conigk

Recently I added a freestanding copy of Lightroom to PhotoShop Elements. I imported all of my photos catalogued by year, month and event or date from an external hard drive and it went very well. All of my files and subfiles were preserved and the naming of the files was identical to the file structure I had used. Now, however, when I insert a card reader, my computer opens up PSE rather than letting me use the file system I have on the external drive. I have not been able to figure out how to change this. I shoot in RAW. Any ideas?

DaveO Loc: Northeast CT

I don't have Elements, but I'll bet there is a setting for your preferences.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Deal with this at the OS level with the automation you may have setup automatically.

Use control panel and search for autoplay.
Modify the default you have there.

If you just want to access the drive w/o dealing with that: Use explorer.

conigk

I did dig down into preferences for both PSE and Lightroom and was not able to determine where to change it. I am sure I did "tell" my computer to open images in PSE at one time. I have a Mac, by the way.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Good luck. Next time, state your OS when dealing with a computer problem.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

I know I'm not as learned in these things as most of y'all, but if I insert a card into a card reader, then open LR and start to import those files, LR automatically sets up to copy the files onto the hard drive. That's annoying to me when I'm trying to do a light touch to someone else's image and don't really want it on my computer! I don't think it's possible to just open an image in LR on the OS level, as it has to be imported by LR first.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Windows is using that as the default folder for uploading to your PC. That may be changed in Settings.
Mark

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

You can simply cancel each time Lightroom tries to take over downloading your images, continue to download using whatever methods you did in the past, then after the download is complete import the new folder(s)/images into LR. (Library module, click "import", then select "other source" from the pull down menu in the top, left corner of the import dialog box... or just drill down the system tree shown there, to point LR to the folder(s) you want to import.)

If it really bugs you, you can go into Edit menu > preferences > "general" tab > and uncheck "show import dialog when memory card is detected". That was probably checked by default, when you installed LR. This should stop LR from trying to take over the download every time you insert a memory card into the reader.

But you also could set up the parameters of the LR import process to do the download the same way you have been doing it yourself. There's a lot of flexibility in the setup.

Personally I DON'T let LR handle my downloads... That's because, like you, I have a separate procedure. And I'm always downloading multiple memory cards into a folder, then sorting the images, then renaming them. I do apply additional copyright information to all images during the import, but not much more than that automatically.

CeeJay Loc: Southeast PA

Sounds like you have a program associated with the card reader. Mine automatically starts with Paint Shop Pro. You can change the association to LR by changing the association. I have no clue how you do that on a Mac.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

That's correct, your selections made in your OS for each file type applies until you change it.