PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place

I see that you have received answers to your question. I have one for you, why would you want to do this? Just curious.

Don

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Not familiar with the D7100, but all the cameras I have had with 2 slots allow me to save raw+jpg on one card. The other card gets used for overflow. If they're both on one card there's no problem downloading both files at the same time.

If the D7100 doesn't have that option, download all the raw files to a folder (directly, not through LR) and then download all the jpg files from the other card to the same folder. Then all the files are together and you can import them all into LR at the same time.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

You can download through Lightroom as long as you import them into the same folder or put them in the same collection. I regularly important photos from 3 different cameras into a folder when I get home from shooting.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

You are actually asking two different questions that have two different solutions. Let's take them one at a time.

1. First question is the download issue... How to get the JPEGs and RAWs to download at the same time. The answer to that is pretty simple. Instead of setting your camera to save the images parallel (JPEG on one card, RAW on the other), set it to save them sequentially (both JPEG & RAW first to one card, then to the other when the first one is full). This way when you download the images from any given folder you will see both the JPEGs and RAWs download at the same time.

Likely your camera will at times create multiple "folders" on the memory cards, as it rolls over the 9999th image in a series, or something like that. You'll still have to download one folder at a time.

You also don't need to use Lightroom to do downloads. In fact, you can simply use your computers system to set up a folder to receive all the images, then navigate to the folder(s) on the memory card(s), drag and drop them into the receiving folder and let the system "copy" them there. If you do this and there are multiple folders on a memory card, you can have more than one of these "downloads" taking place at the same time. (Note: Don't "move" downloads... Be sure to "copy" from the card to your computer. This leaves the originals on your memory card for the time being, until you can confirm that the downloaded files are all good. Later you can simply format the card in your camera to use it for fresh images. But wait to do that after you are sure all the images have been safely copied and have them securely backed up.)

After some number of files have been copied to your computer, you can Import them into Lightroom. Go to the Catalog module in LR and start the Import dialog. It will try to Import from the memory card, if one is still in your card reader (or if your camera is tethered to the computer... though hopefully you use a card reader, since it's safer and often faster). Just ignore that and use the pull down menu or the system tree on the left to point LR to the folder you created earlier, where you have been copying the image files. It's possible, too, to have LR Import from two or more folders at the same time, if they are in the same "parent" folders. For example, let's say you have a 2020_06_21 parent folder for all the shots taken on that date. Within that you might have a 2020_06_21_RAW folder where you are saving the RAW files and a 2020_06_21_JPEG folder where you have been copying the JPEGs. (Just an example based upon how I organize my photos... you are free to use any number of other methods, but the idea or a parent folder is the same.) Instead of pointing LR to the RAW or JPEG folder to Import, point it to their parent folder and put a check mark next to "include subfolders".

You can start the above Import even before all the images have finished "downloading". LR will simply Import all the files that have been completed so far. This allows you to start working on the files that have already been downloaded, while others continue to download in the background.

Later when more images have downloaded, don't use the "Import" dialog to add them to the catalog. Instead, left click on the folder (in the system tree on the left). A little menu will pop up. Choose "synchronize folder", LR will then look for the newly added images and skip over the ones already Imported. It will show its progress, and once completed you can simply start it or can have the Import dialog opened if you want to check that there aren't duplicates.

You can repeat the "synchronize folder" action as often as you like. Sometimes I fill a dozen or more memory cards, which take a long time to download. Using this feature allows me to start working on images in LR while continuing to download in the background, then update the folder with new images every so often.

Note: Doing "manual downloads" as described above side-steps some of the automation possible with LR. You can set LR up to automatically create folders, as well as do other things with your images during downloads (i.e., add copyright info, make a backup copy at another destination, even apply some relatively universal corrections such as lens profiles, etc.) When you don't have LR do the download, these things won't happen.... Frankly, I find it "safer" to manually set up my folders, not trust LR to do it. Sometimes I decide to set them up differently for one reason or another... And on a couple occasions after an LR update it's settings were change and made a mess of my folders, requiring me to go back and correct them.

2. Your second question is how to view the images together, which actually has to do with how you sort them. LR allows you to use any number of different methods. I usually put my images in the order they were shot. Because downloading isn't done strictly sequentially, there are often gaps and, due to the random order I'm downloading memory cards, in LR I may end up initially Importing images from late in the day, while some from early in the day are still downloading or are on other cards awaiting their turn to download. Don't worry about it. Eventually when all the cards have been copied into the folder(s) on your computer, you can choose how you'd like to sort your images.

Many of the sorting choices will automatically show RAW and JPEG versions of an image side-by-side, as you wanted. Note that if you have separate folders holding the different types of files, you'll need to view them from the parent folder containing both. If you don't see both, make sure that you don't have "stack multiple versions" of files checked. This displays only one version, while "hiding" any other versions behind it. They are still there... you just have to "unstack" them individually, in batches or for the entire folder.

Note: After all my images from a day's shoot have been downloaded, Imported into my LR catalog and sorted, I use LR to rename them sequentially... For example, 2020_06_21_0001, 2020_06_21_0002, 2020_06_21_0003, 2020_06_21_0004, etc. LR can do this to both the RAW and JPEG versions at the same time and will keep them synced, so that, for example, 2020_06_21_0895.jpg will be the same image as 2020_06_21_0895.nef. (I do daily downloads and four digit sequences are plenty. Often I need that many when I shoot 1000 or more images... But I don't need more because I hope to NEVER take over 9999 images in a day... which would make for waaaaayyy too much time sitting at my computer later! But, again, this is just my method... Feel free to set up your own.)

One key reason I rename my images is because I often use multiple cameras... I take at least three or four to most shoots and rarely work with less than two. Different cameras have their own sequences running and naming conventions, so it can be a real mess if I don't rename them. To do this, I also have to "sync" my cameras' internal date/time prior to a shoot, so that the sequence will be correct. The clocks in cameras lose or gain time at different rates. After a few days they can be off by a couple seconds... after a couple weeks it can be a lot more! It's important to do, band pretty easy. Usually the day before a planned shoot I'll tether each camera in turn to my computer and "sync" them with the computer's internal clock. During the day's shoot, I often make notes of the time when certain events occur, which helps me later when I'm working with the images in LR. This may or may not be important for you, depending upon what you shoot and whether you are using a single camera or multiples. If I'm out just shooting more casually with a single camera, I don't worry about syncing. At the other extreme, I've used a modified version of the above sequencing and renaming to organize 20,000 plus image files made by myself and five or six other photographers who were helping me shoot very large events. In addition to the sequential file name, I also added a suffix with each photographer's initials, to be able to quickly identify who did what (fortunately everyone had different initials!) To do that, I downloaded each photographer's RAW files into their own sub-folder, then I went to the parent folder and did a sequence renaming of the entire day's shoot, all together. Next I went into each photographer's separate folder and had LR add the initials to the file names (at the same time, I added their own copyright info to each photographer's images, because I'd forgotten to turn off the LR automation and had accidentally written with my own copyright info on their files).

One thing to remember about LR is that it's "non-destructive". This means most of what you do in it doesn't actually change your image files at all. The adjustments and tweaks are just "notations" assigned to the catalog copy, but not yet actually applied. (Note: Renaming is an exception. but even if you make a mistake doing that you can easily correct it by renaming the files again.) Much of what you do in LR isn't applied until you Export the image.... and even then LR will do it's best to keep you from overwriting existing files (which can be done with JPEGs or TIFFs, but not with RAW files).

Hope this helps!

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

There is no advantage to downloading first and then importing into Lightroom. It’s just an extra step. It’s pretty simple to tell Lightroom where you want the files. And really with Lightroom once the files are imported it’s easy to use collections to filter your images instead of thinking about the physical location.