Importing & Exporting with Adobe Lightroom 2 (Coming Fall 2010 LR3)

NEW CONCEPT FOR FIRST TIME LIGHTROOM USERS

Lightroom is a nondestructive photo editing software program. Meaning, once you get your images into Lightroom, your original files will not be altered, you do not have to keep “saving” your changes and edits because your changes stay in an extra file next to the original, your history never goes away, and you can bring changes with you when you export.

Before You Import into LIGHTROOM!

GET ORGANIZED!Decide where you will store your picture files.

Set up your “Filing Cabinet” before you start filing!

LIGHTROOM assumes you are going to store the files on your internal hard disk and sets up the default catalogue there. It is in your Mac or PC’s “Picture” folder.

You should also have an external hard drive for storage and back-up. 500GB to 1 terabyte is the recommendation.

Bigger is always better when it comes to hard drive storage space.

NOTE: if you fill a 4GB card in 1 shoot, on average, you could have over 200GB of images in a year!

ALWAYS GIVE YOUR THUMBDRIVES AND EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES A NAME!

i.e. “A.Smith Photo 70,” “B.Jones

Spring 2010,”

On a Mac, just click on the title under the icon until it is type-

able.On a PC, find your thumb drive in My

Computer, and click on it until it is type-able.

Make a “My Lightroom Photos” Folder!

On your THUMBDRIVE AND/OR EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE:

Create a new empty folder called “My Lightroom Photos.”

Do the same on your computer, in the “Picture” folder, create an empty folder called “My Lightroom Photos.”

IN YOUR PICTURE FILE, MAKE A NEW FOLDER CALLED “MY LIGHTROOM PHOTOS.”

PC

Mac

To import photos into Lightroom: 1) Depending how you have your images stored>Insert camera card into a card reader and plug into the USB computer connection, or plug in your thumb drive.2) Open the folder representing your drive on the desktop and locate the folder of your images. 3) Drag the entire folder into the Lightroom program icon in the dock (Mac), or right click on the folder and chose “Open with Lightroom” (PC).

There is more than one way to import photo files into Lightroom. Using the method described here will get you to this Lightroom import interface panel …

You’ve already set-up your filing cabinet and you want to be able to find your images later. In this window, you will

start building and organizing your Lightroom catalog. “Copy Photos to a new location and add to catalog.” In

the “Organize” section, make thoughtful choices so as to direct images to a proper place. Create a system, by

date, by event, by place, whatever works for you.

The “Back Up To:” section is your opportunity to create a back up of your original files as you take them from a

camera card into Lightroom. Sending your original images to a thumb drive or other external hard drive will 1) Preserve original files, and 2) allow you to properly

“Format Memory Card” in your camera after you import them into Lightroom. Create a folder with a logical name

and back-up your images!

Before you hit the “Import” button, put in some Metadata. Metadata is a basic copyright. Click on the scroll button to edit and/or create your personal data. This info will be attached to each image.

Put in general “keywords.” This will help you find particular images years from now.

Check the “Show Preview” button if your images are not showing.

You can make your first edit with “Uncheck All” and then just select the images you want to import . Vice-versa, you can “Select all” and uncheck the obviously bad images.

Now, you have set-up organization and are ready to click “Import”

When you are ready to Export from Lightroom: Decide what your intention for the photographs is?

1) To work on images at home with LR edits?2) To take finished images to outside printer? (i.e. Costco)3) Both

1) Select all or select only the images you’ve edited2) Go to File>Export as Catalog

In the Export as Catalog dialogue1) Choose your drive on the left2) Create a logically named New Folder i.e. Assignment #13) In the Save As, type in a logically named

title, i.e. Landscapes LR Edits4) Confirm the checked boxes on the

bottom. (negative files are the originals)5) Click “Export Catalog”

Too save edits for transfer to another computer:

To export JPEGs for outside printing

1) Go to File> Export with Preset> Burn Full-Sized JPEGs.

2) In the “Choose Folder” menu, choose where you want the JPGs to go. You could put them inside the same folder as the catalogued edits as they are the edited images in JPEG form.

To eject your thumb drive and card reader from the computer, drag them into the trash can. The trash can will turn into and “eject” button.