deleting photos from hard drive

[mystyblu]

I have backed up all files from My Documents to a new external hard drive. How do I remove photos from hard drive and still be able to use catelogue? I want to free up the hard drive and can't get my head around how to do this. Can anybody help or have I not explained well.

[dj_paige]

First, you need to tell us how you made these backups. Did you do this with the PSE Backup Catalog command? Did you do this with the PSE Move or Export command? Did you do this with Mac or Windows tools?

Next, based upon your description, I urge you not use the term "backup". A backup implies that you have a second copy of your photograph somewhere in case something happens to your first copy. If your plan is to delete the first copy on your hard drive, these are not really backups ... when you are done you will still have only a single copy of your photos, and if something were to go wrong, then you would have no copies of your photos. These are not backups.

[mystyblu]

I used the back up from the software that came with the external hard drive. I also have burned all photos to DVD. and plan to do back up with Carbonite before I do any deleting.

[Karin Sue]

If you use File>Move you can move your images off your harddrive but still have them in your catalog. I have all of my images in an external hard drive.

If you move them "offline" to removable media Organizer will make a proxy image on your harddrive. If you set the preferences to make that proxy the same resolution as your screen you can still view your image full screen. You will be prompted to insert the disk when you want to work with the image.

PSE5 is the only version that allows you to treat an ehd as removable media and make proxies. Other versions you can move the images to the ehd but if it is not attached you will get disconnected file messages.