For those that have finally seen the light!
34 posts Page 2 of 4
Kimi,

Remember, there is nothing to import from bridge.

If you have been using the PSE Catalog, choose the Import from PSE5 and earlier (if you dont have PSE6), if PSE6, try the import from catalog - PSE6 and Lr have the same catalog structure.

Unless you tricked out Elements, you should find it where Adobe thought it should be, which is where Lr will look for it.

Give it a shot. This will preserve tags and stuff, so it is worth giving it a try.
John
ok... so what is in Bridge, has to stay in Bridge?
~kimi~
Gone Crazy... Back Soon...


Gallery ~ a la kimi

My Blog

kimboustany.com
so I go to open catalog, go to my external and it doesn't even see any of the images?
Not even jpegs?

it tells me, when you go to open

Supported files (*.lrcat; *.lrdb; *.aglib)

now I know that *lrcat is the lightroon catalog. So I can't access any of the images stored on my external?
Even the ones not in bridge?

So if I can't store or access the images on my external drives then I can't use LR!

Gosh... I have to be doing something wrong here?
~kimi~
Gone Crazy... Back Soon...


Gallery ~ a la kimi

My Blog

kimboustany.com
Kimi,

Take a deep breath.

There is nothing in Bridge.

Try this.

Start Lightroom

File, New Catalog

when it brings up the dialogue box, type in Kimi - or whatever you want to call it.

This will create a catalog in My documents/my pictures/kimi called Kimi.lrcat

click OK and forget the supported files thing.

You will now have created a blank catalog file.

Now click on the Import function button or do a File, Import from Photoshop Elements 5 and earlier and click OK. If you have multiple versions, it will give you a choice, pisk it from the drop down and say OK.

Lr will do its thing.

If not, post back with more information AND screenshots so I can see where you are.
John
John, first let me say thank you for being so patient. :biggrin:
I went thru some of the links in the thread and got to the point where I understood I was going to have to create a catalog. Or multiple catalogs. Work, Personal.

I will work on that tomorrow. Going to try to put together my new computer and see if they managed to install XP like they should have. Please check back tomorrow. I'm sure I will still be as lost as ever. :bigwink:
~kimi~
Gone Crazy... Back Soon...


Gallery ~ a la kimi

My Blog

kimboustany.com
wow! So many questions........ :biggrin:

First - remember to breathe!!!!! IN and out....slowly......relax......

Let's Create a Catolog or two....or three....

If I remember correctly from one of your earlier posts you wanted to be able to store your photos on an external HD so you could have access to them from both your laptop and your PC. Just remember, the LR catalog is just a database of information about your photos that LR creates for its own use. If you are importing your files, you are creating a catalog. YOU ARE NOT MOVING OR COPYING YOUR PHOTOS BY IMPORTING! Creating a catalog is unavoidable and cannot be skipped or else LR will not know anything about them. Also, LR will not touch or change Bridge in any way. Again, all this will do is expand the LR catalog to include what you have in Bridge. Whatever is in Bridge will stay in Bridge and nothing gets moved.

First, if all you want to do is create the LR catalog, all you need to do is import your pictures. The LR catalog defaults to your My Pictures folders and creates a Lightroom folder there. Simple enough.

But - if you want to put your LR catalog in a place where it can be accessed by both computers and so you can always work from the same catalog, you need to create a catalog manually, and tell LR where to put it. Do this by going to File -> New Catalog. This will open a window called "Create Folder With New Catalog". Now, inside that window, navigate to the drive where you want to store the catalog. That window looks like this:
Create-Catalog.jpg
Create-Catalog.jpg (46.73 KiB) Viewed 751 times

As you can see, I have selected my E drive, which is one of my EHDs. Now, in the box labeled "File Name" at the bottom, enter the name you want for the FOLDER where the catalog will be placed. If you look close at the picture, you will see the top folder in there is called LR Catalog2. That is one that I created in addtion to the default catalog created by LR in my My Pictures folder. Inside that folder is an LR catalog, and any other files LR needs in addition to that particular catalog will be created by LR there.

LR can create and keep multiple catalogs, just like PSE can. If in the Library Module you click File, at the very top you will get 3 options in the Catalog section of the menu. "New Catalog", which allows you to do what I just described. "Open Catalog", which will open a file browser window and you will have to go find the catalog you want to open. Or, the easiest "Open Recent" and this will list whatever catalogs you have created and you can pick one from the list.

OK...that should handle your catalog questions....I hope :)
GeneVH

My SmugMug
My PrestoPhoto
Now on Flickr

CS5/LR4/Nikon D300 & D70s/Win7
Now, on to importing your pictures........Importing into LR 101.......Part 1

First, if you are going to have multiple catalogs, you will need to open LR to the catalog you want to work in. See my above post for that info.

To import, you have several options. Remember also, all that you are doing here is expanding LRs database. You are not moving anything at this time unless you tell LR to move or copy your photos. This choice will be given in the import dialog later.

Your initial import is most likely going to be from your HD or EHD. At this point, your pictures need to be where ever you want them. If they are going to be on your internal HD, copy them there before starting. OR, if they are going to be on an EHD accessible by more than one computer, copy the photos there.

Once that is done, hit File -> Import Photos From Disk. This will bring up a window similar to this:
Importing-1.jpg
Importing-1.jpg (55.88 KiB) Viewed 733 times

The C: drive is my internal HD, the E and F drives are my EHDs. Navigate to where you put your pictures. For instance, if you copied all your photos into a folder on your E drive called My Pictures, navigate to that folder. If you're like me, there are multiple folders inside there. Do a CTL-A to select all the folders, then hit the "Import All Photos In Selected Folder" button. If this button isn't available just yet, it means something you selected cannot be imported and you will need to figure that one out and deselect the offending file or folder. In my case, I have a folder that is actually a link in my backup folders and LR did not like that one.

Once you hit the Import button, LR will scan the folder(s) you have selected. This may take a few minutes depending on how many pictures it needs to scan. You will see LR counting them.

Once the scan is done, another window will open called "Import Photos". It is here where you tell LR how to import your pictures. In the File Handling drop down there are 4 options. You can "Add Photos to Catalog Without Moving". This simply adds the photo information to the LR database (catalog file) and leaves the photos wherever they are located on your hard drives. Nothing gets moved or copied if you use this option. The next two options allow you to either copy your photos to a new location, or move them to a new location. You can also copy the files as DNGs, the 4th option. If you choose to move, copy, or import as DNGs, you will be presented with another drop down where you will tell LR where to put the photos. Once you select that folder, you will then be able to make a choice as to how to organize them. There are multiple choices and they are pretty self explanatory.

Below that you can choose which folders you want to import. By default they are all selected, or you can deselect by unclicking the check marks by the folders. You can also highlight individual folders, and in the preview window on the right, deselect those you may not want to import. There are also buttons at the bottom of that window to help you make your choices.

There are a few more choices you will need to make in this dialog window, but hopefully those are pretty much self explanatory. Once you make all your choices, hit the "Import" button and sit back, relax, and breathe.....and maybe enjoy a cup of you favorite refreshing beverage as this will take a few minutes depending on the number of pictures you have to import or move/copy.

You can also do some keywording here if you want to. This is great when you are importing photos from a specific shoot as you can keyword all the photos being imported.

If you were doing this import for the first time on my PC, your Import Photos window would look something like this:
Importing-2.jpg
Importing-2.jpg (92.68 KiB) Viewed 733 times


You guys are learning way too much about me here!!!! :rotfl:

This should take care of importing your photos on your HD or EHDs. You can also import from more than one HD or EHD into the same catalog.
Importing-3.jpg
Importing-3.jpg (26.64 KiB) Viewed 729 times

As you can see here, I have photos imported from both my C and E drives in one catalog. The E drive is an EHD.
GeneVH

My SmugMug
My PrestoPhoto
Now on Flickr

CS5/LR4/Nikon D300 & D70s/Win7
Wow, Gene, those are some great instructions.You and John have done a great job of explaining. I am downloading for myself, also. Thank you
Importing into LR 101.......Part 2

The 2nd choice for importing if you hit File is "Importing Photos from Device". This choice will import any photos you may have on a thumb drive or your camera. And, of course, you have to have a device attached. This is not for importing from an EHD! Importing from an EHD is covered in Part 1 above. And you will be presented with the same Import Photos window I have already described above.

However, instead of doing this manually, you can have LR do it automatically when it detects a device having been connected to your PC or laptop. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Import and check the "Show import dialog when memory card is detected" box. This will open the Import Photos dialog window I detailed in Part 1 whenever you connect something that contains photos. LR doesn't have to be open either in order for this to work once you have it set.

The 3rd choice is Import From Catalog. This pick will allow you to combine a second LR catalog with the currently active one. You will have to find the catalog you want to import on your HD/EHD in the "Import LR Catalog" window that opens.

The 4th choice is "Import from Photoshop Elements X and earlier" (X being the latest version of PSE on your PC, if you have it installed. If not, I have no idea what this will be or if it would even show up. I happen to have PSE5 installed.) When I click that, the menu window that ends up opening after I click through the warning box looks like this with the following choices:
Choose-Catalog.jpg
Choose-Catalog.jpg (44.38 KiB) Viewed 713 times

If you go with the PSE choice as in the top, it's going to start importing the PSE catalog it finds. Mine happens to be in its default location so that's where mine went when I hit the OK button. I canceled that since I don't want my LR to import my PSE catalog ( I don't use PSE Organizer anyway) so I cannot comment on how well LR would handle importing it. I have read posts in forums on both sides of that issue.

If you pick Custom Location, you are going to have to go and find the catalog you want. Notice, though, after you hit the Choose button, in the "Choose Files" window that opens, there are only 2 supported file types: .PSA and .BUC. The .PSA file type is your PSE catalog. BUC I think would be a PSE backup catalog. CS itself does not have a catalog. LR can only import those two catalog/database file types, in other words.

And since I don't use Bridge in CS3, I did some searching on import and catalog in the Bridge help files and didn't come up with anything useful for this discussion. I got no hits in help on catalog in Bridge, so I don't think it has one. What I found gave me the impression that any changes made to a file in Bridge get written into its metadata or .xmp sidecar file and that Bridge reads that info rather than creating a catalog or database. If anyone knows anything more, hopefully they will provide that info. If what I am thinking is true then, there is nothing in Bridge for LR to import. LR will pick up the file metadata or .xmp information when you import in LR.

The last choice you have then is "Auto Import". In this dialog you can set up a watched folder and LR can be set to automatically import any picture that is put in the watched folder and its subfolders. You could conceivably set your My Pictures folder as your watched folder and any time you add pictures LR will pick them up without you having to do anything manually other than set your import settings.

I have my LR set up to detect any time I connect my camera or card reader to automatically start the import process. That works best for me right now.

I know this has been a bit long, but I hope it answers your questions and helps relieve some of your stress and frustration. LR really isn't that hard to use once you get used to it, but it does take a bit of figuring out.

Remember LR's Fifth Rule: Enjoy!!!!

Now......relax.......this will all become second nature to you once you get through it and the more you use LR. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

And, for me anyway, LR's learning curve wasn't quite as steep as PSE or CS's. Not that I'm an expert or anything! :rotfl:
GeneVH

My SmugMug
My PrestoPhoto
Now on Flickr

CS5/LR4/Nikon D300 & D70s/Win7
OH....one more thing (this will be short). Any importing you do in LR will be done in the catalog you happen to be working in at the time. If you are using multiple catalogs in LR and want to import into a specific catalog, make sure you are working in that one at the time!!!!
GeneVH

My SmugMug
My PrestoPhoto
Now on Flickr

CS5/LR4/Nikon D300 & D70s/Win7
34 posts Page 2 of 4

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests

cron