hear you loud and clear.

I don’t say too much about this these days because I think Perforce is too difficult to administer and understand for most users. (If you are a programmer or hard-core computer geek, you would be the potential exception to that rule.)

In place of that, I would look for software that can keep an entire folder tree in sync across two or more computers. I’m sorry to say that I don’t have any specific recommendations here because I’ve been using Perforce in that role for many years.

After using Lightroom now for around 6 months, I’m looking again at my workflow. Just spent a lot of time looking at multiple sites examining various methods from the All One Catalog zealots to the Catalog for each shoot Camp. I sat down and made a Mind Map of my own needs. I was all ready to start a multiple catalog workflow based fairly closely to yours, when I suddenly realized something.

My initial thinking for multiple catalogs would be: 1. My internally shot “stock parts” textures, objects, etc. I thought, no brainer – that’s one catalog. Then I thought of catalogs for 2. dog photography, 3. family, 4. Fine Art, including, still life, landscape, etc.

I do a lot of Post Production, montages, textures, etc. I also sometimes take an image into Painter to work on. So what happens if I make a photograph of a dog montaged with a Landscape, textures applied and then edited in Painter? (That may sound awful, but turned out quite nice.) That would include 3 different catalogs. Will I be opening and closing catalogs trying to find the images I need for the montage? What then happens to the derivative Montage?

I’ve realized that everyone I’ve been studying does pretty much “straight” photography. I don’t shoot something, process, pick best and then file it. (For the most part.) I want my entire body of work available to pillage and create new visions. I also don’t heavily edit to final choices. I’ve found that often an image that wouldn’t be a final pick on it’s own, works quite nicely for something else. So, If I do one catalog for all of the above, even minus family photos, it would be really large. As much as the “All One Catalog” advocates claim this is fine, it doesn’t make sense. My system is already straining, so what happens years from now?

So, I want to put another plea in, Eric please convey the need for ease of use with multiple catalogs. (Look at Cumulus!)

Second, I need to start visiting the sites of those who do photo manipulation to see how they are using Lightroom.

It’s pretty cool to see how many workflows there are out there. It really is all about what works for you. Your workflow gave me a lot of important elements to consider and I’m sure I’ll be using some of it in my own workflow.

Now I have to (slowly, since I need to wait for the screen refresh) scroll through 15k+ images to see whether or not some are missing. Might not need it often, but sometimes I do.

Another thing I’m missing: If I use Expression media to write IPTC into a CR2 file (not xmp), most gets read by LR. Not so if I do the same for a 1D .tif file (Older Raw format).

Last thing: (remotely connected): Would be nice to be able to script IPTC keywording: For instance copy the filename into an IPTC field.

Those three are the main reason I still need Expression Media alongside LR2.