New LR User question (with more to follow)

[Philmar]

Up until last week I've used ACR to process my RAW files. Tired of paying upgrade fees equal to about a third of the cost of the program for what amounts to only a snmall incremental improvement, I decided to switch to LR where the upgrade fees are less. End of rant.

I intend to purchase a LR3 book shortly as well as view online tutorials (will need to upload a much needed new sound card driver so I can HEAR them). I am extremely happy with LR3 - it's like owning a new camera. The sharpening/noise reduction and lens correction really have improved my end result. And working with presets is so much easier than in ACR.

So far I am trying to get a feel for the import-develop-export paradigm. Currently I am working on a file by file process with no difficulty. I am holding off on the big major import of all my files until I understand what is going on.

When I import a file LR3 asks if I want me to move or copy them. I currently have 600 GBs of RAW files. Will this create another 600 GBs of files once all are imported?
Will I have a choice as to where I save/copy them? I have a 3 HD configuration and would like to keep as much off the OS/program disk as possible.

There. Dumb newbie question #1 out of the way. Thanks.

[eliedinur]

There is a third choice, "Add to catalog without moving them." If the files are already on your HD and arranged as you want, there is no reason to either move or copy them.

[Philmar]

Thanks - yes I see from the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Help and Support site as well there is this 'Add' option. Weird how my brain never noticed that.
I always feel like a complete yutz when I ask newbie questions....and for good reason. Thank God for the anonymity of the internet.


More embarrassing queries to follow!!!

[feppe]

Thanks - yes I see from the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Help and Support site as well there is this 'Add' option. Weird how my brain never noticed that.
I always feel like a complete yutz when I ask newbie questions....and for good reason. Thank God for the anonymity of the internet.


More embarrassing queries to follow!!!

I take it that "Phil Marion" is a pseudonym

[Philmar]

I take it that "Phil Marion" is a pseudonym

It soon will be:P...just need to change my legal name to something else! 

[Philmar]

OK - so I see now the 'Add' choice. I probably saw it earlier but 'copy'  sounded less onerous or disk space unfriendly than 'Add' or 'move'.

I see from my catalogue that there's over 3000 30D RAW files in it. So I must have imported whole files (LR3 defaults to all files selected within a folder during import). Yet the folder that LR3 has 'copied' them to has only 148 MBs in it. How can that be? Is it not really copying the files or just storing thumbnail previews?

[wolfnowl]

Lightroom doesn't store images in the catalog.  It only references where they are, and stores information about the images and any changes you make to the images.  When you edit an image in the Develop module for example, Lightroom doesn't change the original image at all; it only makes a list in its file of the changes that you made.  When you Export an image from the catalog, Lightroom references the original image, adds the changes that you've made plus any export settings you've set and creates a new image file.  Because Lightroom doesn't touch the original image, there's never a need to 'Save' your work in Lightroom the way you would in Photoshop for example.

Mike.