New Lightroom Import: No choice of importing duplicates or not???

[pluton]

Note: Similar post made at the now somewhat obtuse Adobe forum....
OK, I was willing to let the usual hubbub over new or changed features play out without any participation from me--after all, I'm not a super "power user", and I've been pretty happy with Lightroom so far..in fact, since version 1.
I noticed that the "Do Not Import Suspected Duplicates" checkbox is gone.
It was there for a reason.
I hope it's hidden somewhere and I'm just being a fool...however, if it is really gone...
Taking it away is some serious stupidity,
Does anyone else miss this control?  Is it hidden somewhere?

[lhodaniel]

Nope. It's gone. Time to join the hubub.

[john beardsworth]

Taking it away is some serious stupidity,

Leaving it there permits some serious stupidity too....

Why do you ever need to import duplicates?

[Simon Garrett]

Like the post at http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/new-update-6-2 and add your comments at the bottom.  So far just under 400 people have agreed with the issue. 

[jjj]

Leaving it there permits some serious stupidity too....

Why do you ever need to import duplicates?

"Do Not Import Suspected Duplicates" The bolding is the important bit.
Once in LR, you can better check whether or not they are or not.

I've found second copies of files on my HDs. Being interrupted whilst in the middle of tidying up [particularly when moving data between computers/HDs] would be the usual cause in my case. Girlfriend being less than rigorous in her data organising would be a prime cause for most of the file duplicate issues in our house. Another reason would be duplicated camera file names, which shouldn't happen but certainly will do for some folk.
So yes being able to import suspected duplicates can useful on occasions.

[ButchM]

Leaving it there permits some serious stupidity too....

Why do you ever need to import duplicates?

Well ... if the capability actually does 'permit serious stupidity' .... why did it exist all the way to v6.1.1?

It took that long to identify how stupid it was?

[john beardsworth]

Well ... if the capability actually does 'permit serious stupidity' .... why did it exist all the way to v6.1.1?

Because they were afraid of the whinefest?

[ButchM]

Because they were afraid of the whinefest?

No ... more like 'stupid is what stupid does' ... In this instance (and many others) Adobe acted just as stupidly as some would have us believe some Lightroom users do.

[pluton]

Sometimes, when you shuttle files around, you decide that they're going reside in a new place on a different harddrive, you end up re-importing a few files because that's a simple way to solve a problem.  I was engaged in just such a maneuver when LR 6.2 refused to import the files, saying that they already been imported.  Yeah, from a different harddrive into a different folder in the catalog.
And what's with that bland, greenish background photo that shows during the import dialog?  I have to look at someone else's photo in Lightroom?  This looks like Microsoft tried to design a competitor for iPhoto, only 20 years ago.
I'm back on LR 6.1.1 for now.  At least rolling back to 6.1.1 was easy.

[ButchM]

Because they were afraid of the whinefest?

If that is the case ... they screwed up on all counts.

I don't know how anyone could classify complaining about the removal of capabilities .... That Adobe once thought worthy of inclusion and charged for same ... then removed same without fanfare ... equates to resulting in a 'whine fest' ...

At the very least, Adobe could have done a better job presenting this change with detailed explanations of the benefits (if there are any over and above something pretty to show off at Max) to traditional users this new paradigm offers.

Indeed, it is human nature to resist change, however, this change was presented prematurely, incompletely and without explanation it should be no surprise that some folks did not embrace this 'enhancement' ... then the only voice from the Ivory Tower sought input from these so-called 'whiners' after the fact ... For a multi-billion dollar corporation that places so much emphasis on market research ... how did they miss this situation?

[eliedinur]

@pluton: And what's with that bland, greenish background photo that shows during the import dialog?  I have to look at someone else's photo in Lightroom?  This looks like Microsoft tried to design a competitor for iPhoto, only 20 years ago.

Unclick Preferences/General/ Show "Add Photos" Screen.
Thank God they at least made that optional, even if on by default.

[pegelli]

Like the post at http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/new-update-6-2 and add your comments at the bottom.  So far just under 400 people have agreed with the issue.

Thanks, I put in my vote (and 5 cents)

[jaclarkaus]

Leaving it there permits some serious stupidity too....

Why do you ever need to import duplicates?

Because sometimes you are importing a pre-sorted 'set' of files of which some may already exist in the catalogue ... maybe different customer, maybe different treatment, maybe ... who knows

[Simon Garrett]

Leaving it there permits some serious stupidity too....

Why do you ever need to import duplicates?

Because sometimes you are importing a pre-sorted 'set' of files of which some may already exist in the catalogue ... maybe different customer, maybe different treatment, maybe ... who knows

I agree that there can be (rare) occasions for importing duplicates, but IMHO the examples you gave are not ones where I would recommend duplicate imports.

For different customers I would suggest collections.
For different treatments I would suggest virtual copies (or stacked copies where treated in Photoshop or another external editor).

In general I go with the no-duplicates principle.  Keep a single import of a raw file, and use virtual copies, stacked real copies, collections etc for managing multiple versions or multiple views.  It's the way Lightroom is designed to work.   

I agree with Adobe's philosophy that in general multiply imported versions encourage non-optimum workflows.  I wouldn't necessarily remove the option, but I'd certainly put it behind click-through warning messages pointing out that it's not the best way of doing things. 

[ButchM]

   

I agree with Adobe's philosophy that in general multiply imported versions encourage non-optimum workflows.

That reasoning is all well and good. It is important to establish a best practices workflow .... but if importing duplicates is not in our best interests ... 1. Why did Adobe ever allow users to do this in the first place? Surely the fact this wasn't a recent epiphany. 2. How does removing the capability really help a new user better understand the import process? 3. Why didn't Adobe take the time to inform their traditional users BEFORE they made such changes?

[Simon Garrett]

"I agree with Adobe's philosophy that in general multiply imported versions encourage non-optimum workflows."

That reasoning is all well and good. It is important to establish a best practices workflow .... but if importing duplicates is not in our best interests ... 1. Why did Adobe ever allow users to do this in the first place? Surely the fact this wasn't a recent epiphany.

From my experience, the code to detect duplicates was a bit flaky early on, so being able to override the duplicate detection was a practical necessity.  I've not noticed any mistakes in recent times. 

2. How does removing the capability really help a new user better understand the import process?

Because in general providing options that encourage poor use of the software by those that don't realise why it's not a good idea does not (IMHO) help a new user better understand the import process. 

Another example: if you use "Edit in Photoshop..." with an older version of Photoshop (with an older version of ACR) you get a warning and an option to "render in Lightroom" (and create a copy) or "open anyway".  The "open anyway" option is usually not a good idea and creates mysterious errors.  I've lost count of the posts on various forums of people who've used that option, and clicked the "don't tell me again" option, and have got themselved thoroughly confused about why Photoshop apparently ignores Lightroom edits. 

In general, better not to provide dangerous options, or (if you must) keep them behind warning messages. 

3. Why didn't Adobe take the time to inform their traditional users BEFORE they made such changes?

Good question.  Tom Hogarty's apology seems to admit they screwed up there.  I agree: they did screw up. 

[Damon Lynch]

From my experience, the code to detect duplicates was a bit flaky early on, so being able to override the duplicate detection was a practical necessity.

That's interesting. Do you know why it was unreliable? There are only 3 things to check when checking for duplicates: filename, file size, and file modification time. That's it. Very simple. You can't do a hash of contents of the file itself because apart from performance problems that's not always going to be possible e.g. when downloading from camera or phone.

[jjj]

That's interesting. Do you know why it was unreliable? There are only 3 things to check when checking for duplicates: filename, file size, and file modification time. That's it. Very simple. You can't do a hash of contents of the file itself because apart from performance problems that's not always going to be possible e.g. when downloading from camera or phone.

Actually I thought only file name would be needed so as to make sure unique names are being used. LR is certainly happy to import the same file with different names.

[Damon Lynch]

Actually I thought only file name would be needed so as to make sure unique names are being used. LR is certainly happy to import the same file with different names.

That won't work. For photographers with only one camera, many cameras duplicate filenames every 10,000 shots. For photographers with more than one camera, duplicate filenames will show up more frequently.

For the market LR serves, comparing the combination of file name, size and modification time is going to be fine almost 100% of the time. If any one of them is different, the file is different.

My guess is that Windows and OS X do the same to determine whether to regenerate thumbnails for files or not, although like desktop Linux they might not take the step of comparing  the file size. 

[Simon Garrett]

That's interesting. Do you know why it was unreliable? There are only 3 things to check when checking for duplicates: filename, file size, and file modification time. That's it. Very simple. You can't do a hash of contents of the file itself because apart from performance problems that's not always going to be possible e.g. when downloading from camera or phone.

I can't remember the exact circumstances now (that is, when duplicate detection didn't always work).  I've been using LR since LR1 point something, and I remember that early on I had to check if images I'd already imported weren't flagged for import again, or images not imported were marked as duplicates.  I can't remember that happening for quite a few years now.  However, I suspect that's the reason why the "ignore duplicates" option was there.  I mean: the philosophy of LR has (to my understanding) always been import once and only once.  The "ignore duplicates" option only ever made sense (in that philosophy) if duplicate detection might sometimes get it wrong.