Today’s Question: In a recent answer you said that you sometimes “used Adobe Bridge for teaching or to manage photos or videos not being managed by Lightroom Classic”. However, on several occasions you have referenced the use of a single catalog in Lightroom Classic to manage ALL of your photos. When would you have photos or videos that are not in your catalog?
Tim’s Quick Answer: The only time I don’t use Lightroom Classic to manage specific photos or videos is when those photos or videos fall outside my normal photography workflow. The top example in my particular case would be videos (and possibly still photos) that I capture specifically for creating video courses for my GreyLearning library (https://www.greylearning.com).
More Detail: While I strongly recommend that photographers use a single catalog in Lightroom Classic for all of their photos, not all photos or videos fit into my normal workflow. When in doubt, I import all photos and videos into my Lightroom Classic catalog. But there are situations where there is no need to have certain captures included in my Lightroom Classic catalog, because those photos or videos won’t ever be used beyond the scope of a single specific project.
As noted above, the most common example in my particular case would be photos and videos that I capture specifically to produce an educational video course to be included in my GreyLearning library. That might include, for example, screen capture videos demonstrating particular software applications, or videos of me in the field demonstrating various photography techniques.
When I know that specific videos (and possibly photos) will never be used outside of a video course, for example, I don’t feel any need to have those photos or videos adding clutter to my Lightroom Classic catalog. I simply manage the captures in a folder structure for the course being produced, for example.
When I’m working with captures for a single project, I don’t generally find it beneficial to create a Lightroom Classic catalog for that specific project. I can often work easily within the operating system to organize the captures, but if I need to be able to better preview the photos or videos included in the project, Adobe Bridge serves that purpose reasonably well.
You can learn more about the video courses available in my GreyLearning library, by the way, by pointing your web browser here: