I always use the computer's operating system (Windows Explorer/Mac Finder) to copy the files. This method uses two additional pieces of hardware (camera and usb cable), and increases the risk of image corruption caused by failing hardware. The slowest and unsafest way is to connect the camera to the computer. The fastest and safest way is using a card reader, preferably one that's built into the computer. Ingestingīefore importing, I recommend copying the files from the camera card to the computer. So to sum up - Lightroom never changes your originals, and your originals are not in Lightroom, they are in a folder of your choice on your computer. All the work you do inside Lightroom is done with these previews, the images you see on screen are not the original files. The files you import can be anywhere on your computer, but Lightroom creates a reference to their location in the catalog, and also creates previews of them. Lightroom does not open files, and it is not a file browser that you can point to a folder and see the contents. To get your images into Lightroom, you have to import them. Edits saved to files are just metadata that do not change the original files. It is possible to additionally save the edits to the files (to xmp sidecar files in the case of proprietary raw files), but the edits will not be seen by other applications. While Photoshop, with the exception of the Camera Raw plugin, is essentially a pixel editor that will destructively change the pixels in your files, editing in Lightroom is completetly non- destructive.Īll the edits you do in Lightroom are saved to the catalog, which is an SQLite database.

Its official name is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which is somewhat misleading, since it has little in common with Photoshop. Lightroom is an image editor and organizer. Other people may recommend different workflows. This article deals with the Classic (and earlier corresponding versions) of Lightroom. For more articles, click Technical articles on the menu.

Lightroom classic