Moving files within PSE 6

[swalkr]

Somewhere in this forum I've read where you can move photos around on your hard drive from within Elements V6, so the Organizer won't show a broken link.

This is how I've been doing it:

I put my SD card in the computer, upload them through the Organizer and dump them in a temporary folder on my desktop. I then can go through the recently uploaded photos in the Organizer and delete the ones I don't want all at one time (I can see them in the Organizer, but can't in the temp file). I know I can change the way I view them in the temp file, but I still like to use the Organizer. After deleting the ones I don't want, I would like to move them into other similar, organized files on my hard drive. I thought it was possible to move them around on your hard drive through the Organizer, but can't remember where I read about it. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[JonE]

It's as easy as pie! From within Organizer, select the file or files you want to move, then select menu item File>Move.

However, you are making it too difficult for yourself. Just download the files to a proper folder (e.g., 2008-04-21 April Showers). Then you can browse through them in Organizer and delete the ones you don't want to keep. Just select the file then hit the delete button. In the confirm deletion dialog box, select the check box to also delete the item from your hard drive (otherwise it is only removed from the Organizer not your hard drive). BTW you can also check that box or uncheck it by hitting the space bar - little time saver. The quick routine is Delete>Spacebar>Enter. But don't work so fast that you delete files by mistake!

[swalkr]

Thanks Jon. I knew there was a way, but couldn't remember what it was. I guess I didn't explain well enough about how I upload. Sometimes I take photos of different events, things (soccer, volleyball,family, trips) and they are all on the SD card. I dump them all in a temporary folder in my desktop, and then when I view them in the Organizer I delete the ones I don't want in the Organizer. So now since your information, I can move the ones I kept into individual folders on my hard drive, go back to the temporary folder and all that is left (hopefully) are the ones I deleted from the Organizer. Now I can delete all of those.

Thanks again for your input. It has saved me a lot of time.

It's as easy as pie! From within Organizer, select the file or files you want to move, then select menu item File>Move.

However, you are making it too difficult for yourself. Just download the files to a proper folder (e.g., 2008-04-21 April Showers). Then you can browse through them in Organizer and delete the ones you don't want to keep. Just select the file then hit the delete button. In the confirm deletion dialog box, select the check box to also delete the item from your hard drive (otherwise it is only removed from the Organizer not your hard drive). BTW you can also check that box or uncheck it by hitting the space bar - little time saver. The quick routine is Delete>Spacebar>Enter. But don't work so fast that you delete files by mistake!

[dj_paige]

Suzanne

I think you are still making things too hard on yourself by using a temp folder and then moving files to other folders based upon what the photo contains.

The Organizer can take care of all that organizing for you. Download your files to a permanent folder, as JonE suggests. Then simply apply a tag(s) to your photos, and then you don't have to tell Organizer to move the files. Then when you want to see only Volleyball photos, you click on the Volleyball tag.

Its much easier and more powerful if you let Organizer do the work of organizing, rather than you creating special folders for special topics.

[swalkr]

The reason I put them in their respective folders, is I often email photos to family and friends. If I know what folder they are in, I can pick the photo from that folder, rather than open up the Organizer, and try to find the one "volleyball" photo I want to email. It is easier for me when I want to email photos. But if you have another suggestion, I'm always open to ideas. And thanks a lot for taking the time to let me know your thoughts.

Edit: I have over 11,000 photos on my hard drive, so if I had all of them in one folder it would be a nightmare to try to find the one I'm looking for.

Suzanne

I think you are still making things too hard on yourself by using a temp folder and then moving files to other folders based upon what the photo contains.

The Organizer can take care of all that organizing for you. Download your files to a permanent folder, as JonE suggests. Then simply apply a tag(s) to your photos, and then you don't have to tell Organizer to move the files. Then when you want to see only Volleyball photos, you click on the Volleyball tag.

Its much easier and more powerful if you let Organizer do the work of organizing, rather than you creating special folders for special topics.

[dj_paige]

You can e-mail photos from within the Organizer. Simply select the ones you want and then choose E-mail from the File Menu. E-Mail from the Organizer has a built-in ability to let you reduce the size of the photo. What could be simpler? Or, if you don't want to use the E-Mail inside the Organizer, you prefer to use your own E-Mail program, I would do a File->Export to a temporary folder and attach those files to an e-mail.

But even so, the idea of finding a file in a folder (which means you also have to find the folder) requires some mouse movements and clicks, plus you need to remember which folder the photo is in. In the Organizer, with tags, its one click on the tag, and then scroll until you find the photo you want. You can further reduce your search by selecting a date range, or using other Organizer tools designed for searching, most of which are hard to do (if they can be done at all) in Windows. To me, its a lot easier to remember to click on the Volleyball tag in Organizer than to navigate to the My Pictures\Volleyball\2007 folder (or whatever). Truly, I see no advantage to organizing photos in Windows when you have the PSE Organizer, and there are many things Organizer can do that Windows can't.

I don't think anyone was suggesting you move all your photos in a single folder. You can put them into one folder if you want to, Organizer doesn't care, or you can leave them where they are now, it simply doesn't matter. With the Organizer you no longer have to import to a temp folder, delete and then move to a permanent folder. You import to a default folder (usually includes the date of the import), optionally delete some photos, tag, and you're done.

[JonE]

I use multiple folders too as it does help sort out batches both within PSE (esp. folder view or looking at image properties) and outside such as Windows Explorer or selecting attachments. However using the temp folder seems too complicated. If it works for you, though, that's fine. Did you know you don't have to d/l all the images on the card at once? You can select the 20 soccer photos and d/l them to a Soccer Match album, then go to Get Files and d/l 15 dog photos to your Pets folder. You select them with the check boxes under the images you see in the d/l dialogue box.

[swalkr]

When I put my SD card in, PSE 6 opens up and asks me where I want to put the files. I didn't notice that I had a choice of different folders to put them. I haven't had PSE 6 very long and I'm still learning the ins and outs of all the new stuff. I also probably didn't use all the goodies in PSE 4 that were available, so all this info is good for me to learn more things PSE 6 can do. Thanks again and for anything else you can contribute to my knowledge base.

I use multiple folders too as it does help sort out batches both within PSE (esp. folder view or looking at image properties) and outside such as Windows Explorer or selecting attachments. However using the temp folder seems too complicated. If it works for you, though, that's fine. Did you know you don't have to d/l all the images on the card at once? You can select the 20 soccer photos and d/l them to a Soccer Match album, then go to Get Files and d/l 15 dog photos to your Pets folder. You select them with the check boxes under the images you see in the d/l dialogue box.

[dj_paige]

Before people purchase PSE, they learn that Windows organizes things in folders. Then, many people purchase PSE, and continue to organize things in Windows folders. And this means that you are either not using many of the very powerful features of the Organizer, and/or you are doing unnecessary work by creating folders and continuing to manage your photos via folders.

I would urge everyone who is using the PSE Organizer to actually organize their photos in the Organizer. I would urge everyone who is using the PSE Organizer to stop thinking about what Windows folder their pictures are in. I have no idea what folders my pictures are located in, yet I can find them quickly via the Organizer, and I claim I did less work to get to this point than if I had to do the same thing via Windows.

As an example, if you have photos of your child at a soccer match, and also a photo of your child holding her pet, you can go ahead and do the work and put each photo into special folders, one for soccer and one for pets. But then there is no easy way in Windows to find all pictures of your child. In the PSE Organizer, you would tag the soccer photo as "Soccer" and "Jennifer", and you would tag the pet photo as "Pets" and "Jennifer". (You can have two or more tags for a photo, but you don't normally put the same photo into two different folders) Now, when you want a collage or slideshow of your child Jennifer, you simply click on the "Jennifer" tag, and voila, you have all pictures tagged with "Jennifer". Moreover, I would add that in my opinion, it is easier to tag a batch of photos than it is to create a new folder, give it a name, and then move things into that folder.

Organizer also lets you add caption and notes and map location to your photo. Although this can be done via freeware Windows tools, again it isn't necessary to do this in Windows, because Organizer gives you these tools that help you further manage and organize your photos.

There are many powerful ways to search within Organizer, including by date of the photo, by import batch date, by caption or note, by camera metadata, by map location, and yes, even by Windows folder. You can do combinations of searches, so you might want all photos tagged with "Soccer" in October, 2007.

When you want files for use outside of Organizer, you can do a File->Export and now those files you selected in Organizer are copied to whatever folder you want for you to do whatever you want. Again, if you want all pictures of your child, and some are in the soccer folder and some are in the pet folder, and some are in the "Middle School Chorus" folder, you can't do this easily in Windows.

So, when JonE says "You can select the 20 soccer photos and d/l them to a Soccer Match album, then go to Get Files and d/l 15 dog photos to your Pets folder. You select them with the check boxes under the images you see in the d/l dialogue box." I think this is unnecessary. I think this again makes for more work and less searchability. Use tags instead of folders! Use captions and notes! Let Organizer do your organizing.

[Karin Sue]

I agree overall with Paige but I still like organized folders.

Having images in year/month folders lets me identify a time period for the photo even if the date is incorrect (either because of incorrect camera setting or because data has been corrupted).

I may also have a subject folder in the month if all the photos from a download were taken at an event--birthday, christmas, etc. If I get a disc from someone else then I have the images in a folder with the photographer's name in either the month or year folder. All this folder info lets me tag the images later based on folder location. The folders are basically my input scheme.

I have sets of date folders in overall Family, Work, Volunteer Group category folders. Still very easy to decide on where to put new photos. That is basically my camera images scheme.

I also have a folder for scanned photos. The subfolders in it are a bit halfhazard. They may be by project or date scanned.

Project made from photos go into a photo project folder into subfolders for cards, calendars, etc.

Once in the folders they don't need to be moved. All my searching etc. is done in Organizer. If I do decide on a different folder scheme for some reason, it is easy to select and move from within Organizer.

All of my images are on an external hard drive. I can plug this drive into another computer without Organizer and my catalog and still have a chance of finding a photo.

In general, I place my photos on the harddrive in folders based on broad categories and when, where, who took them. I can then use their folder location to apply the initial tags in Organizer (photographer tag, event tag) and correct the date if necessary). Everything else is done in Organizer but the folder organization is still there if I want it.

I would recommend a minimum organization of year/month folders but tracking all the details is best done with tags in Organizer.

[JonE]

Paige you are absolutely correct that it is best to use Organizer for, well, organizing. That does not override the need for sub-folders, however. You can put all your photos in one folder of course and manage everything through Organizer. However there are quite a number of good reasons to use sub-folders, and I'll just list a few of them:
1) having too many files in one folder is a disaster waiting to happen. I'm not talking about specific Microsoft limits. I'm talking about the practicalities of disaster avoidance. You can search around on the Internet and you will see all kinds of estimates and opinions that range from 10,000+ down to 1,000. Suffice it to say that putting several thousand files in one folder is just asking for trouble.
2) accessing files from programs other than PSE is a key need for many users, for example for inserting photos in to documents and presentations, e-mails, etc. (I know, you can run e-mail from PSE but who says everyone wants to always create their e-mails from PSE, especially given how long it takes to start up - a waste of time for one or two attachments). With organized folders, you can click right to the photo you want quickly.
3) who's to say each of us will always and forever use PSE, or for that matter that PSE will always include Organizer, or for that matter that Adobe will always continue to exist or maintain PSE?
4) folder view within PSE is yet another useful feature that can help find and work with images, such as for that hard to find file containing something you know you have but is not one of your indexed items (OK, could have indexed it, but do you really tag every photo with a dog in it, or if you did, did you also tag deck if it was taken on your deck??)
Those are just a few of the reasons why using folders to help organize a collection make sense, on top of PSE organization. It really takes minimal effort, just give a folder name for each downloaded batch. At this point I have >15,000 files organized in ~150 folders and I'm very glad that they are not all in one folder.

[swalkr]

Jon, these are all good reasons to use Organizer to be organized and also to be organized on the hard drive. I don't email from the organizer because it takes too long to do. It is much easier to see what photo I want in an email, look at the properties and then put it in my Outlook outgoing mail, because I know where it is.

Paige is correct about all of us having Windows (we PC users anyway) and knowing the folder tree organization of Windows. It's hard to un-learn something that works for you. I love the way you can tag photos in the Organizer. Some of my photos have four tags, but when I look at the properties I know exactly where to find that particular photo.

Paige you are absolutely correct that it is best to use Organizer for, well, organizing. That does not override the need for sub-folders, however. You can put all your photos in one folder of course and manage everything through Organizer. However there are quite a number of good reasons to use sub-folders, and I'll just list a few of them:
1) having too many files in one folder is a disaster waiting to happen. I'm not talking about specific Microsoft limits. I'm talking about the practicalities of disaster avoidance. You can search around on the Internet and you will see all kinds of estimates and opinions that range from 10,000+ down to 1,000. Suffice it to say that putting several thousand files in one folder is just asking for trouble.
2) accessing files from programs other than PSE is a key need for many users, for example for inserting photos in to documents and presentations, e-mails, etc. (I know, you can run e-mail from PSE but who says everyone wants to always create their e-mails from PSE, especially given how long it takes to start up - a waste of time for one or two attachments). With organized folders, you can click right to the photo you want quickly.
3) who's to say each of us will always and forever use PSE, or for that matter that PSE will always include Organizer, or for that matter that Adobe will always continue to exist or maintain PSE?
4) folder view within PSE is yet another useful feature that can help find and work with images, such as for that hard to find file containing something you know you have but is not one of your indexed items (OK, could have indexed it, but do you really tag every photo with a dog in it, or if you did, did you also tag deck if it was taken on your deck??)
Those are just a few of the reasons why using folders to help organize a collection make sense, on top of PSE organization. It really takes minimal effort, just give a folder name for each downloaded batch. At this point I have >15,000 files organized in ~150 folders and I'm very glad that they are not all in one folder.

[dj_paige]

I never said you should put all of your photos into a single folder. I use the default folders from the PSE downloader, which are dated by the photo's date. Set it one time and forget it.

I said I never have to remember where my photos are on the hard disk, and you shouldn't either because tags are much more powerful than folder organization.

[JonE]

Fair enough. There is more than one way to skin this cat.