# Lightroom’s Old Import System is Coming Back After Outcry From Photographers



## Skeeter (Oct 17, 2015)

little read for you all http://petapixel.com/2015/10/16/lig...-coming-back-after-outcry-from-photographers/
Cheers
Dave


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## Ian.B (Oct 17, 2015)

strange how we dislike change so much many are not willing to give the new way ago


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## johnbeardy (Oct 17, 2015)

Ian.B said:


> strange how we dislike change so much many are not willing to give the new way ago



Dead right!


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## Rose Weir (Oct 17, 2015)

Change can be acceptable. Loss of confirming detail is not so terrific.
I really miss confirmation that my rename template choice is correct.
I miss confirmation that I have directed the current import folder to the expected spot.
Finally I found where the import presets were listed and could get them back into action but no confirmation.
As for the actual import screen with check marks; I don't look at it since I made my choice with an alternate browser, took the images from the card to a drive ready to be imported into Lightroom. Not much use looking at it currently since the huge check marks obscure the images anyway.

Windows 7 to Windows 10 has been a change but its possible to adapt or rearrange to fit the usage/working style. The choices are in there to rearrange or have an alternate format. I rearranged the 'look' of Windows 10 since the change didn't fit into my usage style. 
This is the choice that is missing in the import panel. 
I don't need all the image sources and I do need the confirmation data in the right panel. My choice was I could get rid of the pretty pictures and scroll down the left side to find the constantly used hard drive where to be imported images are located.
Once everything is imported correctly the operation has not had any problems for me so I hesitate to do the update to 'fix' and I'll wait to see what the next 'redo' produces.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 17, 2015)

Ian.B said:


> strange how we dislike change so much many are not willing to give the new way ago



This has nothing to do with disliking change. It has everything to do with wanting to keep functionality you use every day.


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## rob211 (Oct 17, 2015)

JohanElzenga said:


> This has nothing to do with disliking change. It has everything to do with wanting to keep functionality you use every day.


I agree. And so do lots of others, hence Adobe acceptance of a change back to functionality many of us want.


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## no1yak (Oct 17, 2015)

After switching from Win 7 to 10 the difference between the two took a little time to get use to. I personally don't mind the new import. A little strange at first,but I soon got use to it. Now I understand that it's reverting back to the earlier version of the import screen. I can understand many photogs not liking the change because of their workflow, but for me as a none pro it really makes no difference.


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## johnbeardy (Oct 17, 2015)

no1yak said:


> I can understand many photogs not liking the change because of their workflow



Some aspects were not good, but I just adapted my workflow.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 17, 2015)

Me too (though didn't have much to change).


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## clee01l (Oct 17, 2015)

While I was using 2015.2.1, I liked the new Import interface.  I hope that it is still an option with the next release.  If the new Import interface were to include the missing functionality, I think it might be acceptable to everyone but the luddites.


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## LouieSherwin (Oct 18, 2015)

I think that Adobe made a couple of big mistakes in this last release, however, I don't think that the new Import dialog was one. I like the new look and the only things I missed was Move and file name preview. But neither of those were show stoppers as others have already stated you adapt.

Their biggest mistake was to rush the release and end up having all the crashing problems. Especially since they knew about them. 

Second was to not inform the users more about the new Import. Not only was it a complete surprise but it  was not at all obvious for most people how bypass the Add photos screen. I don't think that most users including myself anticipated such a big change in a dot release. 

Finally it sounds like they depended to heavily  on the the collected statistics instead of actually talking to the user base. Features like Move were rarely used except by all those users who have turned off the data collection. 

Combined they were a disaster for Adobe. At least from the tenor of Tom Hogarty's posts I think that they have learned from these mistakes. 

In the big picture Lightroom, Photoshop and ACR are still the best by a long shot image processing software out there. And the new dehaze tool is fantastic. Now if I could only convince them to make a couple of enhancements to the Keyword management and searching. 

-louie


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 18, 2015)

LouieSherwin said:


> I think that Adobe made a couple of big mistakes in this last release, however, I don't think that the new Import dialog was one. I like the new look and the only things I missed was Move and file name preview. But neither of those were show stoppers as others have already stated you adapt.



I think that's a rather self-centered way of looking at things. Because _you_ like the new look and weren't too bothered about the missing features, it wasn't a mistake? I could live with it too, but that is not the point. 

Of course it was a mistake, and it was a big one. The features that were removed were used by many people, and -perhaps even more important- the removal of those features didn't serve any purpose. How is removing 'eject card after import' help newbies understand Lightroom? How is _not_ seeing what a rename preset is going to do help newbies? How is _not_ seeing how a dated folder hierarchy will look help newbies understand it? How is obscuring the image thumbnails with a huge checkmark going to help? To me, Adobe gave 'DUI' a whole new meaning: Designing Under Influence.


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## Hoggy (Oct 18, 2015)

JohanElzenga said:


> Of course it was a mistake, and it was a big one. The features that were removed were used by many people, and -perhaps even more important- the removal of those features didn't serve any purpose. How is removing 'eject card after import' help newbies understand Lightroom? How is _not_ seeing what a rename preset is going to do help newbies? How is _not_ seeing how a dated folder hierarchy will look help newbies understand it? How is obscuring the image thumbnails with a huge checkmark going to help? To me, Adobe gave 'DUI' a whole new meaning: Designing Under Influence.



Those are precisely the parts I don't understand either.  They would've been perfectly fine to still be in the new interface, big checkmarks notwithstanding.  Not showstoppers for me personally, but..

As I say, I want some of what they were smoking.  :crazy:


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## themoose (Oct 18, 2015)

Reminds of the good old days when Coca Cola decided to scrap their original formula for a new one but outcries from the customers soon forced them to bring back the classic. History has a habit of repeating itself. Glad to see Adobe man-up and correct the situation they created. Lightroom is an excellent product and I make lots of use of the HDR and Panorama features.


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 19, 2015)

LouieSherwin said:


> I think that Adobe made a couple of big mistakes in this last release, however, I don't think that the new Import dialog was one. I like the new look and the only things I missed was Move and file name preview.



I wouldn't be surprised to see something like the new look back in future, but without removing features.  Right now they need to go back to the drawing board though.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 19, 2015)

I think that would be a good compromise. There's nothing wrong with the new look itself. It's the removal of features that made people angry (and of course the crashing mess).


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## Duncanh (Oct 19, 2015)

If they had produced the option of using a "wizard" that was similar to the new import but could have been even simpler and a "advanced" option which was basically the old import with all the features then it would have kept everybody happy and given a good basis for future development for both type of users; hope they do that.

I must say I'm very impressed with Adobe for listening to users and quickly responding, good for them not many software houses admit they get it wrong.


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## Woodbutcher (Oct 19, 2015)

I figured I could learn my way around the new import, but didn't like it as much as the old.  Specially the big check mark on the images to import.  I'd have to uncheck to see what it was sometimes.  Plus the missing move option and I wasn't as comfortable that it was going to put them where I wanted.  Lots of trust involved there.  Glad they will give us the old one back.


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## DaveQ (Oct 19, 2015)

JohanElzenga said:


> This has nothing to do with disliking change. It has everything to do with wanting to keep functionality you use every day.


Well said Johan! I feel exactly the same about this. Why fix something that does'nt need fixing?


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 19, 2015)

Woodbutcher said:


> I figured I could learn my way around the new import, but didn't like it as much as the old.  Specially the big check mark on the images to import.  I'd have to uncheck to see what it was sometimes.



This is a good example of how different ways of using the software can lead to poor design choices. Many people (myself included) simply import all the pictures from a memory card. They make the decision what to keep and what to trash later in Lightroom. For those people, the thumbnails in the import screen are little more than eye candy. A visual check that _something_ gets imported, nothing more. If you are the interface designer and you use Lightroom that way, you don't think twice about those thumbnails and how they are obscured by that huge checkmark. The rest of the team and the beta-testers should have caught this before it was implemented however.


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## montanajimbo (Oct 19, 2015)

If I may.. Typically I prefer the old interface.. However, I feel that the new interface while lacking some of what I was used to was focused more on newer users and adding some level of simplicity.. I think the intent was admirable but possibly just not thought out enough to encompass both seasoned and newer users needs,  which since the intro of CC I'm sure their are many more of. I think that just going back to the old interface may not be the best answer for the newer users.. So maybe a bit more thought is required to get to the other side.  LR while not that tuff for those that have evolved and grew up with it has grown into a substantial piece of software which is intimidating for newer users.. Soooo that being said.. the thing that I wish for that might help Adobe out is to beta the software as they have in the past to field direct input for a time period for both seasoned and inexperienced users. When I read Adobe LR team's response to this 9.2 upgrade.. Their humbleness..... I became clear that they are my business partners and that it will get resolved .. It would be my wish that they look further into methods to keep seasoned users humming so to speak.. plus additionally working towards some levels of innovative simplicity in areas for new users to get jump started.


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## mcasan (Oct 19, 2015)

Victoria Bampton said:


> I wouldn't be surprised to see something like the new look back in future, but without removing features.  Right now they need to go back to the drawing board though.



As someone who was in product management for several major telecom product companies for 30 years.....the message is not that their designers screwed up.   The key is that the decision makers in their product management and marketing departments where WAY off in understanding their market and what the serious photographers used and wanted.   That is the critical screwup that should have been a huge warning flag to the top levels of Adobe.  They did not get it wrong...._they go it very wrong_.


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## johnbeardy (Oct 19, 2015)

However, one should question what they "got very wrong". Is it in determining what the Import dialog should do? No. Or is it some users' resistance to change? Yes. Releasing too close to an OS update? Again, yes. One could add others such as doing it in a dot release.

The error wasn't changing the Import dialog to meet the needs of people who would have become Lightroom users. It was partly in how it was done (eg lack of visibility of where an import was going) and secondly in the failure to take some functions removed from Import and implement them in more appropriate places (Move and Duplicate control belong in Library itself).

It's too easy to go with the loudest voices....

John


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 19, 2015)

montanajimbo said:


> If I may.. Typically I prefer the old interface.. However, I feel that the new interface while lacking some of what I was used to was focused more on newer users and adding some level of simplicity.. I think the intent was admirable but possibly just not thought out enough to encompass both seasoned and newer users needs,  which since the intro of CC I'm sure their are many more of. I think that just going back to the old interface may not be the best answer for the newer users.. So maybe a bit more thought is required to get to the other side.  LR while not that tuff for those that have evolved and grew up with it has grown into a substantial piece of software which is intimidating for newer users.. Soooo that being said.. the thing that I wish for that might help Adobe out is to beta the software as they have in the past to field direct input for a time period for both seasoned and inexperienced users. When I read Adobe LR team's response to this 9.2 upgrade.. Their humbleness..... I became clear that they are my business partners and that it will get resolved .. It would be my wish that they look further into methods to keep seasoned users humming so to speak.. plus additionally working towards some levels of innovative simplicity in areas for new users to get jump started.



Hi, and welcome to the forum. And what a nice well-balanced first post, well done for stepping straight into a somewhat contentious subject.


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## Hoggy (Oct 19, 2015)

johnbeardy said:


> The error wasn't changing the Import dialog to meet the needs of people who would have become Lightroom users. It was partly in how it was done (eg lack of visibility of where an import was going) and secondly in the failure to take some functions removed from Import and implement them in more appropriate places (Move and Duplicate control belong in Library itself).



I'm not so sure about the Move part...
And it's also another part of what I don't understand - was that move is even _MORE_ geared towards new users IMO.  New users may try different ways of organizing and Copying their previous collection before settling on a more permanent structure for LR.  I know _I_ did.  In which case Move is better left in the Import section, where people can have LR do its automatic sorting, by date for example.  The Library module doesn't [currently] provide for automatically creating various directories like that.

That's how I learned myself..  By first Copying a few representatives to figure out how I might like the structure - and then Moving them to their permanent home once I decided.


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## Skeeter (Oct 17, 2015)

little read for you all http://petapixel.com/2015/10/16/lig...-coming-back-after-outcry-from-photographers/
Cheers
Dave


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## johnbeardy (Oct 19, 2015)

Hoggy said:


> I'm not so sure about the Move part...
> And it's also another part of what I don't understand - was that move is even _MORE_ geared towards new users IMO.  New users may try different ways of organizing and Copying their previous collection before settling on a more permanent structure for LR.  I know _I_ did.  In which case Move is better left in the Import section, where people can have LR do its automatic sorting, by date for example.  The Library module doesn't [currently] provide for automatically creating various directories like that.
> 
> That's how I learned myself..  By first Copying a few representatives to figure out how I might like the structure - and then Moving them to their permanent home once I decided.



I completely agree that Lightroom should offer a tool for re-organising a legacy folder structure, but keeping it in Import means it is only usable in Import. That's why I said that its removal from Import should have been implemented in Library where it becomes of more general use. In the situation you describe, why should you have to remove photos from Lr and then re-import them to create your folder structure? By the way, you'd be surprised how many less-new users used Move, too, and not for the best reasons.


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## Hoggy (Oct 19, 2015)

ahh, that makes more sense to me now..  I do remember wanting to do that in the Library module many times.  Me, I just ended up creating new catalogs until I got it right.

EDIT:  Come to think of it, it would even be nice now sometimes..  Say, being able to right-click something in the folders panel that might say "Sort these by [date format], in [current/Parent] folder".  _Something_ along those lines anyways.


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## johnbeardy (Oct 19, 2015)

A current example for me is pictures taken on an iPhone and imported via Lightroom Mobile. They appear in a single folder in the catalogue, so a Move function would be useful to allocate them to date-based photos like all my other pictures.


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## tspear (Oct 19, 2015)

johnbeardy said:


> However, one should question what they "got very wrong". Is it in determining what the Import dialog should do? No. Or is it some users' resistance to change? Yes. Releasing too close to an OS update? Again, yes. One could add others such as doing it in a dot release.
> 
> The error wasn't changing the Import dialog to meet the needs of people who would have become Lightroom users. It was partly in how it was done (eg lack of visibility of where an import was going) and secondly in the failure to take some functions removed from Import and implement them in more appropriate places (Move and Duplicate control belong in Library itself).
> 
> ...



John,

The problem is not resistance to change. The problem was a simple few factors:
-- Adobe removed functionality which actually increased the workload of the users. Software generally should decrease user workload.
-- The initial responses by the product management and customer service was rather condescending, or taken as condescending even if not meant that way.
-- Apple and others are leading in the way of _Dumbing_ down software. Adobe stepped into this environment with exactly the same tone as Apple which basically said users are stupid, and if you do not see it our way, you are really stupid.
-- Adobe missed the mark with its user base; by a large margin.
-- Adobe made this change as part of a bug fix release. Any substantial UI change may be expected on a major release. It is not expected on what is essentially a service pack update. This is a market expectation, and Adobe has not stated differently. In fact Adobe says new functionality and bug fixes only between major releases. The new import was neither a bug fix nor new functionality (ignoring the add pictures screen which is largely useless I think).

So yes, Adobe screwed up. I think they screwed royally; and the initial responses did not help Adobe. In fact it was the initial responses that made me decide I should start the search to replace LightRoom. The eventual mea culpa by Tom H. did more to restore my confidence in LightRoom management then simply a capitulation and restoration of the original import; and this mea culpa is why I decided to give them a few months to fix it.

Tim


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## johnbeardy (Oct 19, 2015)

I know some people won't like it, Tim, but I do stand by that comment of Adobe underestimating resistance to change. I've had contact with a lot of users complaining about their workflow being broken, and sometimes I have agreed that they have a reasonable point (eg eject after import). I don't like not being able to see where pictures are going, and other changes broke something for me too, so I've adapted what I'll do. But I've also encountered a lot of uses particularly of Move that are little more than irrational attachment to existing ways of doing things (a big one is not using Lr to import from cards). 

There's a natural shock when a series of these removals are thrown into a dot update (few people remember that there have been previous removals, though this only happened in full versions), though I am uncomfortable about removing something after people have bought it. OTOH, unlike when Amazon removed books from Kindles, anyone can go back and reinstall the original purchase. So unless you've bought a new camera, perpetual licence users haven't lost anything.

Problems with OSX EL Capitan turned out to be more widespread than Adobe expected, people are very sore about subscription-limited software, and you rightly mention a background fear of dumbing down that is as much about Apple as it is about Adobe. Clearly Adobe have made mistakes, and one of them is underestimating the resistance they would encounter.

John


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## Victoria Bampton (Oct 20, 2015)

johnbeardy said:


> That's why I said that its removal from Import should have been implemented in Library where it becomes of more general use.



I'd agree with that. The problem was they removed it from Import before they had a replacement in place.  If they'd removed it and at the same time been able to show a better way of doing it, it would have been a very different story.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

johnbeardy said:


> But I've also encountered a lot of uses particularly of Move that are little more than irrational attachment to existing ways of doing things (a big one is not using Lr to import from cards).



I know that a lot of professional photographers use Photo Mechanic to import from the card to their hard drive and to cull the images. Irrational if you later load them into Lightroom anyway? That remains to be seen. Using Lightroom to import your images is *slow*. Somebody tested it and came to the conclusion that Lightroom was 600% slower than some of its competitors! For me this is still not a big deal, but if your customers are waiting for your images it may be a big deal.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 20, 2015)

That "Lightroom is 600% slower than the competitors" report was a complete load of hog-wash.....the guy who ran the test should hang his head in shame, as should the folks at PetaPixel who simply blogged the video as if it was gospel, without doing any kind of verification. I personally think Lightroom is still quite fast, especially the copying from card to hard drive part, it's the preview building that takes the time. I'm trying to find the time to re-run some of my own import tests and compare the timings with Capture 1 (as realistically as possible given that the preview models are different), when I do finish that I'll post the results.


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## johnbeardy (Oct 20, 2015)

First, that 600% statistic was a case of a lie going around the world before the truth has its pants on. The guy was clearly hitting Lightroom's problems on OSX El Capitan. Second, Lr is doing much more than displaying the embedded preview. Third, a proper comparison is between raw converters like Lr and C1, and in a stable environment Lr is marginally slower than C1, but not significantly so. Before repeating that number, it would be responsible to test its veracity, don't you think?

Of course, for those with "high volume" + "tight deadline" + "no need to adjust", it certainly isn't irrational to use PM before Lightroom (FWIW I do so myself sometimes). It is irrational if you then expect Lightroom's UI will pay undue regard to how your small group uses PM. That is only one case though, and a lot of the bleating about the removal of Move amounts to little more than a lack of knowledge of other Lightroom features and an unwillingness to think through the problem, and adapt. 

Anyway, amid all the recent shouting, I've felt it is important to state a  dissenting viewpoint. For better or worse, Adobe have said they will restore the previous experience, which I understand to mean the removed features, so we can all "move on". And one thing a few of us appreciate about this forum is that it's not the place for arguments. Believe me, I've had my fill of those recently! So I hope that is the last contribution I will make to this thread.

John


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

OK, I didn't look at the test (just saw the headlines) because it didn't really interest me that much, but as an ex-Aperture user I can tell you that Lightroom is really slow at importing images from a memory card. Maybe C1 is slow too...


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 20, 2015)

JohanElzenga said:


> OK, I didn't look at the test (just saw the headlines)....



Unfortunately, that's what a lot of people will do....

What part of Lightroom's import are you finding "really slow"?


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

Jim Wilde said:


> What part of Lightroom's import are you finding "really slow"?



It's not the actual copying that is slower than Aperture, it's what you can do while the copying is taking place. Aperture displays the images almost instantly (Photo Mechanic works the same way). That doesn't mean that Aperture can somehow copy the images to your hard disk in a few seconds, but they are all in the Aperture database in a few seconds. Consequently, you can start doing things like rating, adding keywords and making adjustments _on all images_ as soon the import starts. And while you are doing that, the images are still copied to the hard disk in the background. Lightroom on the other hand waits until an image is actually copied to its destination before it displays it. That means you have to wait much longer before you can select a set of images to add some more keywords. 

Imagine you've done a few time lapse series of several hundred images per series. In Aperture you can add keywords and make adjustments to one image, and then copy the adjustments and keywords to the whole set, _long before all the images have physically been copied_. In Lightroom you can add keywords and make adjustments to the first image that gets displayed, but you'll have to wait until they are all at their destination before you can copy those adjustments and/or keywords to the entire series.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 20, 2015)

Yes, I can see that there may be some occasions where being able to apply ratings and edit adjustments to all the files being imported would be helpful....but just not to me. Keywords, yes.....but I do that in the import dialog.

But I'm just a hobby photographer, and I know that many of the power-user pro photographers have long asked for the ability to extract and work on the embedded previews while the rest of the action continues. Just about the only positive thing to come out of that "600% slower" article is that it's got some folks talking about how to improve Lightroom's import speed, so I expect the subject of the embedded preview to be raised with Adobe again.

FWIW, from what I've seen from the C1 trial that I downloaded over the weekend, it also does not have the option to import using embedded previews only, though it does seem to run the preview-building in parallel with the file copying. Helps a little, but still won't give you what you're looking for.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

Jim Wilde said:


> Yes, I can see that there may be some occasions where being able to apply ratings and edit adjustments to all the files being imported would be helpful....but just not to me. Keywords, yes.....but I do that in the import dialog.



You can only add those keywords in the import dialog that apply to *all* images. For example if you did a shoot in Paris, you can add 'France' and 'Paris' in the import dialog. Other keywords apply to some images, but not to the other ones. Not all your images will show the Eiffel Tower, for example! A keyword like 'Eiffel Tower' will have to be added after import (and in case of Aperture _during_ import).


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## clee01l (Oct 20, 2015)

Considering what operations are being done by LR during the import process, I don't find LR's import slow at all.  I turned off Smart Previews at import and I don't convert to DNG because this are extra steps and require CPU cycles.  I don't need a Smart preview of an image that is going to be deleted as soon as I cull the shoot. DNGs offer me no advantage over the original RAW file. And why create a DNG on import for a file that will be soon deleted?
I start reviewing and culling as soon as the first image appears in the "Previous Import" special collection.  With 100-200 images on a camera card,I have reviewed about half of them by the time the import has finished ingesting the card.   The import does not slow down my workflow. So how long the import takes is not even important.   I can see if a person is sitting around waiting before the import finishes before starting the next step, they might think the import is taking up a lot of time.

The import does the following:

Copies the original from the card to the destination.
Reads the metadata from the original and catalogs the metadata and destination path in the LR database
Converts a proprietary RAW format to DNG *(optional)*
Demosaic's and converts the RAW to RGB and caches that file in ACR Cache.
Creates several different previews to store in Preview Cache. (I choose minimal)
Creates a Smart Preview (lossy DNG)* (optional)*
If you notice The import process is now listed as two separate progress bars. Import copying the card contents is the first step and it moves quite fast. then the second step is creating previews. This last step takes the most time.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 20, 2015)

Err...yes of course, I was talking about applying keywords which would apply to the whole set of imports such as your time-lapse example, but honestly by the time I've started looking at which images or groups of images require additional "non-global" keywords, the import has finished anyway. The point I'm trying to make, perhaps badly, is that I (and perhaps the majority of users) never have to sit twiddling my thumbs waiting for the import to finish before I can get on and do things.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

Fair enough, but the point was that for _some_ people it may make sense to use Photo Mechanic to import the images to the hard drive because of the speed, and only later on add them to Lightroom. Those are the people who missed the 'Move' option in the import dialog. I'm not one of those people either, but I do understand why they want to keep using that workflow.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

clee01l said:


> Considering what operations are being done by LR during the import process, I don't find LR's import slow at all.  I turned off Smart Previews at import and I don't convert to DNG because this are extra steps and require CPU cycles.



I don't convert to DNG and I don't render smart previews either, but I do notice the difference in speed between Lightroom and Aperture. As said, the copying process might not be much slower (I do have the impression that it is a bit slower, but I never tested that thoroughly), but the whole import experience is night and day.


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## johnbeardy (Oct 20, 2015)

JohanElzenga said:


> Fair enough, but the point was that for _some_ people it may make sense to use Photo Mechanic to import the images to the hard drive because of the speed, and only later on add them to Lightroom. Those are the people who missed the 'Move' option in the import dialog. I'm not one of those people either, but I do understand why they want to keep using that workflow.



Using PM before Lr doesn't mean they need Move in Lightroom's Import dialog. For instance, PM's Ingest dialog copies from cards to dated folders too.


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## LouieSherwin (Oct 20, 2015)

I quite agree with John that much of the discussion (not so much here)  has to to do with the resistance to change and not about the actual workability of the new dialog. Look if Lightroom had come out with the import dialog looking like this new one they just released we would not be seeing furor we are having today Why, because in truth when you actually use it it works. 

There is in fact no loss in functionality in the new import. You select an input source, it processes the images, optionally adds metadata and renames, updates the catalog with the information and then either leaves the images where you put them or copies them to a new location. The bits that got removed have no impact on this even without them the import does it's job.

-louie


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## tspear (Oct 20, 2015)

LouieSherwin said:


> I quite agree with John that much of the discussion (not so much here)  has to to do with the resistance to change and not about the actual workability of the new dialog. Look if Lightroom had come out with the import dialog looking like this new one they just released we would not be seeing furor we are having today Why, because in truth when you actually use it it works.
> 
> There is in fact no loss in functionality in the new import. You select an input source, it processes the images, optionally adds metadata and renames, updates the catalog with the information and then either leaves the images where you put them or copies them to a new location. The bits that got removed have no impact on this even without them the import does it's job.
> 
> -louie



Louie,

There was functionality removed. Maybe not any that you use; but functionality was removed.
Secondly, Adobe increased the number of steps required to complete the import for many of us.

Tim


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2015)

LouieSherwin said:


> I quite agree with John that much of the discussion (not so much here)  has to to do with the resistance to change and not about the actual workability of the new dialog. Look if Lightroom had come out with the import dialog looking like this new one they just released we would not be seeing furor we are having today Why, because in truth when you actually use it it works.
> 
> There is in fact no loss in functionality in the new import. You select an input source, it processes the images, optionally adds metadata and renames, updates the catalog with the information and then either leaves the images where you put them or copies them to a new location. The bits that got removed have no impact on this even without them the import does it's job.
> 
> -louie



Of course there is loss of functionality. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that, and the functions have been listed many times over, so I won't list them again. Maybe you didn't use any of the features that were removed, but that is another matter. And the fact that you can find workarounds for the lost functionality is another matter too.


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## rob211 (Oct 20, 2015)

This kerfluffle reminded me that importing into a complicated DAM/PIE like Lr is inherently a get-a-cup-of-coffee to read-War-and-Peace moment or moments. RAW, 1:1 5120 previews, etc all add time. At least I can work on some stuff in the meantime. I'm coming to the conclusion that perhaps a pre-import process using Image Ingester, Photo Mechanic, or just a good photo browser to cull would be the most efficient way to go. Browsers are wicked fast, and show more info, so it's easier to lighten Lr's load with them before import. Add features like controlled vocabulary in PM and maybe it's just time to move to a better tool to get stuff onto my machine before Lr takes over. This has shown that there are so many variations in needs and workflows at the card-to-computer stage that Lr can't hope to be excellent at all those tasks.


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## tspear (Oct 27, 2015)

Just for fun, I upgraded to the latest release 2015.2.1 and tried the import process.
Except for missing the eject feature, and wanting a little more information displayed they have fixed most of my complaints.
For example:
-- The second copy now works.
-- The advanced panel stays open between imports
-- Lr no longer crashes when I insert an SD card
-- Destination folder name is displayed (would like to see a bit more of the path)

Now just wondering if the import task will finish  
It seems to be taking a lot longer and is killing my system, but that could be the low disk space combined with an IO conflict with OneDrive and my backup program.

Tim


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## clee01l (Oct 27, 2015)

tspear said:


> Just for fun, I upgraded to the latest release 2015.2.1 and tried the import process.
> Except for missing the eject feature, and wanting a little more information displayed they have fixed most of my complaints.
> For example:
> -- The second copy now works.
> ...


I'm now running OS X 10.11.1 with LRCC2015.2.1 and I'm not seeing any issues wrt Import hanging or taking too long. If anything, the import process is speedier now than before. It could be that you are low on disk space and LR can't create temp files and is needing to swap a lot out and this is slowing LR for lack of resources.


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## Skeeter (Oct 17, 2015)

little read for you all http://petapixel.com/2015/10/16/lig...-coming-back-after-outcry-from-photographers/
Cheers
Dave


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## tspear (Oct 27, 2015)

Cletus,

It was just IO bound. My SSD was thrashing pretty hard between OneDrive updating, and my rsync coping files to my local backup server. I was seeing read/writes is the hundreds of MB/s on iostat... all the while disk space was low so the system was doing some extra thrashing as it emptied the "trash"....
All in all, it took about ten minutes before everything settled down and Lr started to import a lot faster.

Tim


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## Skeeter (Oct 28, 2015)

clee01l said:


> I'm now running OS X 10.11.1 with LRCC2015.2.1 and I'm not seeing any issues wrt Import hanging or taking too long. If anything, the import process is speedier now than before. It could be that you are low on disk space and LR can't create temp files and is needing to swap a lot out and this is slowing LR for lack of resources.


thanks for the up date Tim will look at giving a second go this weekend.

Cheers
Dave M


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