This is a pretty random post, but if you use Adobe LightRoom 5, maybe you will find it helpful. This past couple of weeks I have been playing with a whole bunch of pictures 3 to 4 thousand, penguins are sooo cute that I could stop taking picture.

I really like Adobe LightRoom for ever so many reasons, but recently there were two, completely unrelated things that I found frustrating because I was Aware that it was possible to do them, but directions I found didn’t work. I figured out for myself how to do them, and will share them here, in case anyone else has the same problems.

The first is importing pictures on an external hard drive at their current location. The method that worked on my internal hard drive didn’t work after moving all of my photos and catalog to an external hard drive. I was unable to import new pictures without LR making copies. When I said “Import” in LR I was not given the Add files at their current locations option, so LR made a new copy of every file in the same folder! Grrrr.

What works, for no logical reason I can see is this: I highlight the folder in the library module then click the + by the Folders header (its on the left under Catalog), choose “Add Folder”. Then it says “no items match your search” and a box pops up so you can navigate to the folder. Find the folder, click “select folder”, then it finds all of the pictures that aren’t already in the LR catalog, and allows you to Add at the current location, click import on the lower right and you’re there. For a new folder create a folder in LR with the same name (and path!) as the one you want to import from.

The second is printing with true color: I am not sure whether it is LightRoom 5, my specific printer (HP Officejet 8620), or the combination, but the colors were wonky, blues especially were printing a very unnatural color. After a good bit of reading advice online, none of which matched the dialog boxes I seemed to have available, I accidentally found that I could get good color by selecting “Print Job” on the lower right instead of Print or Printer. This brought up options I couldn’t find elsewhere. By turning off “Draft Mode Printing” I was able to choose “sRGB IEC61966-2.1” for a profile under color management along with Intent: Perceptual it does a much better job of matching color.