Participant

Question

How do I get Lightroom 4 to delete off camera when importing (like iPhoto and Aperature)?

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
December 25, 2012
7 replies
17639 views

When I import photos using iPhoto or Aperature, I get an option to delete them off the camera when the import completes. That feature is really helpful when there are deveral hynred photos in memory. How do I accomplish the same thing using Lightroom 4?

Thanks,

Rob

This topic has been closed for replies.

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rainmann1955

Participant

After having unsuccessfully looked for the LR feature "delete photos from camera" I find via this forum that this feature is not in LR nor ever will be.

Can't stress this strongly enough . . . I would not have purchased LR if I knew this in advance.

Don't know if I'm going to continue to use this product . . . .

D Fosse

Community Expert

rainmann1955 wrote
I would not have purchased LR if I knew this in advance.

If you have never lost files this way, you should consider yourself lucky. A flaky USB cable is all it takes.

You do know that there is a "format memory card"-function in the camera, which should be used after confirming that all files have been successfully transferred to your hard drive - and backed up?

I just surfaced from a critical assignment where I had a total of 1650 shots on the two cards in the camera. The very words "delete from camera" is enough to give me nightmares.

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rainmann1955

Participant

Mr. Fosse,

Sitting at my feet is an 8-core AMD workstation, used for derivative trading. I put this machine together myself, integrating the mainboard, CPU, ECC memory, PS and cooling. So I know something about solid state (SS) components.

The memory card(s) that we all use is/are basically NOT designed to be repeatedly mounted (put into the camera) and unmounted (removed from the camera). Though you can do this many times over, you will shorten the life of your card by an exponential amount. And please let me repeat that word "exponential".

Murphy's Law (know him?) says that after you have taken those "critical 1650 shots" and in pulling your memory card from your camera you break something in the SS memory chip. And there goes that work . . . .

Though admittedly not a working pro (but a very serious amateur) if I was working an event I would first DOUBLE back up those pics onto two separate devices. And I would try to do this (ongoing) during the event, not after.

This hyper-caution comes from years of dealing with hardware failures . . . and that from SS parts that were never touched by human hands.

My point is this, LR is an "editor" and part of that editing work is deleting pictures that I don't want. Either on my WORKING hard drive, or my camera. Especially now that modern DSLRs have Bluetooth connectivity, there are pics that I want (temporarily) to remain on my camera.

And under no circumstances, and I mean NO . . . do I want to be repeatedly handling those in-camera memory cards.

As for putting a delete feature on LR, it would be easy to program safety features into a "delete" function. It could easily be made into a three step process with multiple confirms.

Past that, if you manage to accidentally delete critical photos, you should also not be using scissors and/or sharp knives of any kind.

Cheers.

Kenny

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Ratfinkle

Participant

Interesting that while people don't trust their own fingers to properly manage file through Lightroom there are a large number of people who will format their cards on a whim. In my case I usually do not want to erase the entire card but want to erase only the photos that I have successfully imported. The format function in computers, including cameras, was meant to rebuild the file structure on the device and loss of data was an unfortunate by-product. I find it interesting to see that people are now treating the format function as simply a "delete all" function. I prefer to know what is being deleted at any time and don't trust any "erase all" feature. Although some of the new cameras at least have an "erase all" feature which will clear the disk while still honoring any "do not delete" locks on individual pictures (format erases everything regardless of status).

I was hoping that Lightroom was going to be flexible enough to let me manage my photos without having to use a second product to manage the images on the camera. It is close but what is missing is the ability for me to delete the pictures on the camera WHEN I AM FINISHED WITH THEM. I agree I do not want delete to be automatic after import but it is insulting to have software imply that I am not smart enough to be able to manage my own images on the camera from the product. For people who are deathly afraid to delete things under software control and prefer the format sledgehammer there could be an option switch in preferences to disable / enable the ability to select / delete photos on the camera.

As you can tell by some of my comments, I am not a professional photographer and I understand the need to quickly delete large numbers of files and the practice of using cards for single photo shoot but to build a product that assume we all work like professionals is as silly as building a product that doesn't take professional behaviour into account.

Oh well, back to the multiple product approach until Lightroom matures in this area.

Rikk Flohr: Inactive

Participating Frequently

Ratfinkle wrote:

Oh well, back to the multiple product approach until Lightroom matures in this area.

You will be waiting a long time.

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FoBoys

Participating Frequently

Add me to the list of those very, very disappointed and ticked off that we cannot delete photos from our camera card after photos are imported to Mac. This was never an issue with Aperture and iPhoto during my 10+ years of using.

It is now a HUGE issue with LR5, when my SD card fills up while taking important photos.

Come on Lightroom!!!, please add this feature and let us consumers to use it or not.

P

photoshack

Participating Frequently

Although I have been using LR for about five years now, I really do think it is stupid that I don't have the option to clear the card after successfully importing. Many (many many) other image management tools do this, and the argument of "safety's sake" is rubbish. I am able to back up my card a host of ways, and my images are backed up on import along with the fact that I have dual cards.

I have not seen anything from Adobe on this obvious omission of common industry-standard functionality. I'd be happy to have some plugin for LR if it worked. But again, it is stupid not to have this feature as a built in option.

DdeGannes

Community Expert

There is an Adobe site dedicated to New Feature requests and Bug fixes. Post your request there, see the link below.

Recently active topics in Photoshop Family about Photoshop Lightroom

Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.

hamish niven

Inspiring

Rob

If I was you, I'd het into the habit of

insert card into camera
check to see if there are any images on the chip,
1. if you are 100% sure they have bee copied onto your computer - format the chip
2. if you are not 100% sure, put the card back in the holder and get the next card
Format the card
shoot

Simple as that

Formatting ensures that the chip can have images written quickly and efficiently, without risk of data corruption and

AND worst case scenario

if you do accidently delete or format a card with recently shot images you can simply get them all back with sandisks restore software.

That little tiny weeny thing that you want Lightroom to do for you will come back and bite you.

So as a pro who has formatted cards - and gotten back every single image from that formatted card, I'd use the above workflow for when you put cards into your camera, it takes about 10 seconds for a 64 Gb format on a 5D2 / 5D3, and a little longer on older bodies, so I'd really play pro and use my 1,2,3,4 above.

areohbee

Legend

hamish niven wrote:
insert card into camera
check to see if there are any images on the chip,
if you are 100% sure they have bee copied onto your computer - format the chip
if you are not 100% sure, put the card back in the holder and get the next card
Format the card
shoot
Simple as that

What's even simpler is:

1. Delete-after-import.

2. Shoot.

If there are photos on the card, then they haven't been imported, and if they've been imported, then they won't be on the card.

(3. reformat once in a while for good measure...)

R

PS

hamish niven wrote:
if you are 100% sure they have bee copied onto your computer - format the chip
if you are not 100% sure, put the card back in the holder and get the next card

1. Perhaps worth re-iterating: copy completion is not enough - data integrity should also be validated.

2. this only defers the problem, and increases the likelihood of a mistake in the future. I'd rather have the imported photos deleted as soon as (safely) possible (after import integrity validation and backup) - eliminating most of the possibility for data loss due to equipment failure or human mistake.

Still, it ain't no big deal to me: I just use an import plugin which supports delete-after-import, so for me: problem is solved. I just don't buy the rationale for it.

Note: As Mustang Joe pointed out - if you (inadvertently, or for whatever reasons you may have) don't import 100% of photos from card, then reformatting in camera afterward is not an option, or would be a mistake. I generally don't do that m'self, but I sympathize with those who do...

I personally don't much care if Adobe implements delete-after-import in Lightroom, but the proposed reasoning behind it's absence is not sound, and people who've come to appreciate the convenience and added safety of computer participation, don't see the omission as a plus, nay: a minus - to be sure...

Hopefully, if implemented, the feature would not be foisted upon everyone...

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areohbee

Legend

Lr has no (native) support for "delete-after-import". You can treat the card as a regular hard disk folder and use the "Move" behavior, but that is riskier then a true "delete-after-import" feature. OttoImporter (Lr plugin) supports delete-after-import, but configuration is not user-friendly. It's successor - Ottoman Importer: will be out shortly, will be friendlier to set up, and will also support "delete-after-import".

Definitions:

"Move" - delete immediately after transfer, before verifying imported copy.

"delete-after-import" - copy, and verify imported (and backup) copies, before deleting from card.

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C

CSS_Simon

Participating Frequently

The only people that have never lost important data are very young or very lucky.

I treat data as extremely fragile unless there are two copies, preferably three.

I don't delete files from memory cards until the images are:

copied to a computer,
backed up.

Sorry if that sounds preachy, but just see the number of threads here and elsewhere from desparate people that have lost images as a result of hardware, software or user error and oh no, I don't have any backup.

areohbee

Legend

Nobody is suggesting Lr should (necessarily) delete photos from cards immediately after copying (i.e. "Move"), only that it should be an option to have computer delete imported photos from cards after successful import, raw data integrity validation, and backup (delete-after-import).

E

elie-d

Participating Frequently

A deliberate decision was made by the designers of LR to not enable LR to do that, for safety reasons. LR will only copy from a memory card, not "move" files. Once you are sure the files have been properly copied, use the camera's formatting function. It is a better way to clean the card anyways.

D Fosse

Community Expert

Can't be done, and rightly so.

If something goes wrong in transfer your images may be lost. The safe way to do this is to use a card reader, and format the card in the camera afterwards. After a while it becomes routine.

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