Lightroom RAW Import Question

When I import RAW files into Lightroom I don't see a preview of the photo in the preview window to the right. But I do see jpeg previews.

Is this normal or is there a problem?

IS this while trying to import RAW and JPEG at the same time or at seperate times? RAW previews should be available in the right side of the import dialog box. Are you using a card reader?

You say you don't see the previews; are the RAW files being imported any way? I would assume no, but had to ask. I think Mike is on the right track here. What camera and version of LR are you using?

I shoot RAW only (not RAW+JPG) with a Rebel XT. I import them directly from the camera since I don't have a card reader yet. I am using Lightroom 1.3.1 (or whatever the latest version is) with a Windows XP machine. The RAW files import without any problems (except the preview). I can see the grey square that represents the RAW files, I can even uncheck the selection box to choose not to download it. If my card has some files I took in RAW plus a few the wife took in green box mode and jpg, they both download fine but I can only see previews for the jpegs. This happens whether I have a ton of photos or just a few and I have waited and waited for the previews to render but that hasn't helped. My computer isn't new, but should be sufficient (Pent 4 3.2GHZ with a gig of ram, I know two would be better). I have no other issues with my Lightroom software.

Ah, got it now - thanks for that explanation. I use a card reader mainly, but had the same issue when I needed to import directly from my camera recently when my card reader died. Interestingly enough, I didn't have the issue the one other time I had to import from my camera using LR, but that was with my laptop. I believe it's because I installed the registry fix that tells Windows XP that a CR2 file is an image file. It used to be, when I first started shooting RAW, that you could only use a card reader because Windows treats it as another drive and shows all files. When you hook a camera up directly, Windows knows it's a camera and only shows files that it thinks are image files. I was going to give it a shot this weekend and install the fix on my desktop at home (or the next time I remembered it anyway), but if you can't wait until then you can probably find the link to the fix somewhere on the forum if you search on registry.

Or, PM me an address I can send the fix to.

If you are talking about this, I can't get it to install on my machine. I get an error every time. If you are talking about something else, let me know.

I thought that might be related, but while I don't expect Windows to know what a CR2 is, I fully expect Lightroom to recognize it regardless whether its coming from a card reader or directly from my camera. I guess Microsoft has their fingers into even the best applications.

Sounds like I can hunt through a bunch of techie boards to try to find the cause of my install error, or I can just go out and buy a card reader.

Nope, that's not it. I'm talking about a script that updates the registry to let XP know that a CR2 is an image. But, I just tried it out and it makes no difference, there are still no thumbnails. I also retried on my work laptop and no thumbnails there either.

This actually makes me feel a bit better, because I couldn't understand why, if the OS could identify the files, what difference that registry setting would make with regards to allowing LR to view the thumbnails. So, it appears that where LR used to be able to see the thumbnails, it now can't.

Perhaps this is a bug in LR that will be fixed in another version. But, I doubt that enough people will actually put it on the bug list to get Adobe's attention.

I guess if you want to do this without a card reader, you'll have to use Explorer to copy them to your hard drive first and then import them into LR.