So now that we've got a good understanding of our catalog structure and how it references our images on our hard drive, it's time to demonstrate some importing. So there's two scenarios where you'll be importing images into Lightroom. One is where the images are already on your computer, and you just wish to add them to Lightroom. And the second scenario is where they're still on the camera, brand new images that you wish to bring in from the camera. Now, some people like to copy the images off the camera onto the computer first, I personally come directly from the camera, but either way, it's possible and I will demonstrate both. So this first scenario is importing images that are already on your computer.

So there could be images that you have just copied off the camera in the old fashioned way. Or it could be just old images that you've got on your computer that you wish to now bring into Lightroom that haven't been there. So let's do it. I'll show you the images that I'm going to import. I'm just going to go into my finder and into my pictures folder and I've got a folder of images here from Morocco. So a folder of images.

They're called Morocco. They're the ones I'm going to import. They're on the computer. They're RAW files. They're not in Lightroom. So back in Lightroom, we hit the big import button down in the lower left hand corner.

I could go file input from photos and video from the File menu, or just do it down here from the import menu. So here we go. Now importing is a three step process. So here we are in the Import dialog with its menus and options. It's a three step process. And the first step is select the source I need to select the images I wish to import.

Now, as it turns out, they're right there looking at me, there's the Morocco folder, but if it wasn't the case, I can actually go up here and go select a source and I can go to common areas of input desktop, Pictures folder or movies folder. So I will go to the pictures folder as you often would, I find my Morocco folder there. So I click on Morocco. And here's all the images I wish to import. You can say there's 39 photos. So it's just a small import to make it quick and easy.

One gigabyte in title tells me that information down here at the bottom. So there's my source selected. So the first of the three steps is select a source. And we've done that. So the second thing we've got to do to import is select a method. And there's four methods to choose from.

We can copy as dng, we can copy, we can move, or we can add. Now the correct choice for this action is add. Because these images are already on the computer, I simply want to add them to the catalog without moving them or more to the point I want Lightroom to build previews without moving them. So if I was coming from my camera, I'd obviously want a copy. And I'll talk about copies what dng means in the next movie where I come from camera, but for now, we're just adding images that are already on the computer, so there's no need to move them at all or change the format. So there's the second of the three options selected, we've selected a soul We've selected a method.

So now we need to choose the file handling options. What are we going to do to these images during import? So the first file handling option wants to know what size previews you want to create. So there's four options here. The most common option is standard. I personally always choose standard size preview, I think that's a good way to go.

You could choose one to one and it would build the big high resolution previews for every image. I think that's excessive during import, it's going to be very slow input makes much more sense to just build your standard size previews during import and let Lightroom build the one to one litre as required. You could choose minimal and if you choose minimal size previews, then Lightroom won't build any previews at all a lot room would just take the previews already embedded in the file created by the camera and build its previews later. So you're not missing out on anything choosing minimal standards, you can always get the one to one later. It's just whether you want to do it. During import or do it light up.

As I said, I always choose standard. You've then got embedded and sidecar as an option. And you may choose this if the images have been edited by a different application. Maybe they've been in Photoshop or camera or a bridge or something. And it's made its own previews, you can say we'll just use those ones just use embedded and sidecar. I hardly ever In fact, I never do that.

I always choose standard size previous as my standard method. Now the next option is build smart previews. Now, smart previews are a wonderful feature that were added in Lightroom five, that build this extra high quality preview that can be edited, even when the negative is not connected to the computer. So it's quite a clever little feature. I'm not going to do it. Now.

I'm going to do a separate movie just about smart previews. So you can really sort of get your head around them because I know this is a lot of information at once. So we'll leave smart previews for now, but know that we can create smart previews during input if we wish to The next option is, don't import suspected duplicates. Now, I don't know why you'd want to uncheck that. I'd certainly never want to import images that were suspected duplicates. So I'm going to leave that checked.

That's an odd one, isn't it? Why would you want to do check that out at night. The next option is make a second copy. Now notice I can't do this because I'm not even making a first copy. But I would if I was copying from camera, and I was away from home away from the studio, I generally make an on site backup to an external hard drive. So that's certainly what I always do when I'm overseas, I import from camera to the computer, I'd make a second copy to my last C drive.

So it's a good backup feature there when you're away from home or away from the studio. But I won't be doing that now because I'm just adding. Now I can add the images directly to a collection as well. So we've talked about collections versus folders in in session, one in great detail. So if I wanted to go straight into a collection also I could do that. This is a new feature that was Editing Lightroom CC, I personally haven't found a lot of use for that myself, but you may want to go straight into a collection, then you can do that too.

But I won't be doing that. So that's all my file handling options. So next I've got applied during import, what do I want to apply to these images during import, so I can apply develop settings. So these are all the presets that we looked at earlier on. In the quick Develop module in the library, you've got all these presets, black and white and color, all these different effects that we might want to apply to the images or our own user presets that we may have saved previously. Not going to do that for now not going to apply any presets during import because there's nothing that's going to apply globally to all these images.

But let's for example, maybe I wanted to convert everything to black and white straightaway during import. I could do that, but I don't want to do that right now. Next I've got my metadata so I can apply my copyright and contact details with my David aerodyne photography template that we made. Ideally on. And if I wanted to edit that template or that preset, I can click Edit presets. And it takes me right in there where my preset leaves that if I wanted to add or change any details, I could do that.

But I'm happy with those for now. So I'll leave them and click Done. And then the last option we've got is the ability to add keywords. So obviously, the keywords we add during import apply to all the images, so they can't be image specific, just the global ones. So I'm going to add Morocco, and I'm going to add Africa, as they're relevant to all these images that we're currently importing. And we're pretty well good to go.

So let's do a quick revision. Remember Lightroom importing is a three step process. Step one is select a source, which we've done there, make sure you've selected the images you wish to import. Step two is select a method, make sure you're clear whether you're adding or copying. I see a lot of people getting themselves into a bit of strife when they're copying when they should be adding and they end up with multiple choices. copies of the images on the computer and tie themselves up in knots.

So you only really need to copy if you're coming from camera. Otherwise, it's an add situation if the images already reside somewhere. And then finally, we've got all these file handling and apply during Import Options, things we can do to the images as they coming in. So once we're happy with all that, I'm just going to go ahead and click Import. And in come my new images, so you can see they've come in pretty quickly they've been added to the catalog. Now Lightroom is just building the standard size previews, just knocking them up pretty quickly.

Now, you might be surprised to see these images already have adjustments on them. You can see from the badges there. That's just because there's stunt images that I've taken out of a catalog in order to put them back in again. So they've they've already been edited, but that's not really a concern. When I do the import from camera in the next movie, they will be true RAW files with no adjustments on them or anything. So this is just because I've read These files to do this demonstration a number of times.

So here's all our Morocco photos nicely imported, you can see over in the folders tab here, they're not living neatly in the travel photos. Lightroom is still referencing them from the pictures folder because we said and you can see as I hover over there, the little alt tag pops up to tell me where that is. In the pictures folder. Now it's kind of There we go. It uses a lot pictures and Morocco. So that's where the images live.

And Lightroom is perfectly happy to keep things in multiple places if you want. But if you'd like to keep things nice and neat, you can grab those Morocco folders now and just drag and drop them into your travel photos. You'll get a message saying this will cause the corresponding files on disk to be moved. To which you'll say no problem. That's exactly what I wanted to happen. And now the Morocco photos are neatly in the travel photos folder as they should be so important to do that in Lightroom.

Remember had I done that Side Lightroom Lightroom, when he got confused, it would have said Where did the Morocco photos go. So because I did it inside Lightroom, no problem at all, everything is replicated outside. In fact, if I jump into my finder now you'll see if I got pictures folder, Morocco is no longer there. And if I go to Lightroom, and travel photos, there's Morocco there natively with the other photos. So that's importing images that are already on your computer. So as I said earlier, some people are out of habit, like to copy the photos off their camera first, and then import them into Lightroom is two separate steps.

So if you were doing it that way, then you would import in the exact way I just demonstrated. However, in the next movie, I'm going to show you how to import directly from camera, which I personally prefer. I think it's a little more efficient. There's less steps involved that way. So we'll see what you think of that other method. So that's importing from local Drive or computer