Too many pictures

[scrapsue]

I can't have any other programs up when I have my PSE4 program up a pop up says that I need more virtual memory. So I was thinking that maybe having so many pictures in my program & pictures in my Documents folder pre-PSE4, I should remove some them on to a 4 gig Scandisk. When reading about this in my Manuals book the only way was to remove them in PSE4 folder by folder. Now this is the first time that I had heard of folders in PSE4 so I don’t really know about them or where they are or how they even got set up. I Went into the folders view by follow my “The Missing Manual” book (love, love this book) and turns out I do have a mish mash of some folders made up of wrong pictures. These folders wouldn’t really bother me because I love the tags system and have that all set up the way I like it. But I still want to remove some old photos to free up space in my computer and folders seem to be the only way that I have found in PSE4.

So for my two questions:
1. I tried to move some of the folders but to move a couple of stupid folders took forever is there another way to remove pictures (2003 thru 2005) quickly and through PSE4?

2. Is my thought about moving the photos off the computer to give it more speed, or Virtual memory a good one? I will still want to get into these pictures through PSE4 and work with.

Thanks Susan

[teaman55]

Susan: It sounds to me that you don't have enough Random Acces Memory aka: RAM on your computer. Your elements program when open is probably eating up all your available resources. When it comes to working with photos on computers, THE MORE RAM you have the easier your work becomes. I am sure there are more qualified people here on the forum that can give you a better answer.

Good Luck

Steve

[RobertSchuldenfrei]

Hi Sue,

Steve nailed this one I am sure. How much RAM do you have on your machine? In spite of what they say, to make PSE usable 1 GB is the minimum, 2 GB if you are using Windows Vista. Some things you might consider is making sure that at startup, you machine is not loading too many programs. Try to have PSE as your only RAM hog. Once we know how much RAM you have we can make suggestions.

Cheers,

Bob

[Rusty]

Susan,

Don't worry about removing image files unless you want to do so for some other reason (archive ?). That has nothing at all to do with the virtual memory message you are getting. Files just sitting on your hard drive do not use any "processing memory"; all they do is take up space and use "storage memory".

Pay closer attention to the message the next time it pops up. I get those pop ups from time to time. I don't think it's telling you that you need to do anything -- mine tells me that Microsoft is increasing virtual memory.

Rusty

PS - Bob, we were typing at the same time

[scrapsue]

Can any one tell me how to find out how much Ram I have in my computer?

Thanks
Susan

[RobertSchuldenfrei]

Hi Sue,

If I remember correctly this works on both Vista and XP.

Start > Control Panel > System

There will be a display of system capabilities.

If you do not find this to be the case, report it here and I will go back to my XP and 2000 notes and get you the right answer.

I will check in tomorrow as I am off to see Harry Potter, elbowing out pre-teens while I go:cool:.

Cheers,

Bob

[scrapsue]

In my computer:
AND Alhlon [tm] XP 2000+
1.66 GHz, 992m MB of RAM

So what does that mean I need to do???

Thanks so much for your help.

[deedeeO]

You need to increase your RAM my dear. I'm currently housing 9000 photos in my organizer and not all are JPEGS, if you know what I mean. Memory hog....especially when I start working with psd files that just get bigger and bigger....my editor uses 754,588K of memory:eek: I currently have 2 GB of RAM after a recent upgrade; but would like to upgrade further to 4GB so that I am able to run external editing program simultaneously. These software programs are just memory hogs.

Anyway, adventures this week is to remove many of the pics from organizer until I am ready to actually edit them. That will also help with my v. memory problems. Hope that helps.

PS. As soon as we installed up to 2GB of memory, my computer was racing....then over time as I kept adding photos to my organizer, it became slower and slower.. as stated below, it is not the no. of images in your harddrive...they just sit there, it is how many you are visualizing in organizer and editor at one time... Anyone is free to correct me if I am wrong..