Images Imported from Lightroom Mobile not Recognized as Duplicates

[CameraCarl]

I've been experimenting with Lightroom Mobile as a way to download and save RAW images to an iPad from my Canon & Sony cameras while traveling without a laptop. I use the Apple camera connector kit cord to download images from the camera to the Camera Roll on my iPad. Then I select and copy all my images to Lightroom Mobile. After a while with fast WiFi service, LR Mobile then moves them to the web and they "magically" appear on my desktop iMac at home. I've checked the images and they have the same date/time information and are the same size files as the ones in the camera memory card. But if I later put that same memory card in the card reader of the desktop to download other images not transferred -- LR does not recognize the old images as duplicates in the import dialog of the Library module. In other words, the images which reside on my home computer are not grayed out in the import dialog, thus would be imported again. Is there something I am doing wrong in my process? Was the exif data somehow modified by the LR Mobile copy/upload to the web/download to my computer process? Or is LR Mobile just not sophisticated enough to discriminate between images imported two different ways?

 

[Jim Wilde]

Hi, welcome to the forums.

Lightroom should be able to detect that the images on the card are duplicates of the ones you imported to LRmobile and then synced.....provided, of course, that "Don't Import Suspected Duplicates" is checked in the Import dialog. Have you confirmed that?

I just ran a test and everything worked as expected, i.e. when I opened the import dialog in Lightroom, it did indeed detect that the images were duplicates of the ones I'd added to LR via mobile sync. So I don't think LRmobile changes anything on the files, but if you're still having trouble we'll need to look somewhere else for the solution.

 

[CameraCarl]

I just tried it again. Out of some 250 images on the memory card, the first 20 were imported via card reader to the computer before the batch of 220 which were imported via LR Mobile synch. The last 10 were imported via card reader later. When I put the card back in the reader and opened the import dialog, with Don't Import Suspected Duplicates checked, the first 20 and last ten were greyed out, but the 220 imported via LR Mobile are still importable. Just now I was able to import a duplicate via the card reader which wound up in my Library right next to the identical image imported via Lightroom Mobile web synch. But Lightroom assigned it a -2 suffix which implies that LR recognizes it as a duplicate, but imported it anyway. Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated. Let me know if you need any other information.

 

[clee01l]

...Lightroom assigned it a -2 suffix which implies that LR recognizes it as a duplicate, but imported it anyway....

Your Filesystem rules prevent two files in the same folder from having the same name. Your Operating system appends the -2 on the second file with that name added to that folder. LR is not recognizing the second file as a duplicate. Check the create date timestamp on both files to see if there is a difference there. Also look at file size differences in bytes for differences.

 

[CameraCarl]

Thanks. I've checked the exif and iptc data and both are identical. Same file size to two decimal points; same date/time to the second.

 

[clee01l]

Were the files coming from Lightroom Mobile web sync added after the files were imported from the camera card? Or was it the other way around?

 

[CameraCarl]

I added the files through Lightroom Mobile web synch while traveling last week. This week when I got home, I confirmed that the files added through web synch were loaded on my computer drive, and verified that they were accurate copies of the files on my memory card. Then I started to import additional photos taken after doing the LR Mobile web synch from the same memory card. That is when I discovered that the Library Import dialog menu was NOT showing the LR Mobile files as duplicates of the same files on the SDHC card. In the next few days when I have a chance I will try the process again using a different memory card and different set of image files from a different camera to see what happens.