Lightroom .Classic imports: I have gathered a whole raft of raw photos from old CDs and DVDs over a thousand photos. I have them in one file on an external drive. Do I set LR to add or...

REJ Loc: Ontario Canada

I have gathered a whole raft of raw photos from old CDs and DVDs over a thousand photos. I have them in one file on an external drive. Do I set LR to add or copy? Do you know of any problems that a large import like this could cause. thanks in advance. REJ.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

REJ wrote:

I have gathered a whole raft of raw photos from old CDs and DVDs over a thousand photos. I have them in one file on an external drive. Do I set LR to add or copy? Do you know of any problems that a large import like this could cause. thanks in advance. REJ.

Just import from the drive for your disks.
1000+ is not really that large. BIF and Sports photographers can do more than that from one day. I have had more than that twice - one BIF day and one a friend's wedding & reception where I and my daughter were shooting using three cameras.

If you have lightroom set to store by date and the images still have their exif data you will end up with a bunch of new folders once things are all sorted out.

PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place

Use "Copy".

Don

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

Yes. Watch the first 15 minutes of this and it should cover all you need to know https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSwkDC3q7uk

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

REJ wrote:

I have gathered a whole raft of raw photos from old CDs and DVDs over a thousand photos. I have them in one file on an external drive. Do I set LR to add or copy? Do you know of any problems that a large import like this could cause. thanks in advance. REJ.

Hi, you apparently want to have all 1,000+/- photos in one folder that will be linked to LR and from which you will work on them in LR? You apparently already have an LR catalog open or set-up? If you like where the catalog lives and you like where the external drive images live then you click on import and be sure to set the option at the top to Add. The program will add the folder to the existing catalog. Note that under Add the text says, "Add photos to catalog without moving them." Thus, the photos will remain in the same exact spot. 1,000 images is not actually that many images but, depending on your specific equipment, it could take a while to import them all in.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

PAR4DCR wrote:

Use "Copy".

Don

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

Use copy unless you want to change location of the images

Jrhoffman75 Loc: Conway, New Hampshire

“Use copy unless you want to change location of the images”

Copy will put the images in a new folder and add them to the Lightroom catalog. Then you will have the images in two places.

Add will leave them where they are and add them to the Lightroom catalog.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

REJ wrote:

I have gathered a whole raft of raw photos from old CDs and DVDs over a thousand photos. I have them in one file on an external drive. Do I set LR to add or copy? Do you know of any problems that a large import like this could cause. thanks in advance. REJ.

Using Import-Copy will put them into your current catalog - and it will sort them out by date. If you use a custom preset that changes the filenames to add the word "legacy", or add legacy as a keyword, then you will be able find them more easily later.

Only use Add if you want to keep the files in their folders on the external drive. A 1000 images is not a large import - it's a good day's work.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

Unless you want LR to copy them to somewhere else, simply use "add." When I come home from a trip, I'll import 7-10,000 images all at once. Set it to import, and go have a cup of coffee. It will take awhile. If you shoot both RAW and jpeg, and you want to see both, be sure to click off the "suspected duplicate" command. I find it helpful to add basic metadata data at the same time. If you're importing only RAW and you have a basic development set that you usually apply, you can do that also at import and save yourself a lot of time later.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

REJ wrote:

I have gathered a whole raft of raw photos from old CDs and DVDs over a thousand photos. I have them in one file on an external drive. Do I set LR to add or copy? Do you know of any problems that a large import like this could cause. thanks in advance. REJ.

Based on some of these erroneous answers you might benefit from reading the Adobe help manual, in particular the Library Module section, which gives you information on importing and how to do it correctly without creating problems for yourself. Note that, when importing, you can actually set the import to import in various orders, not just by date, by changing the filter at the bottom of the viewing window. If you do choose to copy and move the images have a plan in mind as to where you will move them.

BlueMorel Loc: Southwest Michigan

I would add, not copy, import by date. Then you end up with LR folders named by date. I go back later and use LR to rename my folders with short clues after the date to clue me in to location or subject. Then you can use LR to decide what you want to delete and give keywords or ratings to each photo so you can make collections of, say, "John" or "autumn" without having to look through every folder to find the ones of you favorite grandson or autumn pics for a wall hanging, etc.