Let's Learn Lightroom

Add photos to your photo library

You can add photos or videos to your photo library from the desktop, a mobile device, or the web. This lesson focuses on adding the sample files for this tutorial using the Lightroom desktop app.

1. In Lightroom, click Add Photos (the plus icon) at the top left of the workspace.

2. In the Finder (MacOS) or File Explorer (Windows) that opens, navigate to a folder of photos or individual photos on your computer or external drive.

   1. Note: If a camera or camera memory card is attached to your computer, you’ll see options to choose a camera device from which to add photos or browse to photos on an internal or external drive.

3. Click Review for Import (MacOS) or Choose Folder (Windows). On the next screen of photo previews, you can uncheck any photos you don’t want to add to your photo library. If you’re using the sample files for this tutorial, leave all the previews checked.

4. You have the option to include photos in a new or existing album during import. At the top of the preview screen, click to the right of Add to Album and choose New. Name the album and click Create. If you’re working with the sample files, this will make it easier to access these files later.

5. Click Add Photos at the top right of the preview screen to finish adding photos to your library.

6. Lightroom automatically copies the originals and uploads them to the Cloud at full resolution. The photos sync through the cloud to all your devices in the Lightroom ecosystem. If you edit a photo or make changes to its metadata in Lightroom, those changes also sync across the ecosystem.

Let's try some sample photos...

Video tutorial (we will be covering all of this in class)