Create a project to upload photos to edit

This section covers uploading photos from Lightroom Classic to Imagen to edit them. When you upload them, you start a new project and choose your AI Profile. The AI editing happens automatically after your photos are uploaded.

For real estate photographers, see these guidelines.

If you don’t use Lightroom Classic, see Upload and download projects with Lightroom, Photoshop, and Bridge.

1. Update the DNG converter, if needed.
    
2. In Lightroom Classic, import the original photos you shot and want to edit into a catalog. Imagen needs the EXIF + capture metadata. 
   For faster uploads, we recommend creating Smart Previews of your photos. 
   If you import cropped photos into the catalog, these crop settings will be applied to your edited photos. Take this into account if you add more cropping AI tools in Imagen.
   
   Don't import photos into a catalog using Copy as DNG.
   
    
3. Open Imagen. You need an Internet connection to upload photos to Imagen. 
    
4. Click Create a Project on the Home page or the Projects page.
   
    
5. Click Edit.
   
    
6. Choose the catalog from step 1. Click My Lightroom catalogs for a list of the last few catalogs you used. Or click Browse to find the catalog on your computer. You can also drag and drop folders or photos into the window.
   
   
   If you can’t find your catalog in Imagen, open the catalog in Lightroom Classic, and go to Edit →Catalog settings → General tab → Location.
    
7. Choose the photo format of your shoot and your photos for the project. If you don't want to upload all the photos in a folder, filter them by color, star, or flag. If you have mixed photo formats, Imagen only uploads photos with the photo format you chose.
   
    
8. Click Next. If you can't click Next, make sure you chose a folder with photos.
    
9. Name your project, choose your AI Profile and the photography type. If you bought a profile from the Profile Shop, choose it now.
   
   The AI tools in the Recommended list change depending on your photography type.
    
10. (As needed) Click the + sign next to an AI tool to add it to your project.  Hover over it to see a GIF of how it works. If you don’t find the AI tool you want, scroll down for more tools in the Other AI tools list. The AI tools that you add to your project appear as chips at the top of the list.
    
    
    If you choose AI tools from the Other AI tools list, you might need to choose between an AI tool you’ve already chosen and the newer one from the list. For example, you can’t have Crop and Portrait Crop in the same project. You need to choose one or the other.
    
     
11. Click Edit to upload your photos and start the editing process. If the upload stops unexpectedly, the next time you open Imagen, the upload will continue. Photos are uploaded in DNG format, and the Adobe DNG Converter shows up in the status bar.
    

Troubleshooting not seeing your photos before upload

If photos are missing, hover over the exclamation point icon in the Number of images column to see the number of excluded photos and get more details. To fix this issue, change your filters to include the photos you want.

Here are some other reasons for not seeing your photos:

• Lightroom can't find the photos. 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 not connected to the computer.
  For more info, see Imagen won't show my Lightroom catalog images.
   
• Imagen filters exclude images.
  To solve the issue, change the Imagen filters to remove the specific attributes that exclude the photos.
  • Metadata attributes: color labels, star ratings, and flags.
  • File types: AI Profiles for RAW photos will automatically exclude JPEG photos and vice versa.
  • Edited and Unedited filters.
     
• Sometimes, Imagen has problems reading catalogs or images located on external drives. If that's the case, move the catalog or photos to a local drive and try again.