How to Import & Organize Photos in Lightroom Classic

Today we kickoff our series on Lightroom Classic! A powerful tool for photographers and image makers of all kinds, Lightroom is an essential part of a smooth and organized workflow. Learn how to get started as we show you to import and organize your images both within Lightroom, and on your computer.
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[@27chk]

This is the most informative video on "Importing" photos that I have found on KZbin. Thank you very much.

[@K_kreates]

I can always count on Aaron for the best simplest instructions

[@frankgrimace7913]

Dear Aaron, just airing my thoughts, every time I need to find some sort of tuition on YT for PS, ACR, or LRC Etc; I search hard and long to find anything that matches my need and that is put in a way that my mind is able to learn, I usually struggle as there are very good videos out there, but it usually means an idea from here and there, or, “I'm just not learning from this guy’s style”, although the subject covers my need. But when it all comes together it's great! and I find that this channel is usually where that happens. I love your teaching style, ( I am an Autistic Adult ) you offer an uncluttered but comprehensive overview of the tasks you teach, you give/show examples, and have a ‘work alongside me’ teaching style. I shall in the future stop the long searches when I require learning and will just come to you first from now on. I thank you and wish you all the best.

[@vipinpatel4545]

You have explained very nicely, which help a 76 old to new way to organised, folder V collection

[@reinaldovaldes348]

literally your the best no one explain this better than you iv'e try to look for a tutorial like this but no-one explained like you did . wow thank you so much.

[@rafograph854]

Always come back to basics and you learn something new. Always.

[@tabithagabriel2904]

I am new to this program . I can breathe and relax now. I am very comfortable with learning this. My anxiety was at an all time high. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for taking your time and explaining everything clearly and slowly while showing what to do. Thank You for showing how to copyright your photos and creating collections and organization. I have 50 billion pics all over the place. YOU ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED. Headed over to the next tutorial.

[@davidtelford1638]

So glad you are getting into Lightroom. I've subscribed to PHLEARN PRO and am loving all of the information there. All the best from Australia.

[@thsustainalism9292]

This guy is an excellent teacher! Thank you

[@PetyaNikolovaCDM]

The best video on this topic!!! Thank you! Greetings from Bulgaria!

[@Apocalipsist93]

I love you guys! These videos have helped me so much.

[@stevealbon6745]

Excellent video wished i had watched it years ago when i first got interested in photography and Lightroom, such a powerful program if used correctly thanks again.

[@aday213]

You have answered all of my questions. I was so frustrated before I saw this video. Thank you.

[@simoharjane7823]

My Lightroom is a yes. needed this . Love you Aaron

[@meilisadwin98]

Thanks for this free course! This is what all I need as a beginner in learning photography and editing. God blees you aaron! 😇

[@Muzza373]

Good insights on the organisation.Makes it clear to follow.

[@vkiavian]

LOVE YOUR VIDEOS!

[@jayyoung3478]

love the guy. very simple to understand

[@irhgsy]

Absolutely bloody magic, many thanks. Love the 'Air-Phorce-1" reference.

[@chandeshshah1240]

Thank you so much Aaron. I had been struggling with this for awhile and your method seems simply failproof!

[@megaklop]

Awesome stuff, thank you very much for taking the time and effort to put this together in such an easily digestable form

[@phlearn]

Thanks for watching!

[@Sharkiyy]

Just amazing, I'm so thankful you guys" You're awesome! THX so much for all of this series

[@businiaowyf]

Thanks so much for sharing! I will follow your suggestions to organize my photos.

[@janmartin4864]

Brilliant thank you so much I’ll be following everyone of your videos

[@MiccoliOfficial]

Awesome tutorial. 👍 Very helpful. Thank you for sharing, PHLEARN. Much Love Miccoli.

[@ionutvlad]

Great video, great explanations! Thx! Very good job!

[@daveo544]

Thank you Aaron 🙏 Really appreciate your efforts in making this video and sharing it freely. I have just purchased a lightroom tutorial off fstoppers and have been pulling my hair out trying to learn how lightrooms folder system works. Your video REALLY helped me out!! I'll be sure to check out some of your courses. Thanks again!!!!

[@collharti]

I was getting ready to make my Lightroom pictures among the missing.....thanks. Great source of info.

[@stevenvanzoelen]

Thanks Aaron, I finally get some things done, coming from Adobe Bridge, this works different.

[@fercuevas5772]

Brilliant, just the best tutorial, simple and to the point, cheers!

[@jbthesing1]

Wow thanks so much. Brand new to LR. This was so helpful!

[@aytraf]

Hey Aaron, thanks for the tut! I've finally learnt to be more efficient with organizing my files in Lightroom. I have a question: isn't it possible to strip metadata?

[@Godisgood03]

Amazing love this!!!!!!

[@vivichang4449]

personally think that organizing photos is the hardest part out of the entire process LOL

[@SteveHasACamera]

same 😒

[@dkilshtein1]

Thanks for the great tutorial. I think I might be missing something. When I open an image in Photoshop from Lightroom the result is a tiff file with same name as the original file plus the edition of “edit” at the end. Should I save a PSD instead and then import to Lightroom or move the tiff file to the Photoshop folder? Also, how can I look at the images that I have decided to keep if some of them were edited by Lightroom only and others used Photoshop (same goes for other editing programs that I use like the Sequator and other)?

[@charlesfrancisdoydoy7812]

Super Helpful!

[@hassansuleiman1838]

a Million thanks Aron ...

[@tedmartinpadres]

Informative video. Thanks!

[@dayronarrastia]

thank you so much!! for this video, finally i understand :)))))

[@daveo544]

I hear you :D

[@lily2011uk]

Thank you🙃Amazing teacher

[@DawnKowalewskidivafotostudio]

Thank you Aaron. I recently bought a new computer and Lightroom wasn't importing the way I was used to. This video helps a lot. BTW listened to your interview on Latitude Photograph Podcast. Loved it. :)

[@katlee445]

Hey Aaron, super helpful tutorial. Thank you :)

[@sophieluuo8053]

This videos is called a life saving video.

[@Chris-13]

great video ... better than the paid for udemy training !!

[@ErinLAnderson]

Good stuff! Thank you.

[@tropicaldany9306]

Fantastic! Thank you very much.

[@casasmakineroo2902]

really helpful :)

[@randymankoto2196]

So Good really good, really need to be better at Organizing my catalogue of photos.

[@MajidKhan-jr4vk]

I love your videos. Hugs from Italy

[@phlearn]

grazie mille :) non ti perdere i prossimi video...credo che ti piaceranno!

[@MajidKhan-jr4vk]

@@phlearn certo. Sei molto bravo

[@noguisolano]

Veri good!! one quest. I have like 25000 pictures organized by years, is good idea tu put everything in one Catalog or make one catalog for every year?? or make one catalog for each month? how is better?? thx so much

[@vinstyles]

Fab vid, thank you so much...

[@savanpanchal9440]

Hi Aaron, Thanks you so much for the tutorial. super helpful. I have two question if you please can answer. do you keep one catalog for all your shoots or you make new catalog for each photo shoot? How do you organise all different photo shoot if you keep them one catalog ? looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks again.

[@schlosser2010]

I need to organize by date/patient name/treatment and maybe create a mix of photos to have as samples of care for patients to see. Do everything in Folders and sub folders?

[@thomasvasquez9758]

Aaron, I’m still learning to organize in LR classic. I’m going back and organizing using your method.

[@ayoubberrichi953]

thanks, Mr Aaron for this tuto ... but your looking with Beard so handsome 😁😁

[@benosborne413]

Thanks once again for a great video. I already have folders in light room, but now i want to organize all my photos your way. How do i do it?

[@zalodias123]

Hey Aaron, first of all thank you for this series! I have a question: do you use Catalogs? If yes, how do you organize them / what are they useful for?

[@seoresources790]

catalogs are like magazines , they are like collection sets of image bundles are need to be edited

[@seoresources790]

Its better to create catalogue for different projects.

[@philipcolumbus3054]

You probably don't need multiple catalogs. That's what the metadata, keywords, and map function give you. Use collections to assemble the photos you need. Collections can be manually done where you move photos into the collection or a smart collection which automatically adds photos to a collection. Smart collections also add and subtract images as you change the criteria and data associated with each photo. The bottom line is that excessive catalogs are confusing and unnecessary.

[@brendonwertz5592]

THANK YOU!!!!

[@arunbalakrishnan8978]

please make a series of lightroom video. we all waiting for that.

[@janmartin4400]

Do you store your photos on a external hard drive

[@raphaelmimoun9571]

Hello 👋, regarding the PHLEARN Pictures folder your are exporting your vacation photos to, was this folder created on your computer previously? And if yes did you also create the sub folders (2019 and 2020) or did Lightroom? Thank you

[@markhorst3628]

First of all I want to thank you for your training videos are very helpful and easy to follow. Can you tell me what happens if you have raw files mixed in with JPEG files on import if you copy to DNG?

[@johnmellas]

Thanks and well done. A highlighted cursor would've made it even better - I found it a little difficult to follow your fast moving cursor.

[@hotelphotography]

Hi, great video! My imported photos from Lightroom to Photoshop open up zoomed in (even though it says 25% at the bottom left corner, it looks zoomed in 50%), I can't see the whole picture as before. Now I have to click Fit Screen on every picture I import before I can work on it. Any suggestions?

[@Utilisateurpasvalide]

Greatly appreciated ! A few questions remain to me.. Why would someone choose Copy or Add over one another ? I have all my photos stored on an external ssd, to be able to work from my desktop or laptop if I’m away, should I copy or add ? I have a folder with all my best pictures, so they are copied from the other folders in my drive, should I work from original files in original folder or the copies ones in my best of folder ? I hope this is clear enough and that someone might be able to help! Thanks !

[@phlearn]

Hey there! Both "Copy" and "Add" essentially achieve the same goal of bringing files into a new location. However, they differ slightly: Using "copy" is the simpler option. It creates a duplicate of the file in the new location, leaving the original file untouched. Use this when you want to have independent versions of the file on your desktop and laptop. Using "Add" can be more versatile. It can copy files like "Copy" does, but it can also handle compressed files (like .zip) by automatically extracting them during the process. Since you want to access your photos from both desktop and laptop, copying them to each device is the best approach. This creates independent copies you can work with, and changes on one device won't affect the other.

[@glapthorn]

Helpful vid thanks, Aaron. The folder structure - what if a vacation say extends over several days? You example just shows a single folder and date.

[@gabrielrafa_08]

Hi, thanks so much for this awesome video. Quick question: I just downloaded Lightroom Classic, but have a lot of raw photos which were already edited in CameraRaw. How do I also import the existing .xmp files which included the existing post-process metadata in to lightroom as well? So that when I open up a raw photo, it will include any priorly made changes that I added before installing lightroom? Thanks!

[@valeretorfs3077]

Awesome tutorial, Aaron, as always! O ne question...how come, when i import my photoos from "LIBRARY", to "DEVLOP", i only see a black screen...Left on top i do see the importet picture. What am I doing wrong?

[@arisblan5171]

Smart collections => It looks there si no way to limit a smart collection to a collection or collection set. When I create a smart collection inside a collection set, my expectation would be to apply the criteria to the parent collection set only, while it looks the criteria are applyed to all collections! Is there any possibility to limit a Smart collection inside its parent collection? Thanks for your great and clear explanations - aris Italy

[@susanscherr3836]

Hi there? I am just learning how t0 use Lightroom Classic. I have viewed the above tutorial, quick question. When you initially import the images into LR and you are creating the folders, have you previously created them on your desktop (or wherever one is storing images)? Or, as you create and name the folder in LR is the program duplicating that folder on your desktop??? I hope this makes sense. Thank you. Susan

[@diavolo180]

I love this Videos, they are so f***ing helpfull!

[@westrayc75]

Hello @Phlearn. I've always just used photos library to store my images (iCloud). id like to now edit with Lightroom which I just started using. do you suggest just keeping them in photos library and bringing the ones I want to edit in Lightroom and then once edited back to photos library? will it change the quality?

[@LeonardAguilar3686]

Great quick & simple general explanation on organizing folders in Lightroom. I like your suggestion on the use of "Collections". Can you use "Tags" initially, on pictures, and then move them into collections or separate folders? I shoot team sports and after importing pictures from an event, as I am going through all the pictures I "Tag" the pics with the players #, so that I can eventually just pull or "collect" those pictures of the player. One picture may be "tagged" with multiple players and I want that picture to follow those players as needed when I eventually distribute, share, the pictures with the players.

[@philipcolumbus3054]

Yes, I use that feature in Lightroom to assemble photos of people and places. With smart collections in Lightroom, I can have a collection of photos from Ragusa Ibla, Sicily that also contain my wife. The sorting and collecting features of Lightroom could be a class in and of itself. Your options are almost unlimited.

[@loveofphotography232]

Man I wish I’d seen this years ago!

[@Hotsauceonmy]

Not sure how i feel about clean cut Aaron, great video though!

[@Gittimol]

Thank you for your video. I managed to follow you the 14 first minutes. But then, my LR didn't have the options to rename the folder neither the option to create subfolders. The window gives only the options:Include subfolder, Dock folder or Show in explorer.

[@JaeRobinson]

Aaron .. great video .. Thank so much! I have a question [or maybe two?] with regards to collections .. 1. I had tried using them and then the list goes on and on and I wish to 'hide' that in the panel so I don't always see the entire list .. is there a way to compress the collections? Sort of like when you are in the Develop module and you want to work on the HSL panel and don't want to have the Basic panel open? 2. You mentioned in your tutorial that "Collections" don't transfer over to new/other catalogs .. and you offered a solution [and maybe I'm missing something so you can better help me understand] .. by simply making a sub folder inside your "Captured" folder so that they would be there .. are these additional images .. virtual images .. or??? Does this increase the size of or take up additional space on the drive you are using?

[@edwardsherwood3854]

Really helpful. Thanks, but what can I do about the hundreds of images I already have on my computer and in lightroom with just the date as the information?

[@mugabo-15]

u the best bro

[@jaymedelisi9976]

Does the same folder organization apply if I want to use an external hard drive and not use up the space on my MacBook?

[@yorkpimiento5516]

but wait at 10 minutes you didn't save directly onto your computer, I believe it was saved on your hard-drive? Also when importing RAW images through DNG, does it remain RAW while editing in the develop tab?

[@sterlingmorgan9899]

is the drive titled "AIR PHORCE ONE" your internal hard drive on your Mac?

[@waltermenzel6937]

Thanks for the quiet detailed description of the Lightroom Library and the catalog. However there are still some questions that I would love to have answered in order to solve this problem: About two years ago I had roundabout 30000 images on my Mac and in my Lightroom library / catalog with activated face detection and excire foto analysis tool. Since then my Lightroom catalog crashed and I set up a completely new one, but without face detection and Excire Foto Search activated. Now I'm wondering, if it's possible to somehow combine the old Lightroom catalog from two years ago (backup version) with my present Lightroom catalog which now organizes about 50000 images in order to get me a new Standard Catalog for all my 50000 pictures inclusive the editing information from both catalogs as well as face detection and Excire analysis from the older catalog (so I don't have to start here from scratch ! ) I'd be grateful for any kind of help.

[@pamelad4116]

Thank you for these videos. But I have an image in my download folder that will not drop into LRC. Why?

[@bevan_kumar]

Wow, you did it 😅😀😀😀😀😀🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@victormultanen1981]

Aaron, thank you for great video! how lightroom will manage the lens profile in case I convert to DNG my pictures? thank you

[@simplysimon1918]

Omg Ive been managing it all wrong........how can I start over without seeing significant downtime? I have terabytes and terabytes of photos lol and I still need to work on some for client delivery but I love how you have stuff organized lol

[@ironmanjakarta8601]

I like the new haircut!

[@angoelal.p387]

thank you so much

[@romiemiller3093]

I've been using ON1 for three years, but due to a lot of problems I've uninstalled it. I have photos organized into folders in Windows, but I can't find them to import to Lr. How do I find them?

[@hawg427]

I know this video is for LR Classic. I have several LR editions on my iMac but I use LRcc as my main. I had no problem importing pics from my SD or CF card but all of a sudden I wasn't able to do it anymore. Everything came up as usual but the copy as DNG and spy wouldn't transfer any pic. I tried the same thing in my other LR editions and had no problem, then I would have to copy those into my CC edition. What has happened to my CC Edition? Thanks.

[@jaetok]

PHLEARN (sickest name ever). Thanks for existing! That's it, that the whole comment.

[@definitevideo]

No one seems to know or able to share the one question I have. How to organize the photos in the library window by name. Sometimes after editing a photo in photoshop the file makes the return and ends up at the end of the list rather right back side by side with the original I edited. How does one get the all the photos in filename order once again. Been working to do this for hours.....

[@phlearn]

Hey there! To organize photos in the Lightroom Library window by name you can follow these steps below 👇 Make sure you are in the Library view. Click the Sort icon at the bottom left corner of the window. Select File Name from the drop-down menu. Click the Reverse Order checkbox to sort in ascending or descending order. If you want to make sure that the photos that have been edited in Photoshop appear next to the originals in the Library window, you can use Lightroom's Auto Stacking feature. To do this: Select the photos that you want to stack. Go to Photo > Stacking > Auto Stack Let us know how it goes and if you need further help!

[@JBchowei29]

Question : Sir creating sub folders will not affect memory storage full due to copying images to another sub folders for?

[@rafograph854]

Don't copy, move the files into the folder.

[@gals1006]

I wish I saw this playlist a year ago😂 I'm feeling really scared now for all my images that are without copyright and with only watermarks

[@DevonChristopherAdams]

you can go to your top folder list & select ALL your photos to add metadata to everything :)

[@marvinfrankel9019]

What am I missing, I can add to quick Collection but can't "drag" to my created collections. I can export to my output. I right click on my collection and it does not have set to target collection.

[@edwardgooltz2570]

I would like to challenge your file structure. I have been shooting since 1999 and I am still sharp ( excuse the pun) but cannot remember what year to went to xxx. So I have rearranged all filters to be xxx and the the year and month. Corkscrew Nature 2020; However I may deviate from this and put all images regardless when I went.. all images for Ding Darling may all go into one folder called Ding Darling. I know I could use collections. Your thoughts please

[@benosborne413]

Hope you reply. When I want to move the photos to the folders (Capture, PSD and Output) i receive the following message: "This will cause the corresponding files on the disk to be moved. If you proceed, neither this move nor any changes you've made prior to this can be undone."

[@Katatonic2000]

Yes I am getting the same problem!! Help!

[@ambiaphotography553]

You need a lint roller assistant 😂

[@caydep]

i need function change image size of auto import in lightroom, help me please!!!