UPDATE: I’m very sad to say that the latest Lightroom update has rendered this post useless. If you haven’t tried the new (and better in my opinion) Import dialog, you never will. My “New Import Lovers” club that I speak of below is now closed and not accepting new members. Enjoy the new (I mean old) Import dialog 😉
Last month Adobe released an update to Lightroom that changed the way the Import dialog looked (and worked in some ways). Personally I thought it was a great idea. The Lightroom team doesn’t communicate with me anymore, but if I did have a line in to them, I would have said Well Done! But… (there’s always a but right?), there was a huge outcry from Lightroom users to bring back the old Import dialog. For me, I couldn’t understand it, but I was going to leave it alone. But this past week was a tipping point for me. I was talking to a group that were all Lightroom users, and they were bashing the new Import dialog. I totally snapped! I broke! I started swearing and throwing things at them. We got in to fist fights, car chases ensued and all mayhem broke out over this. Several of us were eventually taken to jail. And while in my jail cell, rather than calling home to get bailed out, I broke down and wrote this post (pretty nice of them to let me bring my laptop in with me huh?). Here’s why 😉
Import Needs To Change
Here’s what I can tell you about the Import process in Lightroom. It needs to change. How do I know? I honestly don’t say this in an arrogant way, so please don’t take it that way – just trying to help frame things. I’m probably among the top 3 in the world in numbers of face-to-face and online training of Lightroom. I taught Lightroom one-day seminars for nearly 7 years that regularly had 400-500 people attend, so I saw first hand every day what issues in Lightroom held people up. Plus, I ran a Lightroom-centered website for 8 years and I personally read each and every comment that came across. I can tell you without hesitation, the absolute top #1 issue in Lightroom, is Import. Newcomers to Lightroom just had a hard time understanding it. Now, luckily, most of them did get it when they left the seminar, but it took them an hour + long class to get there. It shouldn’t be that hard to get photos from a camera’s memory card, to your computer and in to Lightroom.
If Lightroom is going to get out to the masses, it needs to change. The Import process doesn’t make sense to a new person. It didn’t make sense to me when I started either. I didn’t get what was going on. I didn’t know what was happening to my photos. And I wasn’t sure where I should put them and what Lightroom was doing with them.
The Old Import Dialog
So here’s a screen capture of the old import dialog.
Side Note: If you go under the Lightroom Preferences dialog, there’s an option in the General section called “Show Add Photos Screen”. If you turn that off, you get a very similar experience to the old import. Not exactly, but close.
It was a breeding ground for questions and confusion. Select a source? What’s a source? I just want to import photos from my camera!! Copy As DNG? Add? Move? Copy? First off, what the heck is DNG? My mom is getting in to photography. Lightroom is definitely the place for her but do you think she knows what DNG is? Hide that crap! Make it available in an advanced dialog for those that need it. And don’t get me started on Copy/Move/Add. And then the Destination area on the right side was even worse. Seemingly innocent checkboxes could totally mess up your folder structure, add weird dates to them, and move your photos to a place that you had no idea was happening. And the “To My Catalog” at the top right, introduces a whole new area of confusion because catalogs get confusing.
The New Import Dialog
Here’s why I like the new Import dialog.
For starters, I had a really cool moment a couple of weeks ago when I was showing a few people how to get started with Lightroom. I opened the new Import dialog, showed them to select photos and just click Import – and guess what? Without any further instruction, they did it themselves. They got it! No questions? Know what? That may be the first time in history I’d ever seen a group of people get Import immediately without any more instruction.
To me at least, the very basis of the dialog tells you exactly what you want to do – Add Photos. It’s right in the middle at the top of everything. You can’t miss it. Then right below it, you simple select the photos you want to add. That’s it. Simple. No Copy/Move/DNG and destination crap. You’re not presented with a ton of options and checkboxes. You simply get an option to select photos by browsing your computer or other hard drives, or your card reader.
When I used to teach those seminars I used to tell the audience up front, I was going to simplify Import for them in to a fool proof system. The system?
- Put your photos where you want them
- Open Lightroom and Click Import
- Choose the photos and click Add at the top.
And they loved it! I’d have people coming up to me all day telling them that they finally understand what to do now. So what’s the difference in Adobe’s new Import dialog? It’s virtually the same, except that it just looks better now. Heck, it’s even smart enough to know that if you’re taking photos from a card reader or other non-drive device that you probably do want to “Copy” the photos and it pre-selects it for you. Otherwise, it assumes that if you’re photos are on a hard drive, that you want to leave them there and just have Lightroom reference them right there. That way, it cuts down on the confusion and you don’t accidentally move your photos somewhere else.
But Isn’t Adobe Dumbing Down the App?
That’s been the common theme among the new Import-haters. Dumbing down the app. But I just don’t see it. You can do just about everything you used to be able to do. Your workflow didn’t change. They didn’t make it harder for you to Import photos if you were a long-term Lightroom die hard. They just made it more accessible for some one new to Lightroom. But I get it – you’re advanced and you don’t want to risk anyone dumbing down your apps, so the masses can use them. Maybe you’re a pro – or maybe you’re just an advanced amateur who likes buttons, dials and knobs. Photography is geeky and I get it. And maybe you don’t want my mom using Lightroom if she’s a beginner and just getting started with photography. But I do think that the future of photography is people like my mom – people who just love taking photos and want uploading, storing and editing their photos to be easier. And Lightroom is a great place for that, whether you’re a pro, or your my mom.
But if you are indeed my mom… well… I love you mom! (sorry, just had to sneak that in there) 😉
The Danger Of Bringing Back the Old Dialog
From what I understand Adobe will bring back the old dialog in an upcoming update. Again, since I have zero communication to the Lightroom team anymore, I have no idea if they plan to bring it back as an option or just revert to the old dialog – so don’t hold me to anything. My guess is that they’d give you an option to use the old one if you want, but still keep the new as well. Hopefully that’ll make people happier, but there’s a danger there. There’s a reason that, as photographers, we’ve grown to love Lightroom more than we ever loved Photoshop. I think part of that reason is its simplicity. While there are some people that don’t consider Lightroom simple, you have to admire that what you see is what you get. There are very few things in Lightroom that you have to know the “secret handshake” to get to. It’s all out in front of you for the most part.
But Photoshop on the other hand, has grown in to a huge monster of an app. It can do everything. Old workflows, new workflows, you name it. But one of the ways it got there was because people got used to something working one way. When a better way came up to do that task, Adobe realized they couldn’t remove the old way because now people were accustomed to it. So they added something new. Now something old did a task, and something new did the nearly same task but just in a different way. The old stuff was there for the way people used to do it so they stayed happy, and the new stuff was there for the new people. Great! But this just kept happening over and over again until Photoshop grew to this huge program. Now most common question I get when I show something in Photoshop is “Well, can’t you also do it this way (insert their method) too?”.
I worry about that happening with Lightroom. Lightroom has been pretty good over the years, about not adding duplicate ways to do the same thing. But you can bet the next time the LR team looks to make a big change to make things better for the future, they’re going to look twice at it now and probably leave the old way, as well as incorporate the new. That’s great and all, but I’d just hate to see Lightroom grow in to as complex of a app as Photoshop has.
I’m Starting a New Club…
I’m gonna start a new club called “New Import Dialog Lovers”. I may be the only one it it, but hey, it’ll be fun anyway 🙂
Seriously though, I thought the LR team did great on this one. When they did solicit feedback and talk to me about future releases, my feedback was always the same… fix the Import process. I may have suggested they don’t remove the (barely used) features that they did remove. Maybe just throw ’em under the “Advanced” section in the new dialog to keep people happy, but that’s about it. I really like the way it works and I hope it doesn’t change too much going forward.
Anyway, that’s my rant for the day. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend! 🙂
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
Matt. Is your new Lightroom course based on the new Lightroom 6.5 with the new import feature? I have not updated my Lightroom because I have not been able to grasp the import and where to put my photos after import so I am currently running Lightroom 3 on my Mac. I am interested in your light room course, so please advise.
Hi Cheryl – the new import dialog box was actually removed in a Lightroom update. So the course and whatever version of Lightroom (even with the new/old import) still works the same. Hope that helps 🙂
I would even extend on what you’ve said Matt and say the process should be this simple: go to any folder, select or highlight the photos you want to add to LR, right click and there should be a menu option that says “Add to Lightroom”.
And i have been using LR since its early days!
I was disappointed that Adobe listened to the “curmudgeons” who complained. I loved the original new import dialog and I am disappointed that it is gone. I understand that some people don’t like it when the cheese moves but if we all let those people be in control we’d still be living in caves and eating raw meat.
almost retired pro – forever a photo enthusiast
first film format, 127 BW roll film – largest camera owned, 8X10 Sinar
first 35 years – black and white / color darkroom including E6 line
first digit camera Canon A50 – current user Nikon D800
Seattle studio – commercial product photography – established 1967
following your teaching 10 years – generally a digi step behind
You already gave the reason why the new import sucks, and why people got mad: “You can do just about everything you used to be able to do.”.
I have (had) no issue with the new import dialog, and agree that the old (new) dialog is not accessible for those new to LR. However, give me the option to see everything and don’t take away features in the process. That was Adobe’s mistake, and that is why they got flamed.
I would like the new import back as well, maybe the option to pick the one you want? I have to say, I am with Matt on this one.
Here I thought I was the only one who like the new, graphical Import UI. Seems the vocal minority got Adobe’s attention. Pity. Hopefully they will bring it back with enough behind the scenes ‘options’ for those who have crafted a complicated workflow via the Import Dialog. My 2¢: Less is More.
All anyone had, and still has, to do to understand the “old” import process is to go and look at Julieanne Kost’s explanation on Adobe TV. It really isn’t that hard and it only takes her 15 minutes to provide a really good tutorial. I am really pleased they have gone back to the previous version.
Matt, I think your article is very well considered and with your vast training experience, I know exactly what you are saying. I learned pretty quickly with the old interface, to make sure I understood, all the places in the original input panel I had pay attention to. But I had it under control – the techie in me. With the updated import panel, I was pretty quickly able to figure out how to do what I wanted and feel comfortable. As you hinted in your article, they went back to the original panel in the latest update. Wow! Did I miss something in preferences or elsewhere – can I choose which import dialog I want to use? I haven’t found an option. I can certainly live with the original import dialog since I am so use to it.
I thought your article was very much on point! (I have tried to help other “photo people” with LR import and I understand). I was not offended by the new import because I studied what was available and it fits my workflow needs.
All this to say that I very much empathize with your ongoing – many year plea. For it to end – at least for now – like this (unless I am missing something), has to be extremely frustrating for you!
It’s all good Charlie. I’m sad they changed it, and I’m betting they are too. Personally, I understand it. You understand it. And some people here on the blog understand it. But I can tell you first hand that the vast majority of people don’t. You won’t here from them here because they have yet to discover Lightroom. Anyone reading this is already using it and, as a result, they know how to import. I just want it to be better for the new people so they don’t have to go through the learning curve that we have 🙂
Sorry Matt, I am going to have to strongly disagree with you. When I first heard the outcry, I had not yet used the new import. And, I was expecting the outcry to be a bunch of whining. Then I did my first import… It created three times as much work for me. I joined the complainers and am happy to see the old import back. Sure it could be improved (along with the RAW processing engine while they are at it), but until then, I am for a simpler import (in my workflow at least).
and today came LR 6.3/LR 2015.3 and the old Import GUI is back. I didn’t have anything against the old-old Import GUI but as many have said, it needed a facelift/upgrade and when they did, I absolutely didn’t have anything against it. I embraced it and loved it, now it’s time to go back to the old-old way again though.
Outstanding comments. How do I join the club???
Matt, after reading your post, I had to take a look at the calendar to see if it was April Fool’s Day thinking your post was a joke!
I am also a Lightroom educator, having taught the program at community colleges, camera stores, other venues, and to individuals for the last several years. I can honestly say that, with all the students I have taught, no one has been unable to understand the old import dialog. The problem is not the the import box itself, but in Adobe’s poor ability to explain its software, which has afforded me to teach it to others.
Once people understand that Lightroom is a database program and not a file browser, and that images need to be “imported” (which was probably never the best term, since photos are not technically in the program) things progress smoothly with my students. I don’t know what the problem with the old import dialog box supposedly is. Source is pretty clear: it’s where something comes from, what you want to do with it either copy and move, are pretty clear to anyone that has used a computer or over a month. Add just means add images where they currently reside. And on’t even get me started about DNG. I even created my list of the top 10 reasons not to convert to DNG, the biggest of which is their is no significant advantage, but many downsides like tying you to Adobe’s ecosystem forever. I think that would make anybody cringe, especially in light of what we are going through with the import dialog box.
I spend a lot of my Lightroom library class explaining the concept of file management so that people have a clear understanding of where their images are and the importance of backing them up. Just popping your card into a reader and clicking import negates all that for the new user. For me, the most significant thing they took out is being able to see where your files will land on your hard drive. In my teaching, this is absolutely critical for people to understand file management and knowing where their pictures are going.
In the classes I’ve taken, the materials I’ve read, and the websites I visited, I’m surprised that there is not more talk about the importance of creating an import preset. I tell my students that the import preset is absolutely critical for organizing their images from this point forward, so much so, that I tell them that once one creates an import preset, you can shrink the import dialog box, and not even have to look at it!. Then, all you have to do is in insert your card, make sure you’re preset is selected and hit import! You can do those two steps, while being absolutely exhausted at the end of the day, and know that your images are going to wind up exactly where you expect them to go, day after day, month after month.
I also teach that the import preset is beneficial for organizing their old images too, and is as easy as 1 – 2 – 3: put your images and one folder or with additional subfolders, use the import preset and change copy to move, make a backup and an off-site backup of the resulting import, delete the original folder of images.
This method has worked so well for so many years, that I thought of creating a variation of the McDonald’s sign, showing the number of images organized!
Lightroom was intended to manage a professional photographer’s workflow when they returned with hundreds or thousands of images from a shoot. To change the import dialog box to something that looks like it came from Fisher-Price computer and take away features, and not expect a huge backlash was simply naive on Adobe’s part.
My feeling is if you don’t want it make local adjustments to your images, which is one of Lightroom’s huge strengths, (and I have no judgment if people don’t) then it may be better for users to use Picassa or Photos.
To Adobe’s credit, at least they quickly changed the De-haze filter to a local adjustment, and it works great on more than just fog.
Reid
http://www.lumiograph.com
Well Reid, sounds like it works for you and your students. We’re all different and learn different so to each his own. Good luck!
The biggest complaint I’ve read about 6.2 was how slow and buggy it was, above and beyond the normal slowness LR import has. I haven’t upgraded to 6.2x, so I don’t have direct experience.
I’m not opposed to change, though, and even simplification (though there a dozen places I’d start on LR before import), if you don’t take away the capabilities that more experienced users need/want. Simplification that gets rid of capabilities throws the baby out with the bath water.
The idea that LR is a program for a non-experienced, non-technical user, though, is silly. No matter how much better it is than PS, it’s still an intimidating program with a hard-to-understand, and use, interface. It is not for the faint of heart. If you’re intimidated by import, you’re not going to be happy with LR, period.
I don’t, and never would, recommend LR for a nontechnical computer user. (Of course, I think copying your files and then importing is silly, too. Why do the work yourself when LR can do it for you, and rename them at the same time?)
“Of course, I think copying your files and then importing is silly, too. Why do the work yourself when LR can do it for you, and rename them at the same time?”
It have a big sense if you have many card to copy 🙂
Copying (with auto-creating a proper folder structure, with a proper app) is really fast and easy. And the import and previews generation is a LOOOONG time process 🙂 So, I spend just a minutes for copying, and then I starting import for many folders copied from many cards and going to sleep, instead to waiting for each card will be copied/imported to insert the other one…
For sure, if you have just one card and you are happy with a pre-defined folders structure than LR can create, you should be more than happy with the new import 🙂
Hi Matt!
I could be happy to agree with you, but… For me personally the new dialog is a disaster.
1. I have the custom folder structure, made many years ago and handy for me. Lightroom have no options to create a custom folder’s names during the import from a card.
2. Constantly, I shoot during many days, so I need to import photos from many folders at once.2. I store my converted pictures in the subfolders at the same location as RAWs
4. Some time, I shoot RAW+JPEG
– with these reasons, I still using BreezeDownloader. With this great app, I do fast downloads from many cards with my custom folder’s structure’s creation, and after this I suppose to using Lightroom to import ALL downloaded RAWs (and only RAWs), from many folders at once.
But with tits the new dialog, I just can’t do it:
– Lightroom scan my FULL DISK (and it take additional time!) and finally suggest me to import ALL pictures found – including my exported photos which I don’t need to have in the library, and RAW+JPEG photos from a new shoots. And I can’t change this!
– So, now I must to browse the disk. But there I can’t select many folders for import.
A a result, I have my workflow slowed down. I can’t just download photos taken during many days from multiple cards, and then start Import after this, and go to sleep: now, I must perform manual import, folder-by-folder. Stupid, really stupid!
Can you, as the LightRoom GURU, give me an idea, how can I do it with the new dialog? 🙂
I must admit that although I didn’t like the new import when it first came out, it’s simplicity has grown on me (although I can understand why some people might still yearn for the old version). I would suggest that if the Lightroom developers do decide to change the import dialog again that instead of taking a backwards step and reverting to the old system, they should instead concentrate on improving the speed of the import process, something I think that every Lightroom user would appreciate.
How about a d@mn save button?
Thank you Matt. I did not update because of all the negative complaints. But after reading your thoughts on the matter, the update is now doing its thing.
You can’t scroll down the list of previous meta tags forcing me to type them even though I can see them and you can’t tick dates you don’t want imported. How is that an improvement?
The ‘new’ LR update did NOT solve my biggest complaint about the LR Import feature. I currently use Nikon’s Transfer 2 from the View NX 2 app. Transfer works well and does what I want while I wait for LR to come into the 21st Century. I spoke with Hogarty (spelling?) at PhotoPlus Expo a few weeks ago and he seems to understand the short comings of the specific issue with LR; here’s hoping he will take it back to his development folks and fix the issue.
I’d join the club. I like the New and Improved with added Whiteners Import effort from Lr. Because there is less effort to importing.
As an avid LR user, one of the ah-ha take aways I got from Matt’s class was to first “manually” copy my photos from the card to the folder location where I wanted them on the computer, then import them into LR. Once they are already on the hard drive, they copy into LR much faster, too, and you know exactly where they are. All cool.
The new import process meshes with that process so well, it didn’t bother me like it has others. But I don’t like how the thumbnails of the images you are putting in LR are grayed out, with a huge check obscuring them. It makes it harder to tell if the image is something you want to skip putting into LR at all. They also shouldn’t have gotten rid of the auto eject of cards, for those who import directly from them. Other features, like selecting where you want photos to go didn’t apply to me, but should still have been available to people who want them.
Bottom line is I would tweak the latest UI to include “advanced features” to return options that had been removed and to not gray out the images and cover them with a check box. Other than that it is OK. The real problem with the change in LR was deleting features that some people did use and not retaining them somewhere.
Seriously Matt, you need very badly to get back on the Lightroom development bunch at Adobe. You are the best and have taught me a bunch, so get back in there!
Unfortunately Joe, I’m afraid they consider me more of a competitor than a friend :-/
Great article, I was ready to start a GoFundMe to raise your bail! I am a fairly new user to LR and after your teachings I must say I didn’t have any problems understanding the import process. However, I do agree this looks much easier. I have not updated LR yet but doing that now 🙂
The new import works for me. I will join your club, Matt.
Hi Matt, I’ll admit I was a bit shocked to read this article about the new LR import. This is the first comprehensive “In Favor Of” argument I’ve seen, and by a LR pro non-the-less. I have followed and have learned much from your tutorials over the years, and I thank you for that. However, I’m just not seeing the difficulty in the “old” LR import. I have never lost photos, have never had a problem importing them either, be it adding, moving, copying, etc… I’ve been using LR since v.1, even jumped to Apple Aperture for a minute when those early versions of LR needed a lot of help. Still, I always found LR to be the most intuitive and powerful.
In any case, I have decided to give it a go. I’m going to update my LR CC so I can really give Adobe, and your argument the benefit of the doubt here and see for myself how this works. Since I’ve recently added On1 Photo Suite 9.5 and even more recently, On1 Photo 10, I know I have some options with regards to my import workflow. So, here it goes. If I end up liking it, I may just join the club. If not, I blame you, your website/blog, Adobe, On1, Apple, Earth, Air, Technology, etc… and I’ll throw a tantrum on the floor. 🙂
Ding! Update just finished. Let’s see how this goes…
Thanks!
Good luck Danny. That’s a lot of blame to go around. I hope it goes well 😉
As for you understanding LR since the start – that’s awesome! But you are in the minority my friend. The Import/Catalog process has stumped many people (including me in the beginning) 🙂
Thanks Matt. Well, the update was done, and as of right now, I can’t really find anything to complain about. I’ve imported several photos, in several different ways, and everything works the way I need it to. I have no idea what I was freaking about now, haha! Now, if I can just work On1 Photo 10 into my initial work flow, I’d be happy… but as of right now, I’m only using effects as a finishing tool. I’m still on auto pilot when it comes to getting photos off the card.
They’ll be very few members of your Club, sir. The new import dialog is oversimplified. I could care less about excluding others, but Lightroom is a Pro/advanced geek tool.
The future for beginners is Photos on a Mac, and ? for Windows users. Even some intermediate photogs are just fine using iPhoto and now Photos. They don’t “get” spending another $90 for a program that does for them what they already have for “free”. Adobe could avoid this issue by having a 1 click change over to the old dialog.
Adobe’s more fundamental challenge is the need to completely rewrite Lightroom. Lightroom’s performance is abysmal. I have a brand new i7 iMac, and the program sits and spins for 10-15 seconds between when I chose what library to load and actually loading it. I am very frustrated with Lightroom’s gradual performance decay. I’ve used it since version 2.0, and I’m just about done.
Anyway, keep on keeping on: I love your Blog, and I’m enjoying OnOne 9.5, which you helped me discover – so thanks. While I can’t join the new import club, I’m happily a member of the Matt K fan club. Cheers!
Thanks JP. I do think you’re in the minority though. Trust me… I have pros and advanced “geeky” people that still come to me and ask how to use Lightroom. And when they ask, they’re not asking about what does the exposure slider do. They don’t know how to import their photos and not lose them. It’s an issue and Adobe will address it to make it easier for people. Looks like they’ll probably leave the “advanced” stuff for you too though, but it will indeed change (and it needs to).
Am I then only one who looked in the preferences to turn this off? Preferences, General, Import Options, Show ‘Add Photos’ screen.
Looks like the old import dialog but in the new dark colours. There are a few feature missing, but I certainly don’t miss them.
I have used Lightroom for years and have never had an issue with the import dialog box. I thought that Adobe did a great job improving the importing of photos for the most part and I could not understand the outrage people had about it.
Thank you for posting this Matt.
I am with Matt on this one. It appears that the old import was being used for two purposes, one was import, the other was using it to move files around to sort out a mess.
The obvious solution is to have a simple import with as few ‘advanced’ features as possible and a separate ‘help me get my photos more organised’ dialog.
BTW I did use the eject after import checkbox.
Your point about Photoshop not taking things out should apply to Lightroom too. Adobe can, by all means, have a “simple” import but there should also be an “advanced” import for those who take advantage of the flexibility of the original import facility.
As Photoshop shows us time and time again, you can have your cake and eat it too…
Matt I totally respect your opinion and objective on this one, am I correct that the “check for duplicates” feature has gone away with the recent upgrade? That seems like an important feature, wonder why that would go away?
If you have a custom name on import, it doesn’t show what the name of the file will be as you type in the custom name. You’re kind of left wondering if it’s working right, and I’m not sure how you know if it’s first time of creating a new custom format.
I AGREE WITH YOU WHOLE HEARTEDLY. I HAVE USE LR SINCE 1.0 AND IT IS BETTER THAN EVER.
Change is always difficult. I have been using LR from the very beginning, and had no trouble switching to the new Import. The important thing for me was your video explaining how to put photos in their own folder first, then importing to let LR know where they are. That changed everything for me. It is really Adobe’s loss to not have your input. I can only imagine what kind of politics are working there, but I’m happy to send Bryan O’Neill Hughes a letter, with a copy to Narayan. I don’t think I could get more than two-three hundred more guys to join me.
Thanks so much Gerry. And you nailed it with the import. I’ve always thought the best way was to put your photos where you want them first. If you do that, then this whole Import dialog stuff doesn’t make a difference. It just becomes a simple step to select a folder and click Import. Even the missing features (eject card) become needless at that point because you would have probably already done that when you moved your photos on the computer. As for politics… I kind of expected it when I made them move, so it’s all good. Stuff happens right 🙂 Thanks again!
Either way works for me. I would be just fine with the new one that we have, especially if they brought back the Eject the Card option.
I’m really glad to see this post. I feel like every time any company makes a change/update to their software, hardware, you name it … there is always ranting about how the older version was better. I never liked the LR import dialog/process, but I got familiar with it. Despite the fact that I thought the new dialog looked much better than the old, due to all of the negative comments I read, I decided not to update. I think you have convinced me to give it a try.
I’m not a pro, and to be honest, most of the time all of the changes that people get so worked up about don’t matter to me one way or another. I do think, though, that there is an irrational fear from some that if you make something too easy, then everyone will be able to use it and somehow that will take away from their own work. But a great photographer (or artist in any endeavor) doesn’t become less great simply because more people have access to the same tools that he/she uses.
And I’m with you. I do not want to see Lightroom become the behemoth that Photoshop has become. Put back the couple of features people have said they want (I don’t really understand the thinking behind getting rid of the eject card after import) and otherwise leave it alone. Let’s move on.
I don’t mind the new import dialog but it crashes all the time on my computer. It drives me nuts.
I don’t know why an update hasn’t come yet. I think they should keep this version and fix the bugs.
Personally, I really enjoyed the new Import experience. It felt like a measured change. Those of us who are old hats could do what they wanted, for the most part, and it gave people an easy way into what is otherwise, a daunting application.
I’m sad to see it go. Hopefully it will still be the default experience, and they add a toggle to go back to the old way.
I absolutely agree with you. I love the new import. I want to keep it.
I wasn’t hindered by the new import dialog and did see that newcomers would be helped. You can sign me up for your club, Matt.
I don’t really mind the new import but I wish I could tell the darn thing to re-import duplicates. For my normal work flow I import by date (i.e. create a new folder called 2015-11-13 and stuff the pics from that day in there). I had a one-off case where I had received a bunch of photos for a slideshow and I wanted all of them in a single folder. I forget to change the destination folder and I ended up with pictures scattered all over. Well that part was my fault and I’ll have to clean it up. The problem was I wanted to re-import them and of course I couldn’t because why on Earth would I need two copies? Sure, there were all there in the “Previous Import” folder and I could have just deleted them but of course I ended up doing another import and so that option was out. I needed to re-import the pictures even though they were in the catalog.
Simplifying the interface? No problem. Taking away things I need? I am gonna start throwing things and yelling expletives in as many languages as I can muster. Then I’ll end up as your cellmate….
It’s really relief to see some others that like the new import screen. I always import from my hard drive to lightroom and wonder if that practice works better with the new scheme as opposed to importing directly from the camera or card?
“If it ain’t broke”, but it was. The Import module needed fixing, not simplifying. If your mom needs to learn Lightroom, then perhaps an Elements version is the way to go, and whatever happened to the”don’t import duplicates”check box?
If you’ve ever used Elements before you’ll know that it’s every bit as difficult as Photoshop to learn. The interface is 80% of what Photoshop is and has all of the complexity. Not to mention the Organizer is actually harder to use than Lightroom is for managing photos. So no, I totally disagree that Elements is the way for her to go 🙂
I’m in! Great rand! 🙂
I must admit I preferred the old one, but have no issues what so ever with the new one, I spend little time using it compared to everything else in the software so I don’t see why people are ranting about it.
I taught one of my friends the basics of Lightroom and as you alluded to in your post the most questions were on the import dialogue. In the end I just set the default and told him which button to hit. I’ve yet to catch up with him about the new one but I know he’ll prefer it!
Man…people DO NOT like change out there! In this day and age, you have to be able to adapt to change. I personally love the new import process. I “got” the old process but didn’t see any harm in updating the new process. I think it works great. Adobe is thinking ahead and Matt hit the nail on the head…the future of photography is with people like his mom. The word about Lightroom being so great is out there and Adobe can grow their Lightroom business by making the software easier to use. If we want the software to be “professional grade” and restricted to the pros, the cost is going to greatly increase since their market would be limited. That’s not gonna happen any time soon though.
Well said Joe! Totally agree on pricing too. There’s not enough in the “pro” market to sustain a low enough price point.
Pro? Those “Pros” who are upset can spend far more cash and use Capture One if the they think the import dialog has dummed down LR to a consumer level. I’m tired of “Pros” thinking they have to have some special software that the majority can’t use.
That’s great, but some of us are annoyed that people who don’t want to or can’t be bothered to learn something because they just want pointy-clicky do it now functionality are dumbing down just about everything in the World. Guess what, the dumber you make your software the dumber the customer you get in return.
I think that just shows that some people are just too dumb to learn something new when things change.
I never had an issue with the old import process, and really don’t mind the new one. What really bugs me is Adobe and the heavy handed methods of giving you what they want you to like. So far On1 has been user friendly in that respect, and I wish they had a replacement for Lightroom so I get rid of adobe products.
I dunno George – I have to disagree on this one. Adobe has rarely changed things where they didn’t leave the old methods intact. Hence my point about Photoshop growing to a huge app. Things are very rarely taken away in Photoshop so the way you did it 10 years ago, usually works the same today.
When I heard all the complaints about the new import process, I was a little concerned. The first time I used the new import I wondered what all the ruckus was about.. I prefer this version over the older version and I can see where it would be so much easier to teach to people that are new to Lightroom.
I made the decision to convert from a Windows machine to Mac.
Apparently between the time I transferred all my photos and reloaded CC onto the Mac, Adobe must has issued a update to LR. One day I’m on my PC looking at old importer and a couple days later looking at the new importer on the Mac.
I’m saying to myself, that’s cool , I like the Mac version better.
Surprise they are the same.
I have been using LR since 1.0 , I have to also agree with your comments.
BTW- miss you at Kelby, hope new job is going well.
I didn’t like it when it first came out but just because it was different and I had to relearn a few things. Now I like it, I’m in the club.
Hi Matt. First I think No way, get the old thing back….. Now I can see the Light…….
I still use LR5 so I have actually not used the new import module in LR6. But when I heard about all fuzz about the new import in LR6 i was surprised. The new import module looks appealing to me. What I have read, the main reason why people dislike it, is not usability – rather extremely slow import speed.
I haven’t heard anything about being slow. Lightroom (unfortunately) has always had a slow import. That’s nothing new and doesn’t seem worse with the new one to me.
I personally don;t mind the new import. I never had any issues with it crashing my lightroom, BUT above should never have removed features from the import process, in particular the ability to click a tick box that ejects the card when import is complete.
They claim that this was a feature that was never used and yet is the most complained about issue of the new import function.
Improve things, fine, but don’t remove things that people use and rely on daily.
I’m with you. I used that checkbox too. I don’t agree that nothing should ever be removed though. You have to have analytics that tell you what people use, and IF you have a better way, then I’m ok with progress. If you leave every feature there for ever and ever, you’re going to end up with a Photoshop-like tool that becomes a huge beast. In this case of the checkbox though, there isn’t a better way to do it so I would rather see it stay as well.
I agree with you Matt. I like the new and I also think it needed to be updated. I am a Lightroom user since LR2.
BTW, I’d love to be part of the club.