Lightroom library bloat

[Serczh1]

So how does everyone deal with the lightroom library bloat?
It's nice for lightroom to make copies of everything, but can I turn it off?
I was shocked and I uninstalled lightroom when I saw how much room it was using.

[kirbinster]

Can you be more specific as to what you are talking about. You say lightroom makes copies of everything. Do you mean that it is making copies of your photos and storing them in another location? That is a great feature, but it can be turned off.

[Serczh1]

Yes , I want to turn it off .
Lightroom makes libraries of your chosen files for fast access.
Nice, but unneeded by everybody.

A good tool to use occasionally is the disk analysis feature in
the modules tab in Glary Utilities, free, yes free. Recommended to me while dealing with the techies at Micron. Glary Utilities | Glarysoft
I use and recommend it myself. ( I dumped "system mechanic paid version for it)
It will show how big files are. (Among dozens of other useful things.)
You might be surprised.

And yes, if the library function can be turned off, I might install lightroom again, because it is pretty cool.
Thanks.

[Bear]

If you are using the default import setting ("Copy photos to a new location and add to catalog") it will copy your files from wherever you had them and put those copies in its own library, leaving the original where it found them. I guess that this is where you are getting your "Bloat" from?

If you select the option to "Add photos to catalog without moving" then your only new and growing file will be the catalog, which does not contain the images themselves, only pointers and data on them. I have around 2000 images in my library (I know, I need to get out and take more photos... ) and my catalog is 41Mb.

Hope this helps.

[Serczh1]

You got it, that sounds like whats happening.
Now tell me where to find this option. (LR not installed at the moment)
I'll write it down and apply it when installed.
I dropped LR for this reason, I would like to have it back and be able to apply some of the things I learn about it here such as presets.
(I was getting kind of jealous reading all the articles and not having LR.)

I took 1200 pictures alone at Burning Man last month.
Check out my video and tell me if I didn't have all the fun allowed by law.
(well, maybe a bit more fun than that)
"The World According To Arpp"
Thanks all for your gift of knowledge.

Chuck

[Bear]

Here are the steps (on Windows, but Mac should be similar?) :

1. Go to the File menu and select "Import Photos from Disk"
   
   
2. Browse and select the folders you want to import images from, or just select the images
   
   
   
   If selecting folders of images, click the "Import All Photos in Selected Folder" button.
    
3. In the drop down, select "Add photos to catalog without moving"
   
   
   
   Ensure that all the images you want to import are checked and then click "Import".
   

[Serczh1]

Right on Bear, well done..
I hope this becomes a sticky.
And I sure hope you answer other posts with such alacrity.
Thanks for the help



"Add photos to catalog without moving"

[Bear]

Glad to help.

It's all changing in Lightroom 3. I just downloaded the Beta and the import function is very different now; its easier to understand I think, as the whole process is in one screen.


 
Its easier to see if you look at the large image here.

The new Beta seems to have some nice features, but I haven't had a chance to play with it properly yet.

One thing that you will need to bear in mind is that when you import photos, Lightroom will create previews for them which it will retain for 30 days (or however long you set) so initially, if you are bringing in bundles of images, you can expect your previews folder to grow considerably, but that will start to reduce over time. For example, I just imported all my images (approx 2000 which is roughly 10Gb) into LR 3 Beta and the previews folder is about 230Mb.