Catalog selection at Ingest stage

[Sturman]

Hi,

If you have more than one catalog, how do you select which one your photos will be added to when you are going through the Ingest stage? You can only check mark the Catalog box at the ingest stage without specifying which catalog you want the photos to go into.

I currently have catalogs for;
* rugby
* family
* holidays
* general

Alternatively is it better to have just one catalog for all your photos?

Best regards,
Malcolm

[ahoward]

You'll have to check the "Add/modify" in the Organizer (or the Catalog Management window) before opening Ingest. Auto-catalog adds images to the catalogs where Add/Modify is checked.

With that said, good keywording or collections in a single catalog would probably be a better alternative to having multiple catalogs. If all your rugby photos get the keyword "Rugby", a Quick Search of "Rugby" would pull them up immediately without the need to disable the "Search" box on up to 3 other catalogs, and you can save a search with the little flash bulb icon next to the Quick Search bar, so you can quickly bring up a saved search rather than enabling and disabling the various catalogs.

[Sturman]

Thanks for the prompt response.

Am I able to combine all my catalogues into one or do I need to delete them all and start afresh?

Best regards,
Malcolm

[ahoward]

Thanks for the prompt response.

Am I able to combine all my catalogues into one or do I need to delete them all and start afresh?

Best regards,
Malcolm

There's no specific merging functionality.  In theory, you could check the "Search" box for all but one catalog, and then the "Add/Modify" box on only that catalog, and then do a search for "" (two double quote characters) to pull up every image from all catalogs being search, select all images and then Right-click->Add to catalog. But it would probably be simpler to just use Scan to Catalog and add the parent folders/drives that contain your images and then have Photo Mechanic forget all but 1 catalog.