- Getting started
- Lightroom is your digital notebook
- The import process
- Importing photos from a digital camera
- Importing images from a hard disk
- Importing via drag and drop
- Evaluating photos before importing
- Images that are already imported
- Importing to a specific folder
- Importing from a watched folder
- Tethered shooting
- Viewing imported photos in the work area
- Review questions
- Review answers
The import process
Lightroom Classic has a number of options for importing your images. You can import directly from a digital camera or card reader, your hard disk, or any external storage media, or you can transfer them from another Lightroom catalog or from other applications. You can import at the click of a button, use a menu command, or simply drag and drop. Lightroom can launch the import process as soon as you connect your camera, or import automatically whenever you move files into a specified folder. Wherever you’re acquiring photos from, it will be important to become familiar with the Import dialog box.
The top section of the Import dialog box presents the basic steps in the import process, arranged from left to right: choose an import source, specify how Lightroom is to handle the files you’re importing, and then—if you choose to copy or move the source files—set up an import destination. If these are all of the details that you require to import the images, you can leave the dialog box set to compact mode. To access even more information, you can click the triangle at the lower left to expand to the full dialog box.
In expanded mode, the Import dialog box looks and works like the Lightroom Classic workspace modules. The Source panel at the left accesses your files on any available drive. The Preview area in the center displays images from the source as thumbnails in Grid view or enlarged in Loupe view. Depending on the type of import, the right panel group offers a Destination panel that mirrors the Source panel, and a set of controls for processing your images while they’re being imported.