Getting Your Photos Into Lightroom


This is where it all startsbringing your photos into Adobe Lightroom so you can begin organizing, editing, and printing them. Lightroom is set up to let you import from two different sources: (1) it lets you manage photos that are already on your computer, and it gives you a number of options of just how it does that; and (2) it lets you import photos directly from your digital camera or a memory card reader. If you're smart about importing now, it will save you a lot more time and trouble, and make managing your images that much easier.

Step One

First, we'll start with importing photos that are already on your computer (my guess is, you probably already have at least some, if not more, already on there). To begin importing, first click on the Library link (found along the top-right side of the Lightroom window), and then click the Import button on the lower-right side of the window (shown here circled in red).

Step Two

Lightroom needs to know where the photos are on your hard disk, so when you click the Import button an Open dialog appears from the top of the Lightroom window (as shown here). Navigate your way to the folder of images you want to import and click the Import button (of course, you can import individual photos, not just folders, but for our example we're importing a folder of images with six photos inside).

Step Three

Once you click the Import button in the Open dialog, the Import Photos dialog appears (shown here). This is a very important dialog for two reasons: (1) you need to make some simple decisions on how you want your imported photos treated, and (2) you can save yourself a lot of work down the road if you spend a few extra moments here now. We'll start in the top-left corner with File Handling (your first important decision).

Step Four

Here's a close-up of the File Handling pop-up menu. You have four options here. The first, Reference Files in Existing Location (shown here), lets you leave the photos right where they are on your computer, but now you can manage and edit them using Lightroom. If you choose Copy Files to Lightroom Library (also shown here), it makes a copy of your photos and moves them into one central folder called the Lightroom Library. So this way, you'll have your original files and then an additional copy. Personally, I don't like this option because it just eats up space on your computer's hard disk. Another option here is Move Files to Lightroom Library, which doesn't copy them, it just picks up the images and moves them into the central library.

Step Five

The last option, Copy Photos as Digital Negative (DNG) makes a copy of your photos and puts them into the central library but it changes their file format to Adobe's DNG (digital negative format, which is an open source archival format for RAW images. For the full scoop on the Adobe DNG file format, visit www.adobe.com/products/dng/main.html).

Step Six

So which is the right choice here? There really isn't a right choice. It's up to you how you want to manage your images: Do you want all your photos in one location, like in the Lightroom Library (shown here, which is in Hard Drive:Users:Home: Pictures:Lightroom:Photos on your Mac)? Here's another question: How do you feel about having multiple copies of the same photo on your hard disk? Personally, I'm always fighting the battle of too little free hard disk space, so I don't copy my images into the Lightroom Library. Of course, I could use the Move Files to Lightroom Library option (so there would only be one copy on my hard disk), but I guess I'm just used to them being where they already are. See what I mean? You have to make the choice that you're most comfortable with.

Step Seven

Once you get past the only hard part of this dialog (deciding where, or where not, to move your files), you can start to put this dialog to work. One of the most important things you do for organizing your photos is to give them usable names, and luckily there's an option that lets you automatically give your files custom names as they're imported. To enter the custom name you want, turn on the Rename Files checkbox and then click directly on the downward facing arrows on the right (as shown here) to reveal the Rename Files options.

Step Eight

Once you reveal the Rename Files options, you'll see a Name field, and a collection of tokens (think of these tokens as naming templates). You start the renaming process by typing in a name. When you look in the Name field, you see a light blue pill-shaped token called Filename. That represents the image's current name. To get rid of the current name, just click directly on Filename and hit Delete. Now the Name field is blank, so just type in the name you want for all your imported photos. Then, from the Tokens field, you can add a sequential number by clicking-and-dragging the Seq# (001) token up to the Name field, after your name. You choose the starting number by typing a number in the First Sequence Number field.

Step Nine

By dragging Seq# (001) after the name, Lightroom will automatically number your photos, starting with the number you entered in the First Sequence Number field (so your files would be named "BrochureShots61," "BrochureShots62," etc.). By the way, you can choose how many numbers you want for your sequence by clicking directly on the right side of the Seq# (001) token and choosing your desired numbering schedule from the pop-up menu.

Step Ten

Just to see how it works, drag the Date token up to the Name field, then click-and-hold on the right side of the Date token (on the down-facing arrow) and a pop-up menu will appear with different date formats. Choose Date (YY), which adds just the last two digits of the year to the end of your filename (so now your files would be named "BrochureShots6106," for the 61st shot from 2006). Now, here's where the tokens are really handy. Since you don't want the numbers to run together, just click on the Date token and drag it to the first position in the Name field (so the date comes first, before the name), then from the Date token pop-up menu, choose the full year format (as shown here). So now, your files will be named "2006 BrochureShots 61." By the way, to put a space between formats, just press the Spacebar between each token.

Step Eleven

The next section down in the Import Photos dialog gives you the option of segmenting the images either by folder or date. We'll look at what the folder segmenting means first. Let's say you're importing a folder of photos, and inside that folder there are three other folders of photos, and inside one of those three there's yet another folder with photos. When you turn on Segment By, it keeps all those photos grouped together when they're importedit doesn't just pretend that there are no folders and lop them all into one big folder in Lightroom (actually, Lightroom calls these imported folders "shoots"). So in short, when Segment By is turned on and Folder is chosen from the pop-up menu, we import everything in folders, just as they are on your computer.

Step Twelve

If you choose Date in the Segment By pop-up menu, it separates your imported photos into groups by date. So if you import a folder, and some of the photos were taken on the 14th of January, and some were taken on the 24th, they'll be imported as two subgroups within the same shoot. The Organization pop-up menu simply lets you choose the format for how the date for these will be displayed within Lightroom. By the way, Segment By is turned on by default. If you don't want segmenting at all (so everything from this import will all be together in the same shoot), you can just simply turn off the Segment By checkbox.

Step Thirteen

The next field down lets you embed your copyright information (or other metadata) directly into the document itself. From the Metadata pop-up menu, choose New. In the resulting New Metadata Preset dialog, just type in your copyright info in the Copyright field, give it a New Preset Name, click Create, and that info will automatically be embedded into every imported photo for this shoot. Simple enough. By the way, you can see this embedded copyright info later, in the image's metadata fields, once the photos are imported into Lightroom. And if you want to use the same info for future imports, it is now in your Metadata pop-up menu under the preset name you assigned.

Step Fourteen

On the right side of the Import Photos dialog is a preview of the images you're about to import. To see the individual images, just drag the slider to the right. Directly under that slider is a field for naming the shoot you're about to import (again, Lightroom calls each group of images you import a shoot), and if you chose segmenting it automatically puts the folder name (or date) in the Shoot Name field, but you can always just click in the field and type in a new name for the shoot if you want. This won't change the name of the individual imagesjust the shoot name. Below the Shoot Name field are fields where you can embed keywords for this shoot (to make searching for images easiermore on this later) and any custom name you want embedded into the images. Now, before we look at where your imported photos appear within Lightroom, we need to briefly look at another scenariowhen you're importing photos directly from your digital camera's memory card (rather than importing photos already on your computer).

Step Fifteen

If you already have Lightroom open when you plug in your camera or card reader, by default the Import Photos dialog will appear automatically. There's only one real difference when importing photos from your memory cardthe File Handling options are limited. That's because the photos aren't on your computer, so you can't just point to them using the Reference Files in Existing Location option or Move Files to Lightroom Library because they're not on your computer to move yet. So, there are just two choices: (1) Copy Files to Lightroom Library, or (2) Copy Photos as Digital Negative (DNG) (if they're in RAW format). However, another great feature lurks here, and that's the ability to make a backup copy of your imported photosjust turn on the Backup to Secondary Location checkbox (as shown here). You can back up to a different location, external hard disks, or servers by clicking the Choose button and choosing a new backup destination.

Tip

Once you click the Import button in the Import Photos dialog, your photos start importing (whether from your memory card or from a folder on your computer). But what if you change your mind and want to cancel the import before all the photos are done importing? Just press Command-Option-A to bring up the Activity Viewer. You'll see a status bar showing the import in progress. To stop importing photos, just click the red X button (as shown here).




The Adobe Lightroom eBook for Digital Photographers
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers
ISBN: B001FA0MWK
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 71
Authors: Scott Kelby

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