How or Why to use the Organizer in APE 6?

[ctctc]

I am a bit perplexed about how to use the organizer.

I have thousands of images (photos, pdfs, renderings, artwork, etc.) organized throuhout hundreds of folders on my computer which intern are organized by client, job, vendor, category, etc. Even as limited as my memory has become, I can usually locate an image with relative ease. Sometimes I need to poke into several folders to remember how I organized the image, but I am rarely disapointed.

If I import all of these images into the APE 6 organizer, the program doesn't seem to maintain my current organizational structure. Since my file naming convention doesn't typically include the client, job, vendor, category, etc. I can't seem to search for a specific file in the organizer except to scroll through all of the images on a visual basis, which is entirely unworkable.

Search by date? I have no idea on what date I visited the Smith residence all those years ago to take those photos!

In order to use the organizer, would I have to reorganize all of the photos somehow? Please let me know if I am missing something. Thank you.

[efarnstrom]

Add in one folder at a time so you can refresh your memory on the client, job, etc., and as you go, set up your albums with the identifying information and/or tags on person, place, event, etc.

You can put a lot of info into the caption as well as the properties note, which are searchable in v6. I can't remember if the searching capability is the same older versions.

The project seems daunting at first, but take small steps and you will get it done and love having all that control over your files. BTW I have over 25,000 images in my catalog and don't have trouble finding any of them.

You can use various views of the organizer....one is by folder view in Windows.

[Karin Sue]

I agree that you should import slowly, one folder at a time. Or one master/sub folder set.

If you view in folder view there is an instant tag option which will create a tag with the folder name and apply it to all the images in the folder.

When I first started with Organizer I used folder view almost exclusively. Now I seldom use it having gotten used to categories and tags. I still keep my old folder organization scheme though. Folder organization and Organizer use coexist nicely.

Check out photofanatic.com. It is a companion website for the Michael Slater Organizer book based on version 3. The details and looks will be different but the basic concepts for using categores and tags etc. are the same.

[dj_paige]

First, let me say that the capabilities of the PSE Organizer are so far superior to the capabilities of Windows for organizing photos, that in my mind it is no contest.

However, you have spent a lot of time working within Windows and have come up with a system that works for you. You haven't used any of the capabilities of the PSE Organizer, and so the comparison between where you are in Windows and where you are in the Organizer isn't fair.

In the Organizer, if you use just one feature, the folder view, then you have arrived at a place where the capabilities of Windows and the capabilities of the PSE Organizer are equivalent in your case. You can find photos equally well using either method. (I don't have PSE6, I only have PSE5, so someone else will have to tell you how to turn the folder view on in PSE6).

Then, you can begin to use all of the other features of the PSE Organizer. Yes, it requires work, and only you can decide if it is worth the effort for you, to arrive at capabilities that are not available in Windows. In no particular order, here is a partial list of things Windows cannot easily do but the PSE Organizer can do easily.
Non-hierarchical organization of your photos. Windows folders must be hierarchical. If you assign tags (keywords) to your photos, you can then search for photos that might have two or more non-hierarchical tags (or keywords)
Captions, notes, map locations for each photo
Searching by several tags, captions, notes, map location, metadata, etc.
Version sets and stacks to manage similar photos
Ability to create albums of photos for special purposes, such as slideshows in a specific order, photobooks, etc.I could go on and on. Like I said, you have to actually do work to achieve these benefits. I do the work, and I love it.