I use Lightroom 4.4 on windows 8. Less than 500 photos on the catalog and the catalog size is currently at 2.16 GB. Lightroom works fine, but I'm taking a risk by leaving the catalog to grow beyond 2 GB?

I use Lightroom 4.4 on windows 8. If I have less than 500 photos on the catalog, I do a lot of alterations and cleaning of the images and therefore the size of the catalogue is currently at 2.16 GB. Lightroom works fine, but I'm taking a risk by leaving the catalog to grow beyond 2 GB? Should I close it and start a new catalog? Thanks for your suggestions.

Many local adjustments (brush strokes, spot healing) can have a huge impact on the overall size of the catalog because they are all saved as stages of the individual history and so I wouldn't worry - there is nothing wrong with your catalog. See my thread here since a few years back: which affects the size of the Lightroom catalog file? where Rob Cole usefully thought of it for me.

You could delete the history if you wanted and that I'd be willing to bet that the size would be reduced considerably. That said, my catalog file is larger than 10 GB (as I do a lot of local changes as stated in the thread I linked to) and it causes no problem at all, apart from resulting in a backup of slow catalogue (my previews resume another 30 GB or more). I have not yet felt the need for the history of the Reformation, but doing so probably would increase my catalog to about 1 GB, so it's an option if size becomes a problem for me.

My advice: continue anyway and don't worry in this regard.

M

Tags: Photoshop Lightroom

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