Thanks Kirk, I will try and explain my systems here...........
When I shoot images and come back to my computer, I do what I need to do with the RAW files in PM (cull, rename, keyword etc.), then process them out to JPEG via Capture One. The resulting JPEGs are then copied out to my various folders described below, usually via GoodSync.
RAW files are not such an issue, it's more the outputted Large JPEGs that I need to search and get out to clients, and then I also need to search my Small JPEGs for pix to use on my blog, Facebook, and so on.
Since day one with digital photography I have stored all my outputted Large JPEGs in what is a big and growing folder I suppose - within that folder are many sub-folders that are named with headings that make sense to me and what I shoot. I have always keyworded my images, both for clients to create captions in magazines, and then for me to be able to search my image library, which of course I was doing on a simple level in your PM5.
Every single Large JPEG then has a corresponding Small JPEG created, and that library as such is then stored in a separate and growing folder - all the sub-folders exactly match my Large JPEG folder if that makes sense? Apologies if this seems a weird way to work, but because I have always been so fanatical about precise keywording, it's a system that works perfectly for me.
So bearing in mind that I know nothing about a proper catalogue piece of software, I upgraded to your PM6 mainly to get at this PM6+ beta and see if it worked for me. Ideally I want to stick with your software because it's so good and has worked so well for me for years now............
I think I have done the right thing this end - somehow I managed to get PM6+ to create a Large JPEG and then a Small JPEG catalogue which I can now search (it took ages to scan my folders, but I assume this is normal?), and yes, I am blown away with how detailed my searches can be! I also create headlines for a number of my images to be able to keep track of which magazine has seen which images or published with image and so on, so as I get to grips with your PM6+, I am starting to see how the extra details are helping.
Does that explain things a bit better? Sorry for the long message!
I have gone back to the latest Large and Small JPEGs I outputted and have now managed to manually add them to my two main catalogues within PM6+, but if I have to do this as an extra step every time I process images I am going to have a problem with missing things sometimes. Am I doing something wrong?
When I manually add photos to my PM6+ catalogues, do I need to make sure I add the photos from within my (Mac) based folder system? If you add images to a PM6+ catalogue and then move those images within my folder system, does this mess the catalogue up?