Today’s Question: I was wondering why every time I go to import new images into the Lightroom Classic catalog the images keep moving around. I have sorted by capture time, but it still is happening.
Tim’s Quick Answer: When you initially select a source of photos in the Import dialog the photos will load in the order they are read from the card, but when all photos have been found they will settle on the order you’ve selected from the Sort popup.
More Detail: Lightroom Classic provides several options for how you want your photos sorted. In the Library module, for example, you can set the sort order using the Sort popup on the toolbar below the image preview area. Similarly, you can set the sort order for the grid view in the Impot dialog, which can be helpful when reviewing the photos you’re about to import. For example, I most often prefer to use the “Capture Time” option for the sort order, so that I’m able to review the photos in the same order they were captured.
However, when you initially select a source of photos in the Import dialog, you’ll likely see that the sort order for thumbnails seem to constantly change, bouncing around in a seemingly random fashion.
The issue here is that the thumbnails are being added to the preview area as they are read from the card, and the images are not necessarily read from the card in the order they were captured. This is in part due to how images are saved to a media card in the first place, which involves writing data in what may seem like a bit of a random pattern on the card.
The result is that images are not read from the card in the order you might expect. As the images are read, they will populate the grid view in the Import dialog. Depending on the speed of your computer and the memory card, it may take a few moments for all the images to be located and therefore it may take a little time before all thumbnails are displayed.
Therefore, as the images are read, they will initially appear in the order in which they were read from the card, but then their order will update based on the option you’ve selected from the Sort popup. As soon as all images have been read so that all thumbnails are displayed, the thumbnails will stop changing their sort order, settling on the final sort order based on all images being displayed in the order you’ve selected.
This behavior can be a little distracting, and so I recommend just ignoring the images while you give Lightroom Classic time to locate all images, then finalize your settings for the import and click the Import button to complete the process.
