Importing Methods- Lightroom

csonni · Jun 13th, 2010, 08:20 PM

I may jump on the Lightroom wagon. I do have a question about importing. With Lightroom, you can either reference the images where they exist (Add?), copy them to a converted DNG format and add them to Lightroom or move them directly into Lightroom. Not sure the benefits of either, but I prefer referencing them without copying them into LR. What about moving them into LR? I sure wouldn't want to keep all the originals on my drive in that case. Not sure what DNG is all about.

I'd like to use LR to import any future images right off of my camera, but I don't think this would integrate too well with the referencing method. In this case, what method would be best? Moving all my present images into LR and then trust LR to take care of all managing?

I have a 500 gig hard drive. Referencing sure seems the most appealing, but what are the drawbacks with that method? What about the others?

kps · Jun 14th, 2010, 01:20 AM

Lightroom will import from any source. In my case it imports directly from my card reader or my iPhone, depending what's connected. It can also import from any disk.

My workflow is straight forward: LR imports my raw images into a new folder and adds the images to an existing LR Catalog or creates a new one. My originals are never touched after that. The LR catalog images are just references, they do not exist unless I re-save them to the disk. I find this the most efficient for my needs.

I work strictly in LR or if I send an image to Photoshop for further processing and save it, LR will add it to any folder of my choosing and also add it to the catalog if I wish. You can also create any number of "virtual copies" of a single image which remains in LR and does not create another copy of the image.

Forget about DNG (Digital Negative) for the moment, unless you have files which can not be imported by Lightroom. DNG is a special format to bridge the various raw formats from different manufacturers and other sources. I had to convert some old jpgs and old Kodak Photo CD files into DNG in order to use them in LR and CS3.

More info on DNG here: //www.adobe.com/products/dng/

csonni · Jun 14th, 2010, 04:44 AM

So, with the existing folder of images I have on my computer now, I can hook up my camera and have LR import my images from my camera to my existing folder on my hard drive and reference the images from there, only creating a thumbnail in the LR catalog? And LR will create for me a dated and named folder as designated by me, in my existing images folder? That's exactly what I want, if this is the case. If one has LR move images directly into the LR catalog without copying them anywhere else, where are they stored and are they as safe in the LR catalog as they are in your own folder on your hard drive?

kps · Jun 14th, 2010, 05:08 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by csonni
	So, with the existing folder of images I have on my computer now, I can hook up my camera and have LR import my images from my camera to my existing folder on my hard drive and reference the images from there, only creating a thumbnail in the LR catalog?

Absolutely. Try it with the demo.

	Quote:
	And LR will create for me a dated and named folder as designated by me, in my existing images folder? That's exactly what I want, if this is the case.

Yup.

	Quote:
	If one has LR move images directly into the LR catalog without copying them anywhere else, where are they stored and are they as safe in the LR catalog as they are in your own folder on your hard drive?

Lighroom, AFAIK, does not import anything into itself...unlike iPhoto, which does. It will as far as I can tell always create a separate folder for the originals. IMHO, LR is 100% safe.