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Chapter 4: Organizing photos in the
catalog
The Library module is where you view, organize, and manage the photos in the Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom™
catalog. In the Library module, you can select photos to which you want to make develop adjustments, display in a
slideshow, print, or assemble into a web photo gallery.
Library module overview
About Lightroom catalogs
A
catalog
is how Lightroom tracks the location of files and remembers information about them. It’s like a database
that contains a record of your photos. This record is stored in the catalog and contains data, such as preview infor-
mation, links that indicate where the photos are located on your computer, metadata that describes the photos, and
editing instructions recorded in the Develop module. When you rate photos, add metadata and keyword tags,
organize photos into collections, or remove photos from the catalog—even when the original photo files are offline—
the settings are stored in the catalog.
All of this information enables Lightroom to give you flexibility in managing, identifying, and organizing photos and
media files. For example, if you’re photographing on location, you can import photos into Lightroom on your laptop
computer, and then later move the original photo files onto writable media or storage devices, and continue
organizing and managing your photos without the worry of filling up your laptop’s hard drive with all your original
photos. You can then transfer the catalog to your desktop computer, preserving the changes you make and keeping
track of where the photos are stored. (In Lightroom 1.0, catalogs are called
libraries
or
library databases
.)
Note:
Though you can view photos in both Lightroom and Adobe Bridge, the two applications behave differently. To
view photos in Adobe Bridge™, your computer hard drive must contain the photos or your computer must be connected
to a storage media containing photos. This is because Adobe Bridge is a file browser that only displays readily accessible
photos. The Lightroom catalog is a database that keeps track of the photos you import, so you can view photo previews
and data whether your hard drive contains the actual photos or not.
By default, Lightroom loads the most recent catalog. You can open a different catalog by choosing File > Open
Catalog, or you can determine which catalog is opened in the General preferences.
See also
“Create and manage catalogs” on page 32
“Getting photos into your library” on page 15
The Library module
Photos in the catalog and their accompanying data are viewed in the Library module. You can view all photos in the
catalog as thumbnails in a grid or the catalog can be filtered in different ways to show only the photos you need to
see. The Library module has controls you use to search for and display specific photos and data. You can also group
photos into collections or a temporary collection called a Quick Collection, or use keyword tags and metadata to find
your photos.
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