Organizer problems

[Larry Hitner]

I asked this question several days ago but not well so let me try again. I have moved My Pictures from the C drive to the D drive(internal hard drive) because of space limitations. When I try to download new pictures, they show up on Windows Explorer D://My Pictures but not Organizer even though File>Watch Folders is set to watch D://My Pictures. I don't know how to get them to Organizer. I have another photo managing software installed and they show up there but not PE5

The other problem is that (and I'm not alone in my two digital photography classes) I sort My Pictures geographically rather than date. So for instance I have a folder for the town I live in and when I'm done with Editor>Save as> etc., I move the images from the "working folders" that are date-oriented to the geographic folder. This is good for people who travel alot. I may remember that I was in Paris in late September but two years from now I'll only remember I was in France in 2007. My problem is that when I move them they don't organize themselves by date within the geo folder.

Any suggestions. I'm baffled about this and my classes are out for the holidays. Thanks

[jigamaree]

My only thought on this is that did you move the files using Windows Explorer or did you use the Organizer? If you used Explorer, then try reconnecting missing files (file/reconnect/all missing files).
Greg

[dj_paige]

I don't know how to get them to Organizer.

In the PSE5 Organizer, click on the "Get Photos" icon and select From Files and Folders. (Its similar in other versions of PSE) Or simply drag the new photos from the Windows folder into the organizer.

You also say you have two different photo organizing programs running, and you also organize your photos in Windows. May I suggest that this is triple the amount of work ... in my opinion, organizing in Photoshop Elements, and applying tags to the photos there, eliminates any need to organize photos in Windows or elsewhere. The tags in PSE provide a much more powerful way of organizing and finding your photos than anything you can do in Windows.

[Larry Hitner]

I downloaded directly from the memory card. The new pics went to Windows Explorer D://My Pictures sorted by date. The PE5 is set to watach D://My Pictures. They do not appear in PE5.




My only thought on this is that did you move the files using Windows Explorer or did you use the Organizer? If you used Explorer, then try reconnecting missing files (file/reconnect/all missing files).
Greg

[Larry Hitner]

I have tried "Get Photos" from the Memory card drive, from files and folders, you name it I have tried it. The photos appear in Windows Explorer D://My Pictures when I download them from the memory card. The file organiztion in PE 5 at the left of the Organizer window is exactly the same as Windows Explorer and the other software has the same orientation. I like the other software (Faststone) because it does some things easier than PE5 and faster and it's free. The issue isn't how many programs I'm using, it's why PE5 will not download to D:// My pictures. Before I moved eveything from the C drive to the D drive, PE5 downloaded with no problems I agree that using PE5 to organize and to find my photos is best. I tag for family members, friends and events but I can't do it if PE 5 won't download the new pics. Thanks for your reply


In the PSE5 Organizer, click on the "Get Photos" icon and select From Files and Folders. (Its similar in other versions of PSE) Or simply drag the new photos from the Windows folder into the organizer.

You also say you have two different photo organizing programs running, and you also organize your photos in Windows. May I suggest that this is triple the amount of work ... in my opinion, organizing in Photoshop Elements, and applying tags to the photos there, eliminates any need to organize photos in Windows or elsewhere. The tags in PSE provide a much more powerful way of organizing and finding your photos than anything you can do in Windows.

[NickLewis]

Larry,

"Watch Folders" doesn't always work, I'm afraid. I've seen other people post about it. I don't know why: I rarely have need of it myself.

I don't understand your problem with your geo folders? Do you mean how they are displayed in Windows Explorer? You can force a sort into date order by clicking on the Date column in Details view.

But I'm 100% with Paige - you're making work for yourself by running multiple photo managers and also using Windows folders. I run a minimalist folder structure, and use Organiser tags to do precisely what you're talking about. It's what Organiser's designed for.

Nick

[NickLewis]

Larry,

What do you mean "PE5 will not download to D:/My Pictures"? You shouldn't need to use it to download anywhere - you've already got the files there.

What happens if you change from Folder Location View to, say, "Newest First"? Do the photos appear then?

What happens when you use Get Photos? Can you see the files? Do you get any messages?

Nick

[dj_paige]

I have tried "Get Photos" from the Memory card drive, from files and folders, you name it I have tried it. The photos appear in Windows Explorer D://My Pictures when I download them from the memory card. The file organiztion in PE 5 at the left of the Organizer window is exactly the same as Windows Explorer and the other software has the same orientation. I like the other software (Faststone) because it does some things easier than PE5 and faster and it's free. The issue isn't how many programs I'm using, it's why PE5 will not download to D:// My pictures. Before I moved eveything from the C drive to the D drive, PE5 downloaded with no problems I agree that using PE5 to organize and to find my photos is best. I tag for family members, friends and events but I can't do it if PE 5 won't download the new pics. Thanks for your reply

Get Photos from the Memory Card? That's not an option in PE5. One option is Get from Camera or Card Reader ... is that what you are using?

Please explain how “The Photos appear in Windows Explorer D:\My Pictures” and then later you say “it's why PE5 will not download to D:\My pictures” (this seems contradictory, if the photos are already there in D:\My Pictures, you don't need PSE5 to download to D:\My Pictures) and when exactly in this process are you trying to read from the Memory Card (before or after the photos appear in D:\My Pictures; before or after you try to download using PSE5)?

What exactly happens when you try to use PSE5 and PSE5 “will not download to D:\My pictures”. What do you see?

Or better yet, please explain exactly what steps you are following, in order, and what you see when you try each step.

[NickLewis]

Larry,

Looking back at your posts in your other threads on this issue, I think you may well have got your catalog into a bit of a muddle.

First, back to basics. Apologies if you know this, but a lot of people don't, and it is the root cause of many issues they then have with PSE Organiser. Organiser is not the same animal as either Windows Explorer or Fastone at all. Both of these are file browsers. When you open them up, they look at the files on your drives, and display the contents of the folders they find there. Although the Organiser display, especially the Folder Location View, is visually similar, it is not doing the same thing. Organiser keeps a database record of the image (and other) files you have loaded into it, and also a thumbnail copy of the images. Those are what are being displayed.

There are various reasons for adopting this method of working, principally ease and speed of indexing and searching, and the ability to work with photos which are offline (e.g. on CDs or DVDs or external drives that are not plugged in.)

When you "Get" photos into Organiser, what you are doing is making an entry into that database record. You're not copying the file anywhere. The exception to this is Get Photos>From Camera or Card Reader, as this invokes Photo Downloader which copies your image file to whatever destination you specify, and them "Gets" the photo by creating an entry in the catalog.

If I've understood correctly, you moved your image files to your D: drive by dragging in Windows Explorer. When you did that you broke all the links between those images and Organiser's database. The correct way of redressing the problem would have been to run File>Reconnect>All Missing Files, which would have fixed the links, but I don't think you did that. Instead you used File>Get Photos>By Searching. This will have imported any photos that Organiser found on your D: drive that it didn't judge to be duplicates of images already in your catalog.

Can I also ask how you set up D:\My Pictures? Did you do it by moving your My Pictures folder, or did you set up an empty folder called D:\My Pictures and copying files/folders into it? The reason I ask is that My Pictures is a Windows Special Folder. You can have any number of folders called "My Pictures", but only one of them (per user) can be the Special Folder. If you didn't move My Pictures itself, then you may well get slightly odd behaviour from certain applications. (At the back of my mind, I also think that there is a problem with placing My Pictures in the root directory of a hard drive, but I can't tie the thought down.)

Whatever, at this point you should run a File>Catalog>Recover operation. This will housekeep your catalog, and in the process will identify whether any files are still "missing"/disconnected.

You also raised a question about photos not appearing in Organiser when you do File>Save As....... from inside Editor. This problem may well be fixed when you do a catalog recover.

As I say, start with a catlog recover operation, then once you've a clean catalog, we can try and sort out why you can't find newly downloaded images. The answers to the questions Paige and I asked earlier will be key.....

Any questions, post back.

Nick

[Larry Hitner]

Thanks for the answers and the question you're asking to help me out. I've read it all quickly and need more time to think about it. I'm leaving now for the holidays and will chew on all this when I get back. When I say I'm downloading from the memory card, I mean, of course, with a card reader.

Nick from your reply:

"When you "Get" photos into Organiser, what you are doing is making an entry into that database record. You're not copying the file anywhere. The exception to this is Get Photos>From Camera or Card Reader, as this invokes Photo Downloader which copies your image file to whatever destination you specify, and them "Gets" the photo by creating an entry in the catalog."

This is the crux of the problem. I am downloading from a card reader and I have told the Photo Downloader that the destination is D drive "My pictures" I am not downloading to Windows Explorer or Faststone. PE5 runs the download but the pictures don't download to PE5. When I look in WE and Faststone, they are there.

I do everything in PE5.

This is longer than I met it to be. Merry Christmas everyone.

Larry

[NickLewis]

Larry,

When Downloader runs, it goes through two phases - first it copies the photos, then another window appears while it is "getting" the photos. Are both these phases occurring?

Since Windows and FastStone can see the photos, PSE is obviously copying them to your hard drive.

My feeling is that your catalog is corrupted and that's what's stopping the entries being made successfully. And also the problem with saving edited versions. Since this started when you moved your pictures, I think those events were probably the cause.

You need to run File>Catalog>Recover and see what happens after that. (I'm expecting it to flag up a load of disconnections to be resolved, I'm afraid.)

Have a good Xmas,
Nick

[JonE]

Larry:

When you ask PSE to "Get Photos" from D:\My Pictures, what happens (exactly)?

Is the D drive one you set up or one that came with your computer?

Is the D drive a separate hard drive or a partition of your one hard drive into C and D?

The reason I'm asking is that on many comptuers the D drive is not intended to be used by the user, only by the operating system as a system and program backup location for crash restoration. So the D drive can be restricted in some ways that can complicate things.