Backup Photos to Cd-R

[drileyapple]

I already have a bunch of photos in My Catalog. I want to scan a large number of vintage family photos and put just them onto CD's. I've never backed up any of the photos in Organizer, but I just want to back up the ones I am just now scanning. I was going to delete everything from Organizer because I have a mess there. If I delete everything from My Catalog and then scan the vintage photos, can I choose the first option for backup and only get those photos?

[Ward Grant]

Hello Drileyapple

There are several options for you.
Backups do entire catalogs so you can not pick certain pictures. However, you could do a File>Catalog>New and create a separate catalog say "FamilyScans" and then back up that catalog. The con side is you can't share or merge catalogs easily so you could not use these with images in our other catalog.

Are you just interested in having a backup copy of the images after they are scanned? If yes, then I would just scan them to their own folder and then use XP or your standard CD software to burn a backup copy outside of Elements.

If you are planning to tag these pictures and use them for slide shows or other creations, the best way is to scan them in, add your tags and stuff and then backup the entire catalog. Now, there is nothing wrong with having a backup of the catalog and a separate backup of just the images as a safety measure.

My last step on the soap box-depending upon how many a "large number" is, you may want to look at an external hard drive (if you don't have one already) for your backups. I just think this is much easier than shuffling CDs; the amount of CDs needed can grow quickly when working with images.

Please post back if you need any more help