PSE Catalogs What When and Why

For both Photoshop Elements and Lightroom a new way of looking at collecting images and saving was introduced called Catalogs. For a long time looking at images was just going to a folder and seeing what was inside. However as we started to collect more and more images it was decided by the powers that there had be a better way of viewing than thousands of images in one folder or images spread out in hundreds of folders. Nothing is more frustrating that looking for one image and not be able to find it.

Catalogs are different in that instead of just seeing inside one folder they can see across multiple folders or just be a collection of all images. This can be another way of organizing our image files this can be very helpful. As mention earlier if you are tagging your images then a single catalog of images can work. But you can create different Catalogs of subjects but there can be drawbacks. As I said Catalogs are collections and if an image was not in it then you are not going to find the image. The good news is these are smaller groups of images so finding something is easier and if you are the type who makes backups of groups on CDs or DVDs a Catalog makes this very easy.  Plus with Catalog you can create separate tags for each one.