Best Way to Handle Custom Post Type Archives and Page Templates

Hey all,

I’m working with a child theme of Duster for my own site. I’ve created a few custom post types to house my portfolio and photos. I’ve primarily used page templates to pull in the posts for these, but I know I could just use archive-[post-type].php.

I see advantages to both approaches. Page templates work better with the Nav menus. Archive templates cause less conflicts with the permalinks. What’s best practice? I know custom post types are like the wild west – they’re custom!

Is there a way to connect a custom post type archive to a specific page template in PHP, like you can with posts in the Reading menu? I’ve also run into trouble with breadcrumb code and plugins when using with custom post types.