One of my big projects this year is to reorganize my Lightroom catalogs. I won’t go into detail, but I used to create a new Lightroom Catalog every year – new year, new catalog. It felt like spring cleaning for my photos.

The problem is that – ten years on – I had both a lot of catalog clutter and a loss of visibility to my old photos. If I wanted to look at my old work, I had to execute an annoying series of steps: close the current catalog, open the new one, upgrade the database, deal with corrupt files. It was a lot.

This year I took the plunge and went all-in on one complete catalog. My Mac Mini is beefy enough to handle a large catalog, and having one source of truth for my pictures let me build a robust workflow, keyword, and archival system.

I’ve put hours into it, but the results are paying off. With one catalog, I’m better able to create collections with a common set of keywords, attributes, and ratings that span more than a decade. I can sync select albums with Lightroom (mobile) and have a quick reference of some of my best and favorite work on the go.

Looking back at old photos has allowed me to take a crack at reworking old edits. Some people may think this is anathema to the creative process; you shouldn’t touch old work so that you can see how you’ve grown. I, on the other hand, welcome the ability to correct some truly obnoxious edits on otherwise decent photos.

Today I reworked dozen shots from a trip I took to Germany in 2016. It was the first time Karen and I spent time together outside the US; it’s still a high point in our lives together. My processing work back then was very aggressive: lots of oversaturated colors, high contrast, and cranked-up clarity and texture sliders. The original results looked like bad filters laid on top of sub-par camera photos.

I follow a more disciplined edit workflow now. I try to avoid the hyper-real look that’s the result of a “no middle values” approach to using Lightroom sliders. As always, it’s a journey. I’ll probably rework these photos until I’m dead.