lihtroom problem..

[The_Traveler]

go to Edit preferences and uncheck add photo screen

then you should see the good old import dialog

 

[Dave442]

Yes, if you import files using Copy and those are already on the harddrive (but not yet in the LR database) then you will have anther folder with the same files.

If you like to do a Derrel does and put the files on the harddrive outside of LR, then you want to use Add.

While my RAW files are in the Archive directory, my JPEGS go into a Developed directory and in that directory I have subfolders for JPG, TIFF and PDF. When I export the files I use an export preset and one option I have set is to add text to the end of the file name. One reason for that is I often use LR to search for a photo and then I can easily do a search for the first part of that file name in the develop directory to see if I previously Exported that image. The export preset includes text in the filename so I know if that was for print or social media.

With either Add or Copy there is the option to Do Not Import Suspected Duplicates. I also have a Metadata preset that is added on import, a new one for each year to update the copy-write info to the current year.

On Windows I use Xplorer2 for file management and that has a very good set of search features and can also find duplicate files, batch rename, etc. On the Mac I installed Forklift, but it is nowhere near as powerful as Xplorer2.

 

[astroNikon]

OK, here is what I do to not have a duplicate file:
1) Both my cameras have different prefixes set up, DRB and DB2.
2) I let LR do the import from my camera card to do steps 3 and 4 for me (you can batch rename files but LR seems to do this just fine).
3) LR adds a custom name on import, yyyymmdd{filename} (as the RAW files have a filename that starts with an underline "_" a sample filename after import is: 20151031_DRB5830.NEF and that ensures that no two of my filenames will ever be the same.
4) LR automatically puts my RAW files into a new directory that is called yyyymmdd and that goes into a Year subfolder.
5) That it. Basically if I do ever mess things up (and I have) the file name and the folder have the same name so I can get things back in order very quickly.

I do the same thing ^^^ as Dave does
I then use Collections to group photos. You can always "go to folder" or go to Collection while looking at a picture.

 

[dannylightning]

thanks guys. i unchecked that box, its more like the older version now which i like better. still only have add and copy as options.

i think i got it all figured out now. i appreciate all the help