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Add photos

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Lightroom

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Learn how to bring your photos into Lightroom for editing, organizing, and sharing.

Adding photos to Lightroom involves a few simple steps.

Note:

Working with Lightroom on your mobile devices? See Import photos in Lightroom for mobile (Android) and Import photos in Lightroom for mobile (iOS).

Lightroom makes a copy of the photos imported and uploads your full resolution original photos to the cloud. So, once you've imported the photos, you can consider deleting or moving the originals from their source, such as the memory card.

Launch Lightroom.
Add photos from a camera device

Connect the camera or card reader to your computer. If necessary, see your camera manufacturer's documentation for instructions on how to connect it to the computer.

Click  icon at the upper-left corner of the window. Alternatively, choose File > Add Photos... from the menu bar. From the context-menu that appears, choose the camera.

Your images will be available to review before adding to Lightroom. This is described in Step 3 below.

Add photos from a camera

Add photos from a hard drive folder

Click  icon at the upper-left corner of the window. Alternatively, choose File > Add Photos... from the menu bar. A dialog to select files from a local folder on your hard drive appears.

Note:

If a camera device or card reader is connected to your computer, clicking  icon brings up a context menu. In this case, choose Browse from the context menu. Choosing this option brings up a dialog to select files or folders on your hard drive.

Add photos from a hard drive folder
In the dialog that appears, do any of the following:
- Navigate and choose a folder containing the image files that you want to add. Then, click Review For Import (Mac)/Choose Folder (Win).
- Navigate and choose one or more image files that you want to add. Then, click Review For Import.
Your images will be available to review before adding to Lightroom. This is described in Step 3 below.
Add photos from a hard drive folder
You're looking at previews of your images. In this screen, you can select the images you'd like to add to Lightroom.

Review photos for importing
Select photos for import
- To select a photo for import, move the pointer over that photo and click the gray circular overlay that appears at the upper-left corner of the thumbnail. A blue check mark in the upper-left corner of the thumbnail indicates that the photo is selected for import.
- To select all the thumbnails appearing in the import screen, check the Select All option at the upper-right corner.
- To deselect any photo, click the blue check mark in the upper-left corner of the thumbnail.
Note:

Duplicate photos

While adding photos, Lightroom automatically detects 'duplicate' photos. In the import screen, a Previously Added text overlay on a thumbnail indicates that you've already added that photo in Lightroom. You can't add photos that are identified as duplicate.

If you think that a photo has been incorrectly identified as duplicate, you can work around this issue by renaming the photo in Explorer (Win)/Finder (Mac) and then adding it in Lightroom.
Add photos to an Album

Click the Add To Album drop-down list and choose any of the following:
- To add the selected photos but not as part of any Album, choose None.
- To create an Album and add the selected photos into the new Album, choose New.
- To add the selected photos into an existing Album, choose any of Album names displayed in the drop-down list.
Click Add Photos.

Note:

When you add photos, Lightroom saves them to the local storage location specified in the preferences. Therefore, the used disk space displayed in the Local Storage preferences may temporarily indicate a higher value. Once these photos are fully synced to the cloud, Lightroom manages the used space so that your photos don’t fill up your hard drive space.