Author: Tim Grey

Today’s Question: When I import from a card, in the upper left corner of Lightroom Classic screen I often see a message “performing two operations”. Why is that happening?

Tim’s Quick Answer: This is simply a reflection of the two key tasks being performed upon import. The first task is adding the images to the catalog, and the second is the building of previews for the images, with both tasks being performed concurrently.

More Detail: When certain tasks are being performed in Lightroom Classic, a progress bar will appear on the identity plate at the far left of the top panel. In the case of performing an import, this will generally involve two tasks being performed, and therefore two progress bars. That is based on adding the photos to the catalog, and building previews (such as Standard previews) for the images.

While the two tasks of importing and building previews are part of the overall import feature, they are divided into two separate tasks. With Standard or 1:1 previews it will generally take considerably longer to build the previews than it will to add the photos to the catalog. With individual progress bars for each, you’ll know when the import portion is complete.

One reason it is helpful to know when the import is finished before the previews have been built is that you can’t initiate another import until the previous import is complete. With the tasks being divided across two progress bars, you’ll have a clearer indication that the previous import is finished so you’re able to initiate another import.

Today’s Question: Information such as star ratings and color labels appears in both the grid view and the filmstrip in Lightroom Classic. Can I turn these items off for the grid view to reduce clutter?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, for the most part you can choose whether to have icons such as star ratings and status badges for the grid view and filmstrip appear on only one of them, none of them, or both of them.

More Detail: There are separate options for configuring the information displayed along with thumbnails for both the grid view and the filmstrip on the bottom panel in Lightroom Classic, which enables you to configure these two thumbnail displays independent of each other. The only exception is the color label tint option, for which the same setting will always affect both the grid view and the filmstrip.

If you want to adjust the settings for the grid view, go to the menu and choose View > View Options. In the Library View Options dialog go to the Grid View tab, and adjust the settings based on your preference. In addition to choosing between Compact Cells and Expanded Cells, you can also choose what information is displayed with the thumbnails. This mostly revolves around checkboxes that enable you to enable or disable the display of specific icons or attributes.

If you want to adjust the settings for the filmstrip on the bottom panel, from the menu choose Edit > Preferences on Windows or Lightroom Classic > Preferences on Macintosh. Go to the Interface tab and adjust the checkbox settings in the Filmstrip section based on your preference.

As noted above, the exception is the color tint for color labels. This option causes the frame around each thumbnail to reflect the color of the color label assigned to each image. The setting for this option is found in the Library View Options dialog (View > View Options) in the Options section of the Grid View tab. However, toggling the “Tint grid cells with label colors” checkbox will affect both the grid view and the filmstrip, so there isn’t a way to have the color tint for one but not the other.

Today’s Question: When you enable the option to store presets with the catalog, it indicates that presets stored with the catalog need to be backed up manually. Why would this option prevent the presets from being backed up?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Lightroom Classic presets must always be backed up manually. The message you’re seeing is simply clarifying that storing presets with the catalog does not cause them to be backed up with the catalog backup feature in Lightroom Classic.

More Detail: By default, when you add or save presets or templates in Lightroom Classic they are saved in a somewhat hidden folder on your hard drive, along with settings files for many other applications. There is an option on the Presets tab of the Preferences dialog, however, that allows presets to be stored alongside your catalog. There are two key issues to be aware of with this option, however.

As noted in today’s question, presets must be backed up manually, meaning they aren’t backed up by Lightroom Classic. Backing up the Lightroom Classic catalog using the built-in feature will not cause your presets or other settings to be backed up. Only the catalog is backed up. That’s true regardless of whether you’re storing presets with the catalog. However, if you enable the option to store presets with the catalog you’ll see a message indicating that they must be backed up manually, just to clarify that they won’t be backed up with the catalog backup feature just because they were moved to the catalog folder.

The other thing to be aware of is that if you enable this option existing custom presets you created or added won’t be moved. This can lead to a situation where the default Lightroom Classic presets and new presets saved moving forward will be stored with the catalog, but your existing presets will be stored in the default location. You would then need to manually move custom presets to the new folder location.

In either case, however, it is important to keep in mind that backing up the Lightroom Classic catalog with the built-in feature doesn’t back up your photos or any of your other custom user data, such as saved presets and templates.

Today’s Question: I’m going to get started with Lightroom Classic, and have organized my photos (about 60,000 in total) into folders on an external hard drive. When I import these photos, should I do so in small groups of folders or is it possible to import all the photos at once?

Tim’s Quick Answer: You can absolutely import all the photos with a single import step, using the “Add” option in conjunction with any other settings you prefer.

More Detail: When importing photos for the first time into Lightroom Classic, there’s really no need to import the photos in batches. You can simply import the full folder structure in a single import.

After clicking the Import button at the bottom of the left panel in the Library module, you can select the source for your import from the left panel in the Import dialog. For example, you can select the external hard drive that contains all your photos, or the top-level folder for your photo storage.

At the top-center of the Import dialog select the Add option, which is for adding photos to the catalog but leaving them where they are currently stored. You can then configure the other settings on the right panel before clicking the Import button to initiate the import.

I recommend selecting the Standard option for building previews. This can take considerable time depending on how many images and the resolution of those images, among other factors. With 60,000 images I would expect the process of importing the photos to take around 15 to 30 minutes, while building previews will likely require several hours.

Today’s Question: You’ve mentioned that the new Assisted Culling feature [in Lightroom Classic] is mostly helpful when reviewing portraits rather than other types of photography. But how helpful is this feature for identifying the best and worst photos from a portrait session?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I would say the new Assisted Culling feature in Lightroom Classic is good but imperfect for reviewing portraits, but I’m also confident it will continue to improve relatively rapidly.

More Detail: The Assisted Culling helps identify favorite versus outtake photos, in part by detecting whether an image is in focus and whether a person’s eyes were open, among other factors. Overall, it is relatively accurate, but it does make some mistakes.

For example, in my testing I found that if narrow depth of field was used intentionally, the image often gets marked with a low score because it isn’t perceived as having good focus. Similarly, I’ve found that images with somewhat dramatic lighting often get flagged as having exposure problems.

These sorts of challenges can obviously dilute the value of the Assisted Culling feature. However, it is important to recognize the considerable benefit this feature can provide as well.

The way I look at it, I wouldn’t blindly trust the Assisted Culling feature to identify my best photos. However, I would trust it to help me narrow a batch of photos to those most likely to be among my best from a photo shoot. For example, if I’ve captured a large number of photos, I would certainly leverage Assisted Culling to determine the photos I should focus on first, because the photos marked as rejected by Assisted Culling have a lower chance of being among my favorites.

In other words, for now I see the Assisted Culling feature as being helpful for enabling me to make the best use of my time by focusing on the photos marked as likely being among the best. But among those photos there will probably be some I would reject, and among those rejected by Assisted Culling I often find photos I like. So it is helpful, but not perfect, though again it will certainly improve over time.

Today’s Question: I know you’ve mentioned that you can’t assign more than one color label to a photo. For my workflow I would find it very helpful to be able to assign multiple color labels to identify the status of different images. Can you recommend any workflow for getting around this limitation?

Tim’s Quick Answer: In this type of scenario, I recommend using what I refer to as “fake keywords”, which are just keywords used for purposes beyond subject identification in an image.

More Detail: As noted in today’s question, you can only add a single color label to an image when it comes to software that uses the Label metadata field for this purpose. This is similar to how you can only assign a single star rating to an image, so an image can’t have both a two-star and a four-star rating, for example.

One way you can work around this type of limitation is to use a keyword for situations where you might want to assign more than one attribute, such as when you would otherwise want to assign more than one color label to an image. For example, if you use a red color label for an image that needs to be reviewed and a green color label for images you want to share with someone else, you can’t assign both color labels for an image that you both need to review and want to share with someone else.

I refer to keywords being used for something of a non-standard purpose as “fake keywords”, even though they are very much keywords being added to metadata. For example, I use the keyword “InstagramShare” to identify photos I’ve shared to my Instagram feed, so I know which images have versus have not been shared.

For color labels you could use somewhat literal keywords such as “RedLabel” and “GreenLabel”, or you could use custom keywords that represent tasks, such as “Task-Review” and “Task-Share”. You could even then create a smart collection for applicable keywords, so that the smart collection would be automatically populated by all images that contain the applicable keyword perhaps along with other metadata attributes.

Today’s Question: Since updating to Lightroom Classic 15, Lens Blur, which has always worked well in the past, now stops working after a while. If I clear the cache and reboot it starts working again. Are there any fixes?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I’ve seen several reports of problems with the Lens Blur adjustment with Lightroom Classic 15, so I assume Adobe will provide a fix reasonably soon. Besides clearing the cache, I’ve also seen suggestions that disabling GPU support has helped work around this issue.

More Detail: I haven’t been able to reproduce this issue myself, but I’ve seen a number of reports from users of both Windows and Macintosh indicating that the Lens Blur adjustment isn’t working (or only works intermittently) since the update to Lightroom Classic 15.

There are indications that clearing the cache helps resolve this issue, at least temporarily. To do so, go to the Performance tab of the Preferences dialog in Lightroom Classic and click the Clear Cache button in the Camera Raw Cache Settings section. I recommend restarting Lightroom Classic after clearing the cache and then testing to see if the Lens Blur adjustment is working.

I’ve also seen indications that disabling GPU support can help with this issue. To disable GPU support go to the Performance tab of the Preferences dialog and set the Use Graphics Processor popup to Off. Once Adobe (hopefully soon) provides an update that resolves the issue with the Lens Blur filter be sure to go back and set the Use Graphics Processor option to Auto (or Custom) to take advantage of the performance improvement it can provide.

Today’s Question: I bought a new hard drive, and the setup document indicates it is formatted with “ExFAT” for compatibility with both Windows and Macintosh. Should I leave that as it is, or format the drive for my operating system?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I recommend formatting the drive for your operating system, meaning NTFS for Windows or APFS for Macintosh. It is very important, however, to keep in mind that formatting the hard drive will erase all data on it.

More Detail: While the ExFAT file system does enable you to use a hard drive with both Windows and Macintosh interchangeably, I don’t recommend using it because tech people like me consider it to be more prone to corruption and other issues. This is due in part to the file system not being journaled, which is a particular problem if the drive gets disconnected unintentionally. I therefore recommend using NTFS (Windows) or APFS (Macintosh).

Keep in mind, of course, that formatting a hard drive will erase all data on the drive. Therefore, you’ll want to perform this step before you use the drive to store any of your data. You can format the drive using Disk Management on Windows or Disk Utility on Macintosh, where it is also important to make sure you select the correct drive for formatting.

Today’s Question: I am looking at an iMac or a Mac Mini, and the models I’m considering only come with 2 TB of hard drive space. I currently have 3 TB, which gets me by. Is it preferable to move all my photos and Lightroom Catalog to an external drive and work off that? If so, how would I do that? Or is there a better alternative?

Tim’s Quick Answer: I suggest keeping the Lightroom Classic catalog on the internal drive, unless you need to be able to move the catalog between computers. However, I do recommend storing your photos on an external hard drive.

More Detail: While it is possible to get more than 2TB of storage on most computers, that may involve opting for a more powerful (and expensive) configuration in order to be able to add more storage capacity. I don’t consider it worth paying a premium for internal storage when you can use external storage at a considerably lower cost.

For example, with an Apple Mac Mini the cost to go from 4TB to 8TB of storage is $1,200, while you can get a great external SSD for a little over $300. I use and recommend the SanDisk Extreme line of SSDs, and you can find the 4TB model here:

https://timgrey.me/sandisk4tb

To migrate to external storage, you can create a new folder on the new hard drive within Lightroom Classic. Start by clicking the plus (+) button to the right of the Folders heading on the left panel in the Library module and choosing “Add Folder” from the popup menu. Then navigate to the new hard drive and click the New Folder button to create a new folder, using a general name such as “My Photos” for the folder. Then click the Choose button to finalize the change. You’ll then see that new empty folder in the Folders section of the left panel in Lightroom Classic, under a heading for the new hard drive.

Before proceeding, make sure you have a good backup (or two or three) of your photos, just to be sure you have an easy way to recover in case anything goes wrong during the process of moving your photos to the new drive.

At that point you can select folders from your internal drive and drag them to the new folder on the new drive. I recommend working in small batches of folders, so it is easier to recover from any issues that may arise during the process. You can select a small number of folders at a time by clicking the first folder, holding the Shift key, and clicking the last folder. You can repeat this process until all folders and photos have been moved to the new hard drive.

Today’s Question: I have run into a problem after upgrading to the latest version of Lightroom Classic. I keep having an exclamation mark on my ultimate parent folder, but there is no exclamation mark on any of the subfolders.

Tim’s Quick Answer: It is possible you’re experiencing a bug that I’ve not seen reported. However, I also recommend double-checking that there isn’t a missing subfolder since that is what the new icon indicates.

More Detail: The new folder badge introduced with Lightroom Classic 15 indicates that there is a subfolder somewhere within that folder that is missing. If the missing folder is empty, it is possible there are no missing photos in your catalog, only missing folders.

The new badge is actually quite helpful, in that it makes it more clear when you have an issue with one or more missing folders and possibly missing photos. When a folder is missing, all folders that are a parent to that folder will have an exclamation point icon within a black circle. So, for example, let’s assume you have a date-based folder structure where there’s a top-level “Photos” folder with subfolders for years and subfolders within those for months. So, for example, you might have a folder named “01” (for January) within a folder “2025”, which in turn is within the “Photos” folder.

In this scenario, if the “01” folder is missing it would display a question mark icon on the folder icon within the Folders list. The “2025” and “Photos” folders would show the exclamation point icon within a black circle.

So, to locate the missing subfolder you would make sure the top-level folder is expanded to reveal subfolders and then scroll down the full list looking for the exclamation point icon. Assuming you found such a folder, you would need to expand it to reveal its subfolders so you could look for the missing subfolder within.

If you’ve scoured the folders list and don’t have an exclamation point icon for any subfolders, I would try quitting Lightroom Classic and restarting it. If at that point the icon still appears, I would assume there is a bug with this feature, in which case hopefully Adobe will address that soon.

If it does seem to be a bug, you can submit the details to Adobe here:

https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html