# Please make user selectable import photos option move to PC (instead of sole copy)



## aster (Mar 26, 2011)

Please add LR move option to export from memory card or Camera.
If considered dangerous for beginners, please add as user selectable preferences option to make this available.
As a result there shouldn't stay any need to reformat memory card after each photo session, because images are already deleted from card during copy process.

Presently therefore I use Windows Explorer for importing as most convenient way to save time and keep things well organized. I have used Windows Explorer for this task with many different cameras and never experienced any problems when moving (and deleting) with one command.
Moving should avoid mess with camera offering again images long ago downloaded and deleted from PC as obsolete. I don't believe there is any good reason why someone should format camera memory card after each 2-3 shoots as due to present LR limitation.


Thanks!


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## DonRicklin (Mar 26, 2011)

Sorry, but this is not likely to happen. Been requested for four years. 

All the arguments are in other threads here.

Don


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## aster (Mar 26, 2011)

What might be the search words, when "Import" and "move" don't fetch relevant search results?
The more I'm trying to understand why, the more I get convinced that in the presently implemented way it's not usable.

I have specially used LR import and I must admit that I don't enjoy navigating in camera menus and waiting until card is formated 
Is there any good reason why LR authors want us to reformat camera CF after each LR session?


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## DonRicklin (Mar 26, 2011)

Among others, this thread which you initiated.



Don


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## Mark Sirota (Mar 27, 2011)

What kind of camera do you have that requires navigating through menus to reformat?  In most of the cameras with which I have experience, there's either a button sequence to reformat (DSLRs) or it's very near the top of the menus (modern point & shoots).


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## aster (Mar 27, 2011)

Sony a200, a700, a580. 

1. It takes some navigation to find format menu and format takes some time to finish. Not much work to do one may think, but using Explorer move it takes much less time, which many people consider just comfort. Also, when in a hurry, I took several session without formating and in mean time moving or deleting files in PC, finally the LR import result was a great mess, as LR seems not remember imported files but just compares in import folder to camera card. When shooting short sessions, this LR missing option just leaves LR import an obsolete unusable function. I'm sorry but I could,'t understand how it could help to improve my workflow.
2. I haven't still read about any good reason, why it's omitted and I hope that this section is also for LR authors to learn user preferences.
3. Finally all objections are most welcomed 

Thanks!

PS. Problems may arise when camera runs out of batteries and also if some cameras change card save folder name according to date or session. But these are avoidable and yet I don't know any other reasons.


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## RikkFlohr (Mar 27, 2011)

As to your number 1: I just timed every camera I own (5 Distinct Menu styles and paths) Nothing takes me longer from any menu to reformat than 3 seconds. It takes longer to type this sentence than to eject a card, insert it and reformat it.  The camera does a much better job at prepping a card to accept data than you computer ever will. I just checked 3 different Canon Manuals and they state that "cards formated in other cameras and computers may not work", why risk it? Why leave non-photo data artifacts on your card to build up by using OS-level delete of pictures.  You wouldn't reload a partial role of film even at the expense of film, why would you start with a dirty (data-sprinkled) card?

 I fear you are not either understanding or are deliberately by-passing functionality of the LR Import workflow. I have a varied and sometimes intense workflow and I do not have to worry about any of the items listed.  It might be a good idea to review some sample import workflows. If you are in the North Central US, I teach this quite regularly. 

As to your item 2: It isn't incumbent on us to tell you why Lightroom does or does not have a functionality you wish. That is the Adobe team's decision. We can speculate but we are not the Adobe team.  It is, however, incumbent on you to convince the LR team through a formal feature request that a change is necessary. I haven't seen a single argument from you on why this is a good idea in this or the other thread.  I do know many reasons why this is very bad idea.

1. Permanent Data Loss during transfer (Before you can check the file on your disk to make certain that it is clean, you have removed the original from the card as a source of potential recovery. )
2. Card corruption (leading to future write failures at your next session) 
3. Tech support. (this will be a nightmare as people lose or misplace files on "Move" operations and leave themselves little chance of recovery)
4. Workflow (there is no advantage I can see-whatsoever to doing this. Significant workflow streamlining doesn't occur. Data loss potential increases. Card corruption increases)

Give us a compelling reason to consider this and we can help support your request.


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## sizzlingbadger (Mar 27, 2011)

You should always, always format your card in your camera, this negates any requirement for a move process during import. Rikk has pretty much covered all the reasons why above. If anything you should be lobbying Sony to add a shortcut to format in their firmware


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## Braders (Mar 27, 2011)

This request makes no sense from a work flow standpoint.

Memory cards and HD are cheap. The imported images from a card should always be kept for a certain period after a shoot as a back up to the import process and back up workflow. A day or 2, just in case of catalog corruption, hard drive failure etc.


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## Mark Sirota (Mar 27, 2011)

The main reason I would never move from a card is that I want to verify that the files look good (are not corrupt) on the computer, and have been backed up to at least two locations, before deleting from the card.  I format the card whenever I put one in the camera.


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## aster (Mar 30, 2011)

Unfortunately subscription to this thread was interrupted and without notifications I didn't checked the thread.
I know that some years ago there used to be very many incompatibilities between camera, memory cards and USB drivers as a result there was data loss or speed loss. To my understanding that's what for camera manufacturers or they lawyers tell us to format memory card in camera. And even then, with best brands problems were rare. IMO today situation has improved also with USB compatibility and drivers. Therefore I personally consider of highest risk memory manufacturing defect which usually is fatal and for this reason I preferred  4 pcs 4GB instead of one 16GB.

I don't like removing CF from camera too often because once I broke CF reader slot pin when inserting card. Therefore I partially abandoned previous statement and now I keep High quality (not cheapest) 16Gb card in camera as long as possible.

When camera reads and deletes files from card and forwards through USB to cable, there shouldn't happen anything, why to format card again. Same when inserted to PC reader, FAT32 memeory card file system is rather elementary and PC normally doesn't have much chance to change or damage anything.

When I move photos to PC I instantly check these and if something has failed I should be able to recover from memory card. But with Sundisk or Sony it's not likely and never happened to me. Also when instantly checking and I like my photos very much, then I send a copy to other PC networked drive instantly. Or the same if I have been shooting for someone else and therefore photos are important.

I often work in short sessions 3-6 shots and then connect camera to PC, then importing through LR is much less comfortable then using file manager cut/paste. Hassle with camera format menus doesn't seem to make any sense after each such a short session. I just don't understand why one should spend extra time and attention to meaningless camera format action after each 3 shots. And if I now delete with LR or sort some photos into other folders with LR, these photos are imported again, which ends with great mess.

Therefore my LR feature request remains the same, please make move during import a user selectable option.

I'm not a professional photographer and certainly many here have much more experiences. But these are just my thoughts I have today until I haven't experienced or read something new 
Yet I haven't read or maybe not understand any serious argument against my habits. Thanks!

PS. I'm talking about PC hardware, but MAC's suffer sometimes from different problems.


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 31, 2011)

Sorry aster, are the notifications working again now?  I'm not sure why that broke.


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## Jim Wilde (Mar 31, 2011)

aster said:


> Therefore my LR feature request remains the same, please make move during import a user selectable option.



Aster, you clearly feel very strongly about this, so have you actually done what I suggested in the first thread and made an official feature request using the Adobe link at the top of each page? Just in case you aren't sure, this here "Lightroom Feature Requests" forum is not where feature requests are *submitted*, it's really just to provide a place where potential feature requests can be *discussed.

*


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## aster (Mar 31, 2011)

Sorry aster said:
			
		

> Thanks I restored subscription and received already a TNG notification but not yours. Btw. few days ago there arrived a false notification to this thread, message content was different but subject line was correct ... so there apparently were somewhere security problems, which may have broken subscription. There haven't been any other false messages since that and the one arrived was just a spam without any cruel software in.


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## aster (Mar 31, 2011)

TNG said:


> Aster, you clearly feel very strongly about this, so have you actually done what I suggested in the first thread and made an official feature request using the Adobe link at the top of each page? Just in case you aren't sure, this here "Lightroom Feature Requests" forum is not where feature requests are *submitted*, it's really just to provide a place where potential feature requests can be *discussed.
> 
> *



Thanks Jim, I'll leave LR feature request also to the right forum.


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 31, 2011)

aster said:


> Thanks I restored subscription and received already a TNG notification but not yours. Btw. few days ago there arrived a false notification to this thread, message content was different but subject line was correct ... so there apparently were somewhere security problems, which may have broken subscription. There haven't been any other false messages since that and the one arrived was just a spam without any cruel software in.



False notification?  Don't suppose you still have that email in your trash?  If so, I wouldn't mind seeing it.  It may have been that someone posted spam on this thread which has since been removed, but I'd definitely like to make sure.


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## aster (Mar 31, 2011)

Victoria Bampton said:


> False notification?  Don't suppose you still have that email in your trash?  If so, I wouldn't mind seeing it.  It may have been that someone posted spam on this thread which has since been removed, but I'd definitely like to make sure.



I deleted this notification message as not existent reply, but certainly that's the explanation - someone had posted spam to subscribed thread.


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## paulwasserman (Apr 1, 2011)

Actually, up until the latest release, you could do this.  Instead of just selecting the Device in the import menu, you could, in LR 2.x select "Choose Files . . ." and in prevous 3.x releases you could pull down the "From" list and pick "Other Source".  You could then navigate to the device, and the "Move" option was available.  

This is an important part of my workflow and I am upset to find that it's been broken in LR 3.3.  I thought this was a pretty decent way of allowing those of us who prefer this workflow to get to the function, while providing a more protected process for the typical user.

I will be filing this as both a bug report and a feature request.

Paul Wasserman


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## Victoria Bampton (Apr 1, 2011)

Ok, thanks Aster


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## johnbeardy (Apr 2, 2011)

paulwasserman said:


> Actually, up until the latest release, you could do this.  Instead of just selecting the Device in the import menu, you could, in LR 2.x select "Choose Files . . ." and in prevous 3.x releases you could pull down the "From" list and pick "Other Source".  You could then navigate to the device, and the "Move" option was available.
> 
> This is an important part of my workflow and I am upset to find that it's been broken in LR 3.3.  I thought this was a pretty decent way of allowing those of us who prefer this workflow to get to the function, while providing a more protected process for the typical user.
> 
> ...


You could only do it because it was a bug that Adobe hadn't fixed! I rather doubt they will deliberately re-introduce it.

All workflows are equally valid, but some workflows are more equal than others.

John


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## aster (Apr 2, 2011)

johnbeardy said:


> You could only do it because it was a bug that Adobe hadn't fixed! I rather doubt they will deliberately re-introduce it.
> 
> All workflows are equally valid, but some workflows are more equal than others.
> 
> John



I don't want to be unpolite , but thread still gathers postings with objections, which I feel groundless. 

Please take my apologies and

1. please give me some URL for reading, why formatting memory card after each photo session is important else I believe nowadays it's just an urban legend, inherited from nineties, when indeed it was essential.
I work a lot with digital media formats and I believe that file systems and reasons of possible chip addressing issues are familiar enough to me, either I haven't noticed any issues with my Sandisk or Sony media during 5 years. Therefore I don't reformat memory cards. Once I have experienced minor problems with one Apacer CF, which I abandoned without trying to fix with repetitive reformatting.

2. What makes you to believe that LR import moving  function is so much more dangerous then copying, that John considers it a LR bug?
I don't see during import move any possibility of data loss when using quality memory products and if data is checked visually instantly and copied to 2 destinations.

3. What is wrong and why should I change a direct Camera to USB 3 step workflow: CTRL+X  from Windows File explorer and CTRL+V to Lightroom catalog, followed LR folder synchronise?

After these 3 steps camera is ready for next session. And I can delete or move imported photos from PC without being imported again during next import.

I like the alternative direct LR built in import function but it doesn't feel comfortable to take camera instantly after import and navigate in it's menus and to wait for formatting to complete. When formatting is left for later then there is problem of repeated import or I never could remember, did I already have formatted or not. Especially uncomfortable it feels when studio shooting still life in short session ...

Not a big difference in 2 workflows, but I'm used to single step process and after several trials of many forum members posted multiple step workflow, I have returned to mine as IMO it's most convenient way. 

I haven't seen any real argument what is wrong with user selectable preference, enable move function during import. 

And as a conclusion, if I misunderstood something,  please remember that not native English speaker may not understand presence of refined humor 
Last and not least   - I believe I have mentioned possible main troublemakers, to be aware to check - not enough charge in battery during transfer or obscure folder creation options in some cameras.


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## johnbeardy (Apr 2, 2011)

I was specifically addressing the "Lightroom broke my workflow" post which I quoted because it seriously misrepresented what has happened. That workflow was only possible because Adobe took time to identify the bug, and while there are times when bugs are turned into features, I honestly think you're wasting your energy imagining that Adobe might deliberately enable a workflow where the images remain on the card. Two copies good, one copy bad.


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