Importing Images from Flash Memory

When importing images directly from flash memory such as SD cards, it’s a good idea to set up a permanent folder for such a purpose. I’ve named my “Contact Sheet” as it behaves like one big contact sheet from which I rate, sort and tag image files. Within this folder, I have a separate subfolder for each of my cameras, digital or film.

I work with relatively small SD cards (2-4 GB), and each time I take a series of photos, I import them into this Contact Sheet folder. I mount the SD card and look in the Contact Sheet folder to see what the number of the last imported image is. I then select this image and all images after it, dragging them into this folder. This I usually do in Adobe Bridge, but it’s also possible to do it from the Finder. If I use Bridge, I have the option of selecting all the images on the card, and as I drag them into the folder Bridge will open a warning dialog to indicate if there are duplicates. I can choose to overwrite them, or I can skip them to save time. There’s also an option to resolve duplicate filenames by appending a version number, but I only use this when I’m unsure of the contents of the destination folder.

Unless the SD card is full, I leave the images on it as a backup. As I go through the Contact Sheet folder, rating, sorting and tagging, I tag the images I don’t plan on keeping as “Reject”. This way, the next time I go to import, Adobe Bridge will see the images and again present the “duplicate image” warning dialog.

When the SD card is indeed full, I select all the images and do one final import to make sure there are no images left on the card that are not in the contact sheet folder. I then replace the card in the camera and reformat it. This is a good practice, as Flash memory is somewhat quirky, and frequent reformatting helps to maintain the integrity of the data structure on the card.

Then, I use the filters in Bridge to select only the files tagged “Reject” and delete them permanently. However, since I use the Mac OS X Time Machine, they will still be on my backup volume. If I need to save space on this volume, I can permanently delete the old backups from time to time.

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By the way, if you discover that you’ve formatted a card before you’ve removed all the images from it, it’s a fairly simple matter to recover them. To find out how, see my post Restoring Lost Images.