Issues importing and cataloguing

[ELearned]

Over the last two weeks I have had issues importing files. It is inconsistent, but sometimes instead of creating a new folder with the day's date, they go into "previous import" or "all photographs". Lightroom, of course, thinks they are there, and won't let me reimport them. I can delete them from "All Photographs" and reimport, but I'd rather not do that. This has happened with files from my fuji x-t1 and my Nikon d810. To my knowledge, I haven't changed any settings in Lightroom. Any advice?

[dj_paige]

This is the default behavior of Lightroom, photos go into "All Photographs" and the newest import goes into "previous Import". There is no need to re-import the photos, as once they are in Lightroom, you can now perform any Lightroom task on them that you'd like.

So, I don't understand what the issue is ... what would you like Lightroom to do?

[ELearned]

For me LR creates sub folders for the date that the photos were taken. Sometimes it does not create this folder. When it doesn't, thumbnails of photos will appear in the All Photos parent folder, but LR says the files cannot be found, so I can't edit them. I do have to go through, delete them and then re-import them. It doesn't matter if they are jpegs or RAW.

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

Okay ... every time you import photos, they go into some folder somewhere, whatever folder you told LR to import them into; and they also go into All Photographs (which is not a folder); and they go into Previous Import (which is not a folder).

When you import photos, you can then go into All Photographs and use your photos, or you can go into Previous Import and use your photos, or you can go into the folder they were imported into and use your photos from there.

So, if they appear in All Photographs or Previous Import, you can right-click on the photo and select Go To Folder in Library to see what folder they wind up in. The folder they wind up in is completely under your control when you import the photos -- but people have been known to accidentally send photos into the wrong folder. So it pays to be careful about where you tell LR to put the photos.

If at any point the photos are shown as missing in LR, then you have another problem, which you haven't really described in any detail, so I need more information about this.

[ELearned]

Thanks, DJ. I didn't do a good job explaining the problem in the first post.

I've been using Lightroom for 8 years, and have not had this issue before. I import from a card reader, and it has always automatically created a folder, and everything has been available in the Library and Develop module. But, suddenly I have issues after some of my imports. The images do not seem to import fully. I am told that LR cannot find the file. It seems to be a bug, maybe.

On a related note, last week I had some portraits that uploaded. When editing, I was baffled as to why they were not sharp. Very softly focused. I assumed it had to do with humidity, or something. But, I removed the photos and re-imported them. and they were perfectly sharp.

Thanks for trying to help. I am thinking it might have to do my mac.

[dj_paige]

I import from a card reader, and it has always automatically created a folder, and everything has been available in the Library and Develop module. But, suddenly I have issues after some of my imports. The images do not seem to import fully. I am told that LR cannot find the file.

Perhaps you changed the import settings to "ADD" instead of "Copy"? This would explain the symptoms you explained.

[ELearned]

The last couple of imports have been fine. I tried changing the setting from Copy to Add, but was not able to do it. So, it's all still a mystery. Maybe some others are experiencing this inconsistent issue.  Thanks again for your help.

[ManiacJoe]

"Add" would be the wrong option for importing from SD cards.

You need to do a "copy" import to get the images off the cards and onto your hard drive(s).