IMPORTING PHOTOS FOR THE FIRST TIME
5
The process of finding image files is fairly quick and even
a large collection should only take a couple of minutes.
Meanwhile there are a couple of settings we can look at. On
the right of the screen you’ll see a panel called File Handling.
Open it and if you want, un-check the option ‘Don’t import
suspected duplicates’.
8
Once the import process has completed you’ll see a report
notifying you of any problems. Common errors include
damaged files, which will not be imported, and unsupported file
type or colour modes. Lightroom supports all common file types
and most colour modes, so it’s unlikely that you’ll see either of
these if you’re just importing digital photos.6 Once the import system has located all the photos in your
selected folder you’ll see the total that it’s found and the
combined file size displayed in both the lower left and upper
right corners of the screen. All the files will be checked by default
but if there are any that you don’t want to import, you can
uncheck them.
9 Click on the OK button to dismiss the report message and
you’ll finally be able to interact with your new catalogue of
images. We’ll take a closer look at the layout of the workspace in
the next tutorial but for now just explore and check that all your
pictures are present and correct. You can scroll up and down by
using the mouse wheel.7 Once you’re happy with your selection of photos to be
imported, click on the Import button in the bottom right
corner of the screen and Lightroom will begin adding photos to
your catalogue. If you’re importing a large collection of images
for the first time this process can take an hour or more, so go
and do something else for a while.
10 If you subsequently want to remove any imported images
from your catalogue you may do so by right-clicking on the
image and selecting Remove Photo from the context menu. Note
that this doesn’t delete the photo from your hard drive, it just
stops Lightroom from seeing it. You can reimport it later if you
change your mind.http://www.bdmpublications.com 37