Lightroom - Catalogs

[prince]

Hello,
I recently started using Lightroom 2. Not surprising that I was confused between folders & catalogs. I figured that one out. Now I have a question on how to efficiently use a catalog.

I have 3 catalogs. Final, Select, & Organize. Here are the uses

Organize - Import all pics from one session
Select - Select all the good ones and eliminate badly exposed
Final - These are final ones that I will send to clients (not many but still)

Now every new session, should I remove the old ones from catalog or do I keep the old ones? How do I see pics in a catalog from a particular session? Catalogs will just keep getting bigger & bigger. I don't want a mess in the end.

Please help.

Thanks,

[eos550d.com]

You don't need to have 3 catalogs for that purpose.

To separate photos between different sessions you may use some unique keyword for each session.
To select the pictures that you like you can press P (Pick flag)
To reject the unwanted pictures you can press X (rejected flag)

When you want to see all the pictures with the same keyword, highlight the keyword that you want and click the arrow button.

[kirbinster]

I use one catalog only for all my raw files. Delete the bad ones. The ones that I have adjusted I tag in blue. The ones that I have actually exported as jpegs I tag in yellow.

[prince]

Thanks for your replies. I kinda used these techniques.. of rating and keywords. However, I felt what if when my catalog grows and has so many pics but I need only session specific. I guess I will have to get used to this process and rely on folders too. I have a naming format to organize my photos (newly adopted) and it is working fine. I was hoping to have similar freedom with catalogs in LR2