Adobe Lightroom has long been a valuable tool widely used in the industry by creative designers and digital photo editors for years. It gives an edge to professionals who want to organize hundreds of thousands of photos and get access to a powerful photo editing toolset.
An intuitive user interface, non-destructive image editing, unlimited undo, image watermarking, huge tweaking, support for RAW images, batch processing, creative presets, are some of the key features of Lightroom. Adobe has been gradually adding new features to improve the user experience.
Lightroom Catalog File
Adobe Lightroom works differently than other image editors. It builds a Catalog file that keeps track of your photos and their locations. Besides, it contains all details about the changes you’ve made to an original image file. This is why Lightroom can facilitate unlimited undo even after you close and reopen it or restart your computer. Since Lightroom does not process the original image file and keeps it untouched, it is known as a non-destructive image editor.
Your Catalog file is typically saved in the following directory: C:\Users\User_Name\Pictures\Lightroom
Why is Catalog File Scanning Important?
The Catalog is a critical file and a crucial part of Lightroom image editing. Different activities can result in duplication of your Lightroom images. Here are some of the possible scenarios:
- Importing & Merging of Two Catalog files: Sometimes, you merge two Catalog files together. Merging the original Catalog file with another Catalog file could result in the addition of new duplicate entries and increase its size and affect performance.
- Upgrades: The process of upgrading Lightroom from one version to another requires updating Catalog file contents. In some cases, such an upgrade could contribute to duplication.
Scanning Lightroom Catalog File for Duplicate Photos
The size of your Catalog file could affect your Lightroom experience and ultimately, your productivity. For example, a larger Catalog file may take more time to load than a smaller Catalog file. Therefore, it’s important to delete any duplicate entries to improve your Lightroom performance.
You can use PictureEcho duplicate photos finder software to scan the Catalog file and identify duplicate photos using various criteria.
PictureEcho Features
- Automated scans supported by powerful algorithms
- Instant results with image thumbnails
- Instant file preview. Just select an image to preview it. No need to separately open it with any program.
- Automatically mark or unmark files in batch using the predefined selection patterns.
- Mark by location: Sometimes, you may want to preserve files located in a specific directory. Use this option to mark or unmark files by their parent directory.
- Mark images by resolution: Use the corresponding options to mark high-resolution files or low-resolution files. An image is said to be high resolution when it has a better pixel count and larger dimensions. High-resolution files are typically better in quality compared to low-resolution files.
- Mark images by size: Use the corresponding options to Mark bigger images or Mark smaller images to mark images by their sizes. For example, you can preserve large size or smaller size images depending on your need.
- Mark images by their modification interval: Use the corresponding options Mark most modified and Mark least modified to mark images by their modification interval.
- Options to move duplicate images to a specific folder or delete them permanently.
PictureEcho Similarity Levels
- Exact Match: Use this option to search for duplicate pictures that match byte-to-byte. It is a secure method to get rid of all duplicates and free-up your storage.
- Similar Match: Similar match allows you to find duplicate pictures that are visually similar in nature. There is a wide range of similarity levels to choose from.
- Level 1: Use this option to scan photos taken within a 30-seconds timespan.
- Level 2: Use this option to scan photos taken within a 1-minute timespan.
- Level 3: Use this option to scan those images that were taken within a 60 minutes timespan.
- Level 4: This option does not consider timespan as the scanning criteria. Make sure to review the results yourself before deciding to take any action.
Steps:
- Exit Lightroom, if it’s already open.
- Download and install PictureEcho.
- Click on the Adobe Lightroom.
- PictureEcho will automatically detect your Lightroom Catalog file.
- Click on Start Search and wait for a while.
- Once the scan results are processed, you’ll be able to see a list of all duplicates grouped by similarity.
- Click on the Select Duplicates button and choose your desired file selection pattern.
- Click on Select Action and choose whether to delete your files or move them to a separate folder.
Bonus Tip: Organize Lightroom Photos in an Orderly Folder Structure
After scanning your Lightroom Catalog file for duplicate images, it’s time to organize your pictures in an orderly manner.
Image Organizer is a unique feature of PictureEcho that lets you organize the picture files on your computer with one-click. If you have hundreds of photos scattered across different folders, subfolders of your hard disk, you could use Image Organizer to re-organize them easily. Image Organizer will rearrange your files in a neatly arranged folder structure based on the date of creation, date of modification and date taken. After selecting one of the above options, you’ll be prompted to choose a date format (such as Year Month Day, Month Day Year or Day Month Year) and then specify how you would like to organize them in a folder structure.
- Open PictureEcho.
- To organize your photos, set the Scan Mode to Image Organizer.
- In the Organize By, select the Date Created parameter.
- Set the Date Format to Year Month Day.
- In the Organize As, select Year/ Month/ Date.
- Choose Move images to organize folders. Specify a destination directory where you want to create a new folder structure and move your images.
- You can alternatively use the Copy images to organize folders option and specify a target path to copy your images in an orderly manner.
- Click on the Organize Images button on the upper right part to proceed.