Adobe Lightroom

Lightroom is built upon a database. Inside this database, commonly referred to as the catalog, is all the data about your photos. This includes all the metadata created by the camera at the time the photo is taken (shutter speed, f-stop, ISO, etc.) as well as all the data you add in Lightroom (keywords, IPTC data, ratings, etc.) and all the adjustments you make in the Develop module.

The import process is the gateway to the database. You can think of it as the introduction between your photos and the catalog. During the import process Lightroom creates a new database entry for every photo and fills that entry with the information contained in each photo’s own metadata as well as each photo’s file name and location on disk. That is the sole purpose of importing. Once Lightroom has been “introduced” to each photo you can access those photos inside each of Lightroom’s 5 modules.

Remember, when you open Lightroom you are really opening a catalog and then accessing and changing the data contained within that catalog.

Since the import process is the common gateway through which all photos must pass there are a few other jobs that can be accomplished via the Import dialog as a way to save you time and effort. These tasks can include:

• Copying or moving photos to a new destination on disk.
• Copying and converting copies of the source photos to DNG format.
• Renaming copied or moved photos.
• Copying photos to a second location as a backup.
• Adding common keywords to all imported photos.
• Applying develop settings to all imported photos.
• Adding common metadata to all imported photos.
• Scheduling the rendering of previews when the import is finished.

The location of the source photos is a factor in determining whether or not the import process will include copying or moving photos to a new location. If you are importing photos from a memory card then you have to choose to either copy the source photos to your hard drive or copy and convert the copies to DNG. Lightroom will not give you the option to move photos from a memory card. This is done for safety. If something were to go wrong during a move operation you could lose data (such as power loss or the card reader coming unplugged). By using a copy operation you know that your source files are safe even if something goes wrong with the copy.

If you are importing photos that are already on your hard drive then you have the option to just leave them where they are and add the data to the catalog or youcan copy or even move them to a new location. The choice is up to you and how you want to organize your photos on disk.

At no time are your photos actually “inside” Lightroom. Lightroom does create previews, which are essentially JPG copies, of all your photos and stores the previews in a special cache alongside the catalog file. Your actual photos will always be on your hard drive at the location of your choosing.