Importing photos

LRussoPhoto

I watched this tutorial on importing photos into LR3:
http://jhpvideotutorials.com/2011/01/12/lightroom-3-set-up-and-importing-part-2/

When im importing photos from a external device like a memory card im confused as to where I put the photos. When I used LR2 I would copy my photos into a specific folder on my hard drive then import them into the LR catalog. After watching this tutorial it seems I can do all this in one step as opposed to 2 like before. My question is where should I save the original photos? Should I save them to a specific folder on my hard drive and then let LR put them into its default database or should a create a new catalog within my normal photos folder letting the photos be copied there and not in the default LR database?

BradfordBenn

I am not quite sure I understand your question, but if I am getting the meaning I think you are wondering where to import the photos to. That is up to you, the key is to make it consistent. My process is as follows:

1. Insert Memory Card
2. Initiate Import in Lightroom (I turned off the auto import)
3. Set the location (which defaults to the last format) to be year>month>day
4. Click import and let it run for a little while
5. I then take the card and back it up to DVD/CD as unchanged images

Does that help?

pathfinder

If you are smart, when starting to use Lightroom, you will set up one, single, solitary folder to contain 100% of all your images in their subfolders. That means Lightroom will always know where all your images are, all the time. This base folder will get quite large, perhaps even Terrabyte sizes, so give its location some serious thought. When you start the Import dialogue, LR will prompt you where you want the files to end up.

LRussoPhoto

The thing that is confusing me is, it looks like photos are being stored in 2 places...... The folder you copy the photos into and then in the LR database. Am I understanding that correctly?? From the tutorial I watched shown above, it looks like he is creating a new catalog for new groups of photos, copying those original photos into a specific folder on his hard drive, then making that same folder the catalog for LR for those photos. Again, when I was using LR2 I would copy photos from my mem card into a folder onto my hard drive, then import them to LR2 and they would go into LR's catalog, having photos located in 2 places.

arodney

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

The thing that is confusing me is, it looks like photos are being stored in 2 places...... The folder you copy the photos into and then in the LR database. Am I understanding that correctly??

No. The database is just that, a file that contains information about WHERE the photo’s reside. You can place the images anywhere you wish, the database just records those locations. As pathfinder has stated, and I agree, place all your images in one drive, in one folder (MyImages) with well organized sub folders. Then you always know where your images reside. So will LR! The idea is to understand OUTSIDE LR where your images reside in a well organized structure of folders. Then when you import, you can either point to the folder you want images to copy to (from the camera card) or make a new folder (inside LR) and point to that. Once you import images into LR, you want to rename, move, everything from within LR so the database also knows what you are doing. If you move a folder or an image outside of LR, the database has no way to understand what you did, you need to update it (you get the dreaded question mark icon). If you use LR as a Finder/Explorer alternative, and it can do all the tasks you’d normally do there, the database also updates of course and ‘knows’ what you did and where all your images reside.

LR doesn’t import anything into itself per say (it does build thumbnails but that’s a different discussion). LR simply stores information about where you tell it your images live. Keep in simple. Dedicate a drive for all the images, the database and associated files, then you will find backing up this important data, and taking this on location is much, much easier.

LRussoPhoto

arodney wrote: »

No. The database is just that, a file that contains information about WHERE the photo’s reside. You can place the images anywhere you wish, the database just records those locations. As pathfinder has stated, and I agree, place all your images in one drive, in one folder (MyImages) with well organized sub folders. Then you always know where your images reside. So will LR! The idea is to understand OUTSIDE LR where your images reside in a well organized structure of folders. Then when you import, you can either point to the folder you want images to copy to (from the camera card) or make a new folder (inside LR) and point to that. Once you import images into LR, you want to rename, move, everything from within LR so the database also knows what you are doing. If you move a folder or an image outside of LR, the database has no way to understand what you did, you need to update it (you get the dreaded question mark icon). If you use LR as a Finder/Explorer alternative, and it can do all the tasks you’d normally do there, the database also updates of course and ‘knows’ what you did and where all your images reside.

LR doesn’t import anything into itself per say (it does build thumbnails but that’s a different discussion). LR simply stores information about where you tell it your images live. Keep in simple. Dedicate a drive for all the images, the database and associated files, then you will find backing up this important data, and taking this on location is much, much easier.

Ok, so I can copy my photos to my hard drive into folders/sub folders that I am currently using in one step through LR from my mem cards? Are you suggesting that I keep the images and database in the same folder or just the same drive?
And if I ever move them around or rename them make sure I do it through LR so LR knows where there areand what they're called?


Thank you for the info, much appreciated

arodney

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

Ok, so I can copy my photos to my hard drive into folders/sub folders that I am currently using in one step through LR from my mem cards?

Yes, its all done in the Import dialog.

Are you suggesting that I keep the images and database in the same folder or just the same drive?

Yes, on the same drive (not necessarily in the same folder). That way, everything LR needs to run and access your images is in one location which can be backed up or cloned to other drives. As long as any other computer has the LR application, Mac or Windows, you double click on your library and off you go. Note, there is a preference “save presets with Catalog” which should be on as well.

And if I ever move them around or rename them make sure I do it through LR so LR knows where there areand what they're called?

Exactly.

pathfinder

What I do with new images on a compact flash card is - at the time of import - the files are simultaneously copied off my CF card to 2 ( two ) separate external hard drives. One is my primary Lightroom folder, with its sub-folders by date, and an entirely separate external hard drive as a back up copy of my files imported into Lighroom. Thus I end up with 2 ( two ) entirely separate sets of basic RAW files ( I actually convert them to dng at the time of importing but that is another discussion )

Your Catalog is a separate file that contains the location of your RAW file that have been imported, a small image thumbnail to see in the LR Library panel, and all the image editing steps you have performed in the Develop Panel. It can be stored anywhere, either on your hard drive holding your RAW files, or your main computer hard drive, or where ever you want it to be. Andrew recommends having your catalog on the drive with your RAW files so that every file you need for Lightroom is all in the same place, and hence - easy to copy and back up, or even use on another computer.

I actually keep my main catalog files on my :C hard drive - my booting hard drive on my MAC - but I have copies on my backup of my main hard drive, AND additional copies on my external data drives containing my RAW files. I tend to be a belt and suspenders kind of fellow.

Lightroom works very well, but the user MUST understand that the files cannot be moved from folder to folder from outside Lightroom because if you move the files and Lightroom did not do the moving, Lightroom will promptly tell you it does not know where the files went. It will then ask you to help find them, and that is pretty easy to do IF YOU KNOW where you put them.

Once one understands how Lightroom is really set up, it is a lovely program to work with, and it just gets better with each addition.

LRussoPhoto

arodney wrote: »

Yes, on the same drive (not necessarily in the same folder). That way, everything LR needs to run and access your images is in one location which can be backed up or cloned to other drives. As long as any other computer has the LR application, Mac or Windows, you double click on your library and off you go. Note, there is a preference “save presets with Catalog” which should be on as well.

Where is that save presets with catalog located?

pathfinder

Lightroom > Preferences > to this dialogue box

Maybe Andrew will explain the reasoning for checking this box as well, as you see, mine is not checked either.

dbveto

pathfinder wrote: »

Lightroom > Preferences > to this dialogue box

Maybe Andrew will explain the reasoning for checking this box as well, as you see, mine is not checked either.

I have mine checked because I will often work on my photos' on multiple computers. My Catalog is on a portable hard drive so I can use it on multiple computers.

divamum

This is exactly why I upload to my computer via Picasa before I import into Lightroom. I HATE Lightroom's import interface! It seems to me to be needlessly complicated (although maybe those choices that I don't use are important to other people's workflows). It tries to set default directories I don't want and rename them by date.

But, if I go through Picasa, I select the correct folder from my hard drive and "Keep in current location". It still glitches sometimes, but for the most part that keeps them where I want them and where I can find them. YMMV.

ETA: Pathfinder, that info about uploading to TWO directories is very interesting. It could possibly change my mind about LR as an uploading interface.

LRussoPhoto

arodney wrote: »

Yes, its all done in the Import dialog.



Yes, on the same drive (not necessarily in the same folder). That way, everything LR needs to run and access your images is in one location which can be backed up or cloned to other drives. As long as any other computer has the LR application, Mac or Windows, you double click on your library and off you go. Note, there is a preference “save presets with Catalog” which should be on as well.



Exactly.

Ok, so say im out at a motocross race and I upload the photos from the day in LR on my laptop, when I get back from the weekend, how would I tranfer those photos into LR on my desktop and external drive at home?

pathfinder

What I do when traveling, and not home with my desktop, is to carry my MacBook and a pair of portable USB drives.

When I get back to my motel room in the evening, I plug a Firewire Compact flash reader into my MB, and two separate USB portable hard drives. I import the files to both drives as dng files via the import dialogue in Lightroom. With my card un-erased, I then have three copies of the files that I can even carry in separate bags until I get home. 500Gb or 1 Tb portable drives can be found for less than $100 bucks, and are re-useable. I can do it this way because I do not do serious image editing on my laptop, I prefer to do it on my larger, better calibrated screen in my office with better lighting and color balance at home. SO I am not really concerned with the LR Catalog created on my laptop, I will attend to that once I am home.

When I get home, i just import the files from one of the portable hard drives ( if I have erased my CF card for re-use ) via a USB port on my desktop MAC, again using the import dialogue from Lightroom, onto two separate external drives on my Mac Pro at home . My primary data drive is a Raid array, and I have a 3 Gb external drive that is a backup to my Raid array. I should mention that I recently installed a USB 3.0 card in my Mac Pro and have a USB 3.0 card reader as well. WHen you start transferring full 16 Gb cards of date, it takes a while no matter what interface your use.

Thus, once I have finished a shoot and am copying my files, I never have less than three copies of the files for safeties sake. Overkill some may say, but I have seen whole hard drives disappear overnight so I know they are fungible devices.

This is not the only way, nor should everyone do it this way, but is a technique that seems to work for me.

arodney

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

Ok, so say im out at a motocross race and I upload the photos from the day in LR on my laptop, when I get back from the weekend, how would I tranfer those photos into LR on my desktop and external drive at home?

Since you have a dedicated drive with all the appropriate data, presumably you’d have another drive on the ‘home’ machine. You’d simply sync it. Using a utility to do so, only the new data gets copied over from the location drive to the home drive. OR you just plug in the location drive to the main machine and off you go. Using multiple drives and syncing them is a tad more work but a good backup plan.

arodney

pathfinder wrote: »

Lightroom > Preferences > to this dialogue box
Maybe Andrew will explain the reasoning for checking this box as well, as you see, mine is not checked either.

Because if you don’t check it, the presets are stored on the boot drive (on your Mac, its in Application support/Adobe etc). If you make a new preset and its stored there, then that preset isn’t accessible when you use another machine and the external drives. If you store all the presets with the catalog, they get backed up and used on all the drives. You can be a Mac user with all the data on the external drive. You can in theory hook up that drive to a PC with Lightroom, double click on your catalog and have everything you’d need to use that catalog (images, presets, previews).

Since the Develop module uses the ACR cache files (not the irdata preview), might want to save that to this external drive as well. It will speed up slightly the Develop module because again, if you store that data on the boot drive, in the Library, its not accessible elsewhere, LR will have to rebuild them (its a pretty quick process on a fast machine).

BradfordBenn

divamum wrote: »

But, if I go through Picasa, I select the correct folder from my hard drive and "Keep in current location". It still glitches sometimes, but for the most part that keeps them where I want them and where I can find them. YMMV.

ETA: Pathfinder, that info about uploading to TWO directories is very interesting. It could possibly change my mind about LR as an uploading interface.

I used to find it poorly laid, but in LR3 they created import presets and improved the UI. You can do either a compact or full screen version. I created a Preset that worked for me and just run that one again and again. I have not had to change it for a few months.

I also do the copy to second location

I have a workflow up at http://www.bradfordbenn.com/2010/10/2010-photography-workflow/

A few minutes of thinking it through has saved me hours of work.

LRussoPhoto

Patherfinder, would I be able to do some editing and cropping with the photos on the usb drives, then upload those photos from the usb drive right to Smugmug with out having them on the laptops hard drive? Then when I get home i'd just plug in the usb to my desktop and import to LR from the usb right?
Andrew, what utility would I use to sync my laptop photos to my desktop if I save the photos their?

pathfinder

Since you are importing the files via Lightroom on your laptop, you certainly can edit them there as well, and then can export an sRGB jpg to Smugmug via one of Smugmug's uploaders, or the built-in uploader in Lightroom. If you save your settings in the XMP file, they will be imported right along into your desktop machine when the files are imported there as well.

I do not synch my portable hard drives and my external drives on my desktop computer, I import the files a second time from the portable USB hard drive to my external drive storage on my desktop unit, again via importing within Lightroom.

LRussoPhoto

So I would just plug my laptop into my desktop via a usb cable, then via the import option COPY the files onto my desktop? And as long as I have the xmp option selected it will retain my editing as well?

arodney

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

So I would just plug my laptop into my desktop via a usb cable, then via the import option COPY the files onto my desktop? And as long as I have the xmp option selected it will retain my editing as well?

That’s not how I’d do it. I’d travel with an external drive dedicated for the images and LR files. Then its fast and easy to clone changes from drive to drive (each drive being again, dedicated for these files). Laptop drives are too small for one. It makes the cloning difficult or impossible. With a USB or FireWire drive, you can move that from machine to machine and have access to all your data for LR. Then I’d backup that external drive to other external drives.

LRussoPhoto

Thank you for your help.
Another question, lol........How do I move photos from one folder to another inside LR?

arodney

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

Thank you for your help.
Another question, lol........How do I move photos from one folder to another inside LR?

Just as you would in the Finder or Explorer. Select them in the grid, drag and drop over another folder. You’ll see an icon update that looks like a group of images, indicating you are selecting and about to move (drop) them into the folder.

LRussoPhoto

Im in grid in Library, where do I go to see all my folders? On the left side it onlt shows files on my hard drive that I have imported already. From the import screen I can see all my folders on the hard drive but I dont want to import them somewhere else do I?

LRussoPhoto

I know what my problem was, I do not haver ALL my photos in the LR database, doing that now.......Then I will be able to see what you are showing me. Now when I do what you said about dragging photos into new folders, it will remove from the old folder and put them in the new? Again that you for helping me out. I know time is precious.

arodney

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

Now when I do what you said about dragging photos into new folders, it will remove from the old folder and put them in the new?

Yes. Anything you do in LR works like the Finder/Explorer and vise versa. Just do it in LR so it knows. You can move, delete, rename files, you can create new folders, rename them, delete them etc.

LRussoPhoto

When I move the photos it is moving them to the new folder but also leaving them inside the previous folder, what and I doing wrong? Dont know if it matter but the photos are in a folder named JULY and I created a subfolder inside JULY called JULY4, does it matter that im taking photos from a folder and moving them to a subfolder within the original folder?

LRussoPhoto

Nevermind, I see that LR shows all the photos inside a folder even though there are subfolders.

arodney

IF you move from drive to drive, there will be a copy (there will be images in both folders). But if you move from the same drive, the files just move. Again, this is identical to how things work outside LR.

LRussoPhoto

Ok, what the differance between an external drive and a portable drive? Is a portable drive good for storing my entire libbrary of photos?

arodney

QuadRacer041 wrote: »

Ok, what the differance between an external drive and a portable drive? Is a portable drive good for storing my entire libbrary of photos?

Same thing. An external drive is key here, if you want to haul it around, the more portable, the better.