Back up photos during import, Ignore duplicates when importing, Specify initial previews – Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC User Manual
Page 74: Rename photos when importing

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Importing photos
Last updated 4/20/2015
Back up photos during import
❖
If you’re copying or moving photos into the catalog, you can create a one-time copy, or backup, of the original photo
files. In the File Handling panel on the right side of the import window, select Make A Second Copy To and specify
a location.
Note: You still need to regularly back up your photos and catalog. For more detailed information on backing up
Lightroom, see
Ignore duplicates when importing
Lightroom determines a photo is a duplicate of another file in the catalog if it has the same, original filename; the same
Exif capture date and time; and the same file size. You can instruct Lightroom to disregard duplicate files when
importing.
❖
In the File Handling panel on the right side of the import window, select Don’t Import Suspected Duplicates.
Specify initial previews
As photos are imported, Lightroom can immediately display a photo’s embedded preview, or display higher-quality
previews as the program renders them. Embedded previews are created by cameras and are not color managed, so
embedded previews don’t match how Lightroom interprets the camera raw files. Previews rendered by Lightroom take
longer to generate but are color managed.
❖
In the File Handling panel on the right side of the import window, choose an option from the Build Previews menu:
Minimal
Immediately display images using the smallest previews embedded in the photos. Lightroom renders
standard-size previews when needed.
Embedded & Sidecar
Display the largest possible preview available from the camera. This option may take longer
than a Minimal preview but is still faster than rendering a standard-size preview.
Standard
Display previews as Lightroom renders them. Standard-size previews use the Adobe RGB color space and
are what you see in the Fit zoom level of the Loupe view. Specify the Standard preview size in the Catalog Settings
dialog box. See
.
1:1
Display previews that are a 100% view of actual pixels.
❖
To create Smart Previews for your imported photos, select Build Smart Previews.
Smart Previews allow you to edit images that are not physically connected to your computer. Smart Preview files are
a lightweight, smaller, file format based on the lossy DNG file format. See
for more information.
Rename photos when importing
When copying or moving photos into the catalog during import, you can specify how the files are named.
1
In the File Renaming panel on the right side of the import window, select Rename Files.
2
Choose a naming option from the Template pop-up menu. For descriptions of the choices, see
. If
you choose an option that uses a custom name, type the name in the Custom Text field.
3
(Optional) If you don’t want a custom numeric sequence to start with “1,” enter a value in the Start Number field.