Uploading vs IMAGES_FOLDER_OPTIONAL

[zylervega]

(fast-DreamBooth.ipynb)

I have ~15,000 512x512 images. I uploaded them to my gdrive, then specified the directory with IMAGES_FOLDER_OPTIONAL.

However when I ran the cell it began "uploading" them "to the instance".

How can I avoid having to "upload" twice? Where are the files "uploading" to, considering they are already in my gdrive and available for the notebook to use?

[TheLastBen]

They are uploaded to the colab temporary storage where they are cropped.

[zylervega]

In my case I had unchecked the "crop" checkbox as I'd already cropped them.