P: Is there a way to delete just unwanted photos off memory card?

Perhaps we should move this discussion here: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

Since, as Steve has pointed out - Lightroom is presently NOT capable of deleting unwanted photos from memory card.

Having to repeat myself is frustrating when someone is not reading what is written and insisting LR does things it demonstrably does not, and I am being more direct and less diplomatic than someone at Adobe would be so the message is more clear.

Steve, seriously, what is your problem? You have already pointed out that this is easily doable. If the title needs to change, then fine, but we are asking for the same thing.

Also, I who made you the authority to call my idea "worst practices". Not everybody wants to buy more equipment that can be stolen/broken/lost etc. Perhaps I should call that worst practises?

Everybody uses Lightroom a little differently. We all pay for it, so we should be able to suggest changes (some which would require very little programming).

LR forgets a photo has been imported when it is removed from the Library and cannot tell if a photo is new or just deleted from the Library.

Try it and see. Import a photo. Remove the photo from the library. Import the photo, again, with Add New and Don't Import Suspected Duplicates enabled and the photo will be presented as a never-Imported photo.

Sure, LR could be programmed to do anything a computer can do, but Adobe is unlikely to go through the effort just to accommodate a few stubborn users that are following "worst practices" of using a memory card as semi-permanent storage.

Lightroom can know which photos have been imported, so it would never delete a photo that had not been imported.

If you want to make a request, then something safe and doable would be Remove Rejected Photos from Memory Card, and I expect it'd be near the option in the menu that says Remove Rejected Photos from Disk or whatever the exact wording is.

There is no way for LR to tell the difference between a deleted photo and a never imported photo—neither exist in LR but both would exist on the card, so the operation is *not safe* unless LR keeps information around about photos that have been deleted. That’s all I was saying.

If the subject of this thread was “I want LR to delete Rejected photos from the card that have not yet been deleted in LR” then that would be safely doable because the record of the photo is still in LR and LR could use the file-signature it has to detect duplicate imports to know if it should delete the LR-rejected photo it sees on the card.

Steve,

Shaun wants Lightroom to delete photos from the card that have *already* been imported, but subsequently deleted from Lightroom - not ones that haven't been imported yet. That's a readily doable thing, and would allow a traveler to maintain another copy on excess card space of all keepers or trim down to just the best ones if need be. I can certainly see the value in this.

Rob

You’re asking LR to delete everything off of a card that doesn’t match something in its library. This is not safe in the simple and general case, because LR cannot know or reasonably verify that nothing has been changed on the card.

For example, if LR is just doing a quick filename match between the LR Library and memory card:

What happens if you put in the wrong card, one that has not been imported yet—everything (on the card) would be deleted.

What happens if you’ve take more pictures and reinserted the card, then those new pictures would be deleted.

What happens if you renamed the photos as you imported them so they can’t be matched by name, anymore—everything is deleted.

LR could detect a wrong card or added images or the renamed photos by keeping track of the card file names and locations, a file-signature computed from the data, and a memory-card serial number for each imported file and check it is only deleting a previously imported file that no longer exists in the LR library. LR would need to retain this information for each original file, forever, or at least an indefinite period of time, so probably would need a way to purge it. This would also help out the people with the opposite problem, where they want to skip any previously imported files, even if they’ve been deleted in LR, because they keep all their files on the card just re-importing only new images each time.

Alternatively, LR could do things safely if the memory card remained in the reader or the camera remained connected from the beginning of the import process, through the review process, and up through the last back-synchronized delete. As soon as the memory card is removed then things are unsafe because LR can’t know or trust that nothing has changed on the memory card between the import and review process, then LR would have to prohibit the synchronized-delete operation.

The point is that LR doesn’t know enough, yet, to keep things safe, or would need to require an unlikely scenario to keep things safe. Adobe has yet to deem such a request worth the extra programming effort to accomplish it safely. It's easy to ask that everyone pay a little extra for Adobe to program things safely for a few people and add extra support staff to accommodate the rash of calls every time the delete-synchronization is no longer available because the memory card was removed or camera disconnected before the Import/Review process was completed.
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“Packing light” seems mostly just an excuse to not change an existing routine out of sheer stubbornness, because an external USB-powered 1TB drive is almost as small as a smart-phone, a pack of cigarettes, a deck of cards, and probably smaller than an extra pair of socks or underwear, so easily can be packed with a laptop.

The corrected URL is: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...