Lightroom: Selecting Photos During Import

When I am importing photos in Lightroom, Lightroom gives me only 2 options:

• Check all
• Uncheck all

I have 572 photos and I want to select around 40 photos at a time because they will have different names, keywords… So I have to Uncheck all and then click on the left corner’s checkmark to select each one. It’s very painful, especially for my wrist and my patience. There’s a better way. It could be documented, but I haven’t found it in the help system.

If the photos are not continuous, aka not next to each other:

1. Uncheck all.
2. Ctrl - Click anywhere on each photo you want to select for the PC or Command - Click‘ for the Mac.
3. After selecting all the photos, click on the checkbox of any the selected photos and it will checkmark all the selected photos.

If the photos are continuous, next to each other, it’s even faster:

1. Uncheck all.
2. Ctrl - Click anywhere on the first photo for the PC or Command - Click for the Mac.
3. Shift - Ctrl - Click anywhere on the last photo for the PC or Command - Shift - Click for the Mac. This will select all the photos in between.
4. After selecting all the photos, click on the checkbox of any the selected photos and it will checkmark all the selected photos.

Then it’s import time…