Import your cards.
Prepare Lightroom.
Bring your shoot into organised folders with optional backups. Once photo import completes, Lightroom Connect creates catalogs for new photo date folders, applies your selected preset, then builds Standard and Smart Previews.
Import cards together
Choose the cards from your shoot and start them together.
Find the right shoot
Use dated folders and familiar names to find your work later.
Continue in Lightroom
Create catalogs after import, apply your preset, then build both preview types.
01 / BRING THE CARDS TOGETHER
Import the cards from your shoot together.
Connect your readers and refresh the list with FIND CARD. Choose the cards you need, check where their files will go, then SMART IMPORT starts them together.
LIGHTROOM CONNECT / AFTER PHOTO IMPORT
The import finishes.
Lightroom preparation begins.
Enable Create catalog and Build previews before you start. Once the photos are imported, Hootio creates a catalog for each new photo date folder and loads your selected import preset into it. Lightroom Classic then opens each new catalog and builds both preview types with those settings applied.
- Your import preset: choose an installed preset or a supported .xmp file in Settings. Choose None to keep default develop settings.
- Standard Previews: 2048 px previews for browsing your photos.
- Smart Previews: built alongside Standard Previews for the same catalog.
- Your files stay organised: catalogs and preview caches live in the Lightroom Catalog subfolder; photos stay in the date folder.
Requires Lightroom Classic 15+ and the Hootio Previews plugin. Existing catalogs are preserved. The queue reports catalog creation and preview generation separately.
Set up Lightroom ConnectLIGHTROOM CONNECT
Smart Import · Photo workflow
01 · Photo import complete
1,248 photos copied into the shoot folder.
02 · Lightroom Catalog created
Saved in this date folder’s Lightroom Catalog subfolder, with all photos in the date folder added to the catalog.
03 · Selected preset applied
Your chosen import preset is applied to every photo in the catalog before previews are built.
04 · Previews built in Lightroom
Standard and Smart Previews are built automatically for all photos after the preset is applied.
- Standard Previews
- 1,248 / 1,248
- Smart Previews
- 1,248 / 1,248
02 / FIND THE SHOOT LATER
Folders that make sense
tomorrow, too.
Give new shoot folders names you will recognise. Combine dates with a project or event name, then preview the result before importing. When you come back to the job, the folder is easier to find.
Make the name familiar to your team.
Use a shoot name that makes sense to the people opening the files, whether that is you tomorrow or an editor next week.
Save your naming preferences once and use them for future imports.
03 / GIVE THE SECOND COPY A PLACE
Keep a second copy.
Check it later.
Add a backup folder for your photos, your videos, or both. Give the files you work on and their backup copies separate places, so you know where to find each one.
Review your backup when you need to.
CHECK BACKUP helps you see reported differences between your working files and backups. You can run it again without reconnecting the original cards.
Choose a separate drive when you want your backup away from the files you work on.
04 / SEE WHAT ARRIVED
See the copies.
Know what needs attention.
See which files were copied, which already existed and which need attention. Photo import is the first stage: the Lightroom Connect queue then shows Catalog creation and Standard and Smart Preview progress, with your selected preset applied before previews are built.
CHECK THE IMPORT
Get a quick view of new copies, files marked as existing and anything that needs attention.
CHECK THE BACKUP
Review backup results separately, so you can see how the second copy went.
OPEN YOUR FILES
Go straight to the folders and check the photos, footage and sound you expected from the shoot.
THE EVERYDAY DETAILS
For the rest of the shoot, too.
From stills and sound to shared studio storage, keep the practical parts of bringing a shoot home in one place.
Follow the step-by-step guide- Photos, video and audio together
- Bring stills, camera footage and sound into the same import. Your photo and video folders keep the different parts of the shoot organised.
Choose both folders during setup, then use them again for future shoots.
- Useful extras can come along
- Bring related files from your media folders along with the shoot. Review their results alongside your photos and footage.
Keep the notes and other project files you need for the next stage close at hand.
- Returning to the same shoot?
- Smart Import can recognise files already in your shoot folder and show them separately from new copies. That makes a repeat import easier to review.
See what was added and what was marked as already there before moving on.
- Use the storage you work with
- Choose folders on your computer, an external drive or shared studio storage. Smart Import remembers where you want your files to go.
Open those folders straight from the app whenever you want a closer look.
OPTIONAL / VIDEOBOT CONNECT
From importing
to editing.
Choose to continue in VideoBot after the import. Get your footage ready to edit, or start a first edit you can review and make your own.
Open VideoBot to follow the progress and review the result.
Explore VideoBot featuresYOUR FIRST IMPORT
Four steps after the shoot.
- 01
Set up your folders
Choose destinations and optional backups. Choose an import preset in Settings. Enable Create catalog and Build previews in Lightroom Connect; complete the plugin setup once.
- 02
Connect your cards
Plug in your readers and select the cards you want to import.
- 03
Start the import
Start once for the selected cards. Smart Import copies files into your chosen folders and leaves the originals on the cards.
- 04
Catalogs, presets, then previews
With Lightroom Connect enabled, photo import is followed by Catalog creation, your selected preset and Standard and Smart Preview generation. Review the queue before editing.
Put your next shoot in order.
Get Smart Import, then follow the guide from first setup to reviewing your copies.