How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom



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How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

This article is part of our series Photo Editing in Lightroom 101. Throughout the series we’ll cover the details of Lightroom’s library and develop modules and how you can use Lightroom to improve your own photos. As new articles are published they will be added to this page. If you don’t want to miss future articles in the series, please subscribe to our RSS feed or our email newsletter.

Previously we looked at the importance of having a good organizational structure for your photos, and the option of using one catalog in Lightroom, or multiple catalogs. Today we’ll look at the process of importing photos into your first catalog, and we’ll also cover the process of exporting photos while we’re at it.

Importing Photos from Your Hard Drive

There are a few different ways that you may go about importing photos to Lightroom. They can be imported from your hard drive, or from another drive or device that is connected. In many cases you may be importing directly from your digital camera or from a card reader. We’ll cover that approach in just a minute, but first we’ll look at how to import from your hard drive.

When you start Lightroom for the first time it will ask you where you want to store the catalog. By default this will be in the “Pictures” folder on your hard drive. So now that you are in Lighroom’s library module you will be working within this catalog, and any photos that you import will be a part of this catalog. If you use multiple catalogs in the future you will want to make sure that you are in the appropriate catalog before importing any photos.

To import, start by clicking on the “import” button.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

This will open the import screen shown below.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

The numbers below correspond with the above screenshot to explain each part.

1. At the left side of the screen you’ll see “source”. This is where you will choose the images that you want to import. Navigate to the appropriate folder on your hard drive.

2. At the top and center of your screen you will have some options regarding how you want to handle the files. If you are working with RAW files the first option is to copy those files as DNGs during the import process. DNG stands for digital negative and is basically a standardized format for RAW files. Each camera produces unique RAW files, but the DNG format is standard. One advantage to converting a copy to DNG format is that years from now you may be using software that is no longer compatible with your RAW files from an old digital camera, but as long as the DNG format is still relevant you would be able to work with those same photos if they had been converted to DNG. As a result, this is my standard selection during imports.

If you don’t want to copy your RAW files to DNG you do have other options. You can copy the files, whether RAW or JPG. You can actually move the location of the files during the import process, or you can simply choose “add” if you want to import them to your Lightroom catalog without copying or moving.

3. At the right side of the screen you’ll see options related to what you want to do during the import process and where you want the copies to go. If you select “add” you will not be asked for the destination (lower part of the right side of the screen). However, if you are choosing “copy as DNG”, “copy”, or “move” you will be able to select the folder where you want those files to be copied or moved to.

If you’d like, you can also rename the files when they are imported. To do this, simply open the options for “file renaming” and check the box for “rename files”. You can then choose the way that you want the files to be renamed.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

Below the renaming options you will see “apply during import”. Here you can select a develop preset to be applied to all of the images that you are importing (we’ll look at presets later when we cover the develop module). You can also enter metadata and keywords. The import process is an ideal time to enter keywords, because in most case you will be importing photos in groups that can all use the same keywords. So instead of entering keywords individually for each photo later you can enter them once for all the photos that you’re importing. If you want to enter more specific keywords for certain photos you can always do that later as well. In this example I am importing a few photos of piers that were taken during a vacation to Myrtle Beach, so I am going to enter some relevant keywords separated by commas.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

After adding the keywords I am ready to import the photos. To do so, click on the “import” button in the lower right corner.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

The photos have now been imported to Lightroom.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

Now, I want to create a collection for these photos. To do this, click on the “+” next to “Collections”, then click “create collection”.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

Then, give your collection a name.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

And to add the photos to the collection you can select them and drag them to the collection.

In the next article we’ll cover the process of finding photos using keywords.

Importing Photos from Another Drive or Device

You may find it to be much faster to import your photos directly from your camera’s memory card or from a card reader. The process is basically the same as importing from a folder on your hard drive, you just need to select a different source for the import. When you have your camera or card reader connected to your computer and you go to the import screen Lightroom will automatically detect it and have it selected as the source.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

You just need to select the photos that you want to import, and go through the same process of choosing copy/move/add, and adding your keywords and meta data.

How to Export Photos from Lightroom

In real life you won’t want to export your photos from Lightroom until you have worked in the develop module to edit the photos, but we’re going to cover the exporting process here in order to keep it with the importing instructions.

When you have completed the editing process, exporting photos will create JPG files and apply your changes. To export you’ll need to be in the library module. Start by selecting the photos that you want to export, and click the “export” button.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

This will open up the export options and you will see something like the screenshot below.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

1. The first option is where you want to export the photos to. In this case I have selected “hard drive”, but you could select “email” or “CD/DVD”.

2. The next area is for settings related to the export location. Here you are choosing the folder on your hard drive, or external drive, where you want the exported files to be placed.

3. In the file naming section you can set rules that will be used to name the files that are exported. If you leave it set to “file name” the exported files will retain the same naming/numbering that they already have. There are several different options for custom names that you can select from the dropdown if you’d like.

How to Import and Export Photos in Lightroom

4. In the file settings you will have some options regarding the files that are exported.  They can be exported as JPG, PSD, TIFF, DNG, or as the original RAW file. You’ll also set the color  space and level of quality (if you’ve selected JPG), and optionally you can choose to limit the files to a certain size.

Right below the file settings you will see options for image size. If you click the arrow it will open up those options. Here you can set the height and width, or leave it as is. This is also where you will set the pixels per inch.

5. In the metadata section you can choose what metadata you want to be included in the files that are exported.

6. In the watermark section you can add a watermark to the exported photos if you’d like.

The last option below watermark asks you what you want it to do after the export. For example, you could tell Lightroom to open the photos in Photoshop as they are exported.

When you are ready you simply click the export button. The export process can take quite a while depending on how many photos you are exporting and their file size.

That covers the process of importing and exporting photos in Lightroom. In the next article we’ll cover some essential organization tools that Lightroom offers: flags, ratings, and colors.

If you don’t want to miss the other articles in this Photo Editing in Lightroom 101 series, please subscribe to our RSS feed or our email newsletter. As new articles are published they will be added to the series page, which will serve as an index for the entire series.