How to upload a project?

Upload requirements and notes

• Uploading photos to Imagen requires a Lightroom Classic catalog and an Internet connection.
• Although not mandatory, Smart Previews are highly recommended as they improve the efficiency of the upload process.

Uploading scenarios

Imagen has two different upload scenarios:

1. Culling or Editing a project.
2. Creating a Personal Classic AI Profile.

Selecting a catalog

The initial step in uploading a project is to select the Lightroom catalog containing the desired photos:

1. Import the photos you wish to edit into a Lightroom classic catalog.
2. Open Imagen.
3. Click on the “Create a Project” button that is found on the Home page or Projects page.
   "Home Page"
   
   "Projects page"
   
4. Select the relevant catalog.
   You can choose the relevant Lightroom Classic catalog with three different methods:a. "Recent Catalogs" - A list of your recently used Lightroom catalogs will appear.
   b. "Browse" - Locate your catalog manually.
   c. "Drag&Drop" - Drag the relevant Lightroom catalog, and drag it into the box to load it.
   
   If you are unsure of the exact location of the catalog, open Lightroom Classic with that catalog and choose "Edit" → "Catalog settings" → "General" tab → "Location."
   

Setting up a project

1. Select the relevant folders you wish to upload for editing.
   
2. Name your project.
   
3. Choose an AI profile for editing.
   
4. “Advanced options.” - Choose if you want Imagen to Crop and/or Straighten your photos.
   
5. “Image filters.” Allows you to include or exclude photos with unique color/rate/flag attributes.
6. “Show catalog content by.” Allows you to switch between "Folders" or "Collections" views list.
7. Number of photos selected for upload.
8. Estimated cost of the project based on the number of selected images and additional AI tools.
9. "Upload" button. Click here to begin the project upload.

Once the relevant photos for editing are selected, a profile name is given, and the editing AI profile is selected, click the red "Upload" button (9) on the lower right corner of the screen.
If the button is greyed out, that means you did not select photos for editing.

Upload process

• Imagen has a background uploader that allows you to continue working with the Imagen app while an upload takes place.
  
  
• It's possible to add multiple projects to the upload queue.
  
  
• If you have an Imagen Cloud plan, every project upload will be uploaded twice:
  • Editing or Culling.
  • High-Resolution photos to the Imagen Cloud.
• After your upload is successfully finished, a “Processing” animation will be shown next to your project name. This process might take some time, depending on the number of images and if additional AI tools such were selected.
  
  
• The editing process is happening on our servers.
  After the upload process is finished successfully, you can close the Imagen app without harming the process.
  
  

• Once the culling or editing of the project is complete, the "Download for review" button will become available.
  
  

• If your upload gets interrupted, don't worry! The Imagen app will automatically resume the upload the next time you open it.

Troubleshooting: Not seeing some/all of your photos in Imagen

If all or some of your photos are missing, hover over the exclamation point icon in the “Number of images” column to view the number of excluded photos and learn the reason.
These issues are usually related to one of these reasons:

1. Lightroom can't find the photos where they are supposed to be. 
   Also, Smart Previews were not built for them.
   This usually happens when the photos are moved from the original folder they were imported from or they are on an external drive that's not connected to the computer.
   If you want to learn more about it, go to this article: Imagen won't show my Lightroom catalog images
   
   
2. Imagen filters are excluding images.
   Hovering on the exclamation point will reveal details about which filter is excluding the images.
   To solve the issue, adjust the Imagen filters and remove the specific attributes that's excluding the photos.
   Imagen filters work with these filters:
   1. Metadata attributes: Color Labels, Star ratings, and Flags.
   2. File types: RAW AI Profiles will automatically exclude JPEG photos and vice versa.
   3. "Edited" and "Unedited" filters.
      
3. In rare cases, Imagen will have problems reading catalogs or images located on external drives.
   If that's the case, please move the catalog and/or photos to a local drive and try again.

Uploading photos to build a Personal AI Profile

Uploading photos to build your own Personal AI Profile requires a slightly different Lightroom Classic catalog preparation, especially if it’s your first Creator AI Profile you are building with Imagen.

You will have to ensure that the folders and photos are connected inside the catalog in case you moved them from the original folder they were imported and edited, or that ALL of those photos have Smart Previews available for them.

Imagen won't show my Lightroom catalog images

There are a few differences between the upload screen of the profile creation and editing screens:

1. On the upload screen of the profile creation upload screen, you don’t have to select an editing profile, as you selected which Personal AI profile you want to upload edited photos to on the screen before.
2. The “Image filters” will have the “Not edited” option grayed out.
   
   This happens because uploading unedited images to the “Teach” process can cause your profile to output inaccurate results.