Sunday, April 18, 2021

Top 6 pet peeves about Lightroom Classic import

  1. Lightroom cannot move files from my camera's SD card
    Lightroom will copy files from the SD card, but not remove them. Only files from a hard drive can be moved. The result is one cannot just put the SD card back into the camera and continue shooting.

    If one removes files from the Lightroom catalog after copy from the SD card, the next time Lightroom imports from the SD card, those files will be copied again !

    Adobe recommends formatting the SD card after importing before putting it back into the camera. But this is not practical if the SD card contains other files, such as video files, that I don't want to import in Lightroom. Lightroom should have the option to move files from any volume, including SD cards.

    Because of this, I am forced to first manually move files from my SD card to a directory on my hard drive, then importing in Lightroom from that location. That is a 2-step process instead of one. Computers were built to automate tasks, not make them more complex.
  2. Lightroom import presets cannot remember whether to include or exclude video files
    One can use the Alt key in the Import dialog to check or uncheck video files during an import, but this setting cannot be saved into a preset. One has to press Alt again at every single import. I only want to manage photos in Lightroom, and not videos, and this is very annoying to be forced to do every time.
  3. Lightroom import presets cannot remember the source directory location.
    If I want to have separate presets for my SD card and OneDrive directory, it's not possible. I have to re-select the source directory manually every time during each import. I would like to save the location into the preset, but it can't be done.
  4. Lightroom auto-import cannot move files into a tree structure
    I cannot use auto-import to move files into a tree structure by date, which is something that I can do in the manual import feature. All files that are auto-imported must be moved into a single folder. Why does the auto-import feature have to be at all different from the manual import ? Beats me.
    Because of this limitation, I cannot use auto-import at all.
  5. Lightroom auto-import can only watch a single source directory.
    If I want to, say, automatically files from both my Google Drive and OneDrive, it's not possible. I have to choose or the other.
  6. Lightroom auto-import only works from folders that are initially empty.
    Normally, I manually import my pictures into D:\Documents\Pictures\YYYY\MM . I would like Lightroom to have the option to automatically monitor any files that have been externally added or removed from those locations. One great example is files manually created by Photoshop when using Super Resolution. As it currently stands, the only way to import those files is to manually run "Synchronize folder", if one knows the actual folder that Photoshop created the image in !

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