Photo Browser

[dottym]

I purchased the Photoshop elements 4 classroom in a book. It came with a CD which I installed. In the process of using the CD somehow it mixed up my files in my catalog with the catalog with the lessons and now I don't know how to straighten it out, I have some pictures in one catalog and some in the other. so the photo browser doesn't work for me. What to do? I'm just beginning using this forum so I could use a lot of help.

[Elemobe]

Hi Dottym,

Welcome to the forum. I am not terribly experienced with these things and a Mac user, but someone will come along soon and help out. Just wanted to say Hi.

[dottym]

Hi Linda Thanks for the support It' nice to know someone is out there. I am still trying to figure out how to use the forum here.

[Codebreaker]

Dotty....

I'm not sure exactly what you've done but here's a couple of pointers that may help.

The Organiser Catalog doesn't store your images. The actual images are stored on your hard drive where ever you put them. All the Organiser Catalog does is act like a store or shop Catalog - it has little pictures of the images but not the real thing. The thumbnails, as they are called, are just links to the real image.

This means that you can delete an image from the Catalog but still leave the original on the hard drive. When you perform a delete you will be asked if you want to delete the image from the hard drive - its an option and you can decide what to do. The default is to only remove from the Catalog.

You can also have more than one Catalog which allows you to completely seperate out images. They are still in the same hard drive perhaps but the two independent Catalogs don't interact with each other. You can only use one at a time. Most people only need one.

To Organise images you can use the Tags feature. You can create Tags with meaningful names - for instance a Tag called 'Classroom in a Book'. You then select the images that you want to attach this tag to and then simply drag and drop it onto one of them. This way you can seperately select and view only those images with that specific tag, just by clicking on it.

All your other images can have their own unique Tags made and applied. You can then select and view these by clicking on the appropriate tag. (Note that you can click on more than one tag to view different sets of images.)

Eventually you finish up with a Catalog with a complete mish-mash of images from wherever, whenever and whatever. Using the Tags to 'label' them you can begin to make sense of your entire Catalog.

Don't overlook the Timeline Bar at the top - this allows you to quickly get to a specific date.

Hope this helps a bit.

Colin

[Wendy]

Hi Dotty ..

.... and welcome to the forum :)

Do hope that Colin's message sorts it out for you ...

Wendy

[dottym]

I'm with the person that hates the Organizer. It's a nightmare. I would like to work without the organizer. How do I do that?

[Codebreaker]

Of course everyone has their own opinions but the Organiser once learnt is very easy to use - far easier and more flexible to use than any Folder Based organisation scheme such as the plain old Windows Explorer. The key thing is to take some time to learn how to use it and there are plenty of books that will help you.

However, the choice is yours entirely and if you don't like it after giving it a fair change then just don't use it. You can open the Editor without using the Organiser.

It isn't necessary to uninstall it as it doesn't take much space on your hard drive.

Colin

[NickLewis]

I'm firmly with Colin. Organiser simply blows Explorer, File browser, etc away in terms of versatility and power, as far as I'm concerned.

But, to each his own.

On the Welcome screen, right at the bottom, there's a dropdown menu for "Start Up In". Choose "Editor", and you'll never see Organiser again. :(

(If the Welcome screen isn't appearing, you can bring it up by choosing the Window>Welcome option.)

Nick

[dottym]

I will try again to use the Organizer but having used old windows explorer for years going back to 97 it's hard to change. I do toggle between organizer and editor. My problem is two fold my CD instructions was put in one catalog and my files in another catalog. Then one morning I opened my program and they were all mixed together and I don't know how to fix that. Also what is the purpose of the folders section on the left where you change to date or whatever? Please bear with me I'm still learning how to use the Forum

Dorothy real new user

[Codebreaker]

Dorothy....

As previousl mentioned you can have as many Catalogs as you like but typically most users have only one. You can always see which Catalog is currently active by looking at the title bar - it will display the Catalog name such as My Catalog.PSA. If your images are mixed I would think that you perhaps did not create a seperate Catalog and use that when you downloaded the example images. In other words they got imported into the wrong one.

If I understand your question you are asking about the pane on the left hand side of the Organiser screen. The view for this can be set using the option box at the bottom l.h.s of the screen. If its set to Folder View it acts very much like a Windows Explorer screen although you have to be careful when you use it. There were some changes that came about in version 5 that I don't have but in version 4 you could set the view (by right clicking in the pane) and choosing to see only those folders that had images in your Catalog - as opposed to folders with anything in them.

Also in Folder View you can move folders and images around as well as renaming or creating new folders. This is the only way you should do this so that the Organiser doesn't loose track of where your images are. If you move, delete or rename folders or images using Windows Explorer - when you come to use one of the images the Organiser will have lost track of where it really is.

One other option about Folder View. If you already have many folders which you have given sensible names to and want to include the images contained in them in the Organiser, you quickly create a Tag based upon the folder name. Just click on one of the folders and towards the top left of the screen you'll see an icon called Instant Tag - if you click on this you'll create the tag based upon the folder name and apply it to all the images.

Personally I would avoid this view as much as possible and get away from the concept of a Folder based Organiser. However, it is good sometimes for when you want to re-organise your folders without confusing Elements. Sometimes though the view goes a little screwy and you need to refresh it using F5.

The other options for this view are to set the Photo Browser to show you the images organised by date - earliest or oldest first or even in the batches in which they were imported.

Hope this helps.

Colin

[Barb O]

Colin - FYI

I have the PSE5 - PRE 3 combined Classroom in a Book and it instructs the student in lesson 1 to make a new catalog for lesson 1 that is named lesson 1. In lesson 2 there are similar instructions to create a new catalog named lesson 2. Similarly in lesson 3 it says to create a catalog named lesson 3.

Then I also noticed that the Getting Started section at the beginning of the book creates a CIB Catalog.psa that is used in some later chapters.

I don't have a copy of the PSE 4 book to verify that it is exactly the same - but I suspect that it is. So the student using these lessons will have multiple catalogs and it seems to me that the possibility of importing accidentally their own photos to one of these Classroom in a Book catalogs definitely exists.

[dottym]

Hi Colin Thank you so much I think that will take care of most of everything. The only thing I can't figure out is how to get the files from one catalog to another. Adobe in it's CD was the one that created the second catalog (per it's instructions in the book). How I got them mixed I couldn't figure out. I think it was when I was instructed to place things in the work files that they wanted. I hve to go back to the book and review. Thank you Thank you so much. I printed out all your instructions. Maybe there is another way to print them out rather the pages and pages.

Dorothy

[Codebreaker]

Dotty....

As you're beginning to see the management of multiple Catalogs can get tricky. This is not helped by the fact that when you Download or Import an image you cannot select the Catalog into which the image is going to appear - its always the current one.

The same image can appear in as many Catalogs as you wish. Remember, there is only one image and each Catalog just contains a pointer to it.

So to 'move' (not really moving but re-cataloging) an image from one Catalog to another, you can open the Catalog that's to receive the image and just use the Get Photos > From Files or Folders command. Then select the Folder and Image.

Once the image appears in the correct Catalog you can then open the other Catalog and Delete the image, taking care not to check the option to remove from hard drive.

Colin