Can Lightroom 3 be used without the Library/catalog system?
Asked 7/17/2011
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2 answers
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I only want to use Lightroom 3 for editing in the Develop module and don’t want to maintain a Library/catalog if possible. Can the Library feature be disabled, or can Lightroom be used on a one-off basis without building up a catalog? I’m also concerned about disk space used by the catalog.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
13
What features of Lightroom do you want to use then? The library is essential to the workflow of as it is where the images to be worked on are represented.
Full sized images are not stored in the library catalog file, so it is not very large in relation to them. For example the library files from a catalog with 3023 files is only 43MB after flagging and editing.
Originally by user4273. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4273
15y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
No—Lightroom 3 is built around its Library/catalog workflow, so you can’t disable the Library module and use Develop independently.
Lightroom does not store your full-size original photos inside the catalog. The catalog mainly stores metadata, previews, flags, and edit instructions, so its size is usually small compared with your image files.
If you want to edit a file in Lightroom, the practical workflow is to create/use a catalog, import the photo, edit it, export the result, and optionally remove it from the catalog afterward. But Lightroom isn’t really designed for ad-hoc editing without a catalog.
If you want a more direct file-by-file editing workflow without managing a catalog, Photoshop with Camera Raw (and optionally Bridge) is a better fit.
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