Most portable way to organize in PSE6

[vaidhe]

Hi all,

I am relatively new to PSE. What is the best way to organize the photos in Elements 6 so that the library can be moved between computers or drives and still maintain links to the original images?

The reason I am asking is this. I was trying to resize the Vista partition and the process messed up. When I re-created the partition, I added a new partition for data (D:) and pointed the 'Pictures' folder (c:\<username>\Pictures) to d:\Data\Pictures. When I restored a backup I had made from a month ago in PSE6, all of the pictures in the catalog had broken links. I have about 1000 pictures and it is a pain trying to re-connect all of them.

As far as I can see the logical path to the pictures did not change, even though the physical path did change. Why does PSE not recognize this? I am getting ready to just drop the original catalog and create a new one. Can I organize the catalog so that I don't have to go through this again, if I move the catalog to a different location / computer?

Thanks for taking the time to read through this.

[Juergen D]

When I restored a backup I had made from a month ago in PSE6, all of the pictures in the catalog had broken links.
Where did you restore to, C: or D:? I do not have PSE6, but in PSE5 you have the option to restore to a new location. Did you use such an option?

Juergen

[dj_paige]

I am relatively new to PSE. What is the best way to organize the photos in Elements 6 so that the library can be moved between computers or drives and still maintain links to the original images?

The reason I am asking is this. I was trying to resize the Vista partition and the process messed up. When I re-created the partition, I added a new partition for data (D:) and pointed the 'Pictures' folder (c:\<username>\Pictures) to d:\Data\Pictures. When I restored a backup I had made from a month ago in PSE6, all of the pictures in the catalog had broken links. I have about 1000 pictures and it is a pain trying to re-connect all of them.

Vaidhe ... first of all, the idea of having a separate partition or drive for your data (in this case photos) is a good one.

The easiest way I can think of to reconnect in this case.

1) In Windows, move all your photos back to c:\<username>\Pictures, so that they are in the exact same folders as before. Yes, I know you don't want them there, but this is just temporary and this should enable PSE to reconnect all of them.

2) In PSE, use the Folder view to transfer everything in c:\<username>\Pictures to your d:\ drive (drag and drop works, just like in Windows, but please please please do this in PSE). Now, PSE knows where to look on your d:\ drive for these photos. They remain connected.

3) Done!

[johnrellis]

Where did you restore to, C: or D:? I do not have PSE6, but in PSE5 you have the option to restore to a new location. Did you use such an option?

Also, check to see if PSE 6 is opening the restored catalog file "catalog.psedb" or the original one. The original one will contain references to the C: drive, whereas the restored one should contain references to the D: drive. I'm not sure where the PSE 6 restore will put the restored catalog, but it may be that you're opening the original one.

See this article for where catalog files are generally stored:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402592&sliceId=2

[vaidhe]

Vaidhe ... first of all, the idea of having a separate partition or drive for your data (in this case photos) is a good one.

The easiest way I can think of to reconnect in this case.

1) In Windows, move all your photos back to c:\<username>\Pictures, so that they are in the exact same folders as before. Yes, I know you don't want them there, but this is just temporary and this should enable PSE to reconnect all of them.

2) In PSE, use the Folder view to transfer everything in c:\<username>\Pictures to your d:\ drive (drag and drop works, just like in Windows, but please please please do this in PSE). Now, PSE knows where to look on your d:\ drive for these photos. They remain connected.

3) Done!

Thanks for this suggestion. I am still concerned about how PSE saves the links to the photos. For example: If I save the photos on the D drive and later decide to move the catalog to another computer (or the same one configured differently after a fresh install). Say there is no D drive on the computer now, or that the drive has a different serial number. The PSE catalog would have broken links for all of the images.

Is there a way to have PSE store the relative paths to the files and not the full paths? This way, I can keep the photos in the 'My Pictures' area and maybe have the catalog in a folder at the same level. As long as I kept them relatively in the same areas, the catalog will not be broken.

Maybe I am not thinking like the Adobe folks want me to, but it seems like the PSE catalog is too rigid.

One possible counter argument that I can see coming would be that it is easy to reconnect the missing files. But my experience has been that PSE would unnecessarily search through the entire list of drives / folders even though I point one picture to the correct folder. It would not use something as a default folder for pictures and I did not see a way for specifying a default folder for pictures either.

[johnrellis]

If I save the photos on the D drive and later decide to move the catalog to another computer (or the same one configured differently after a fresh install). Say there is no D drive on the computer now, or that the drive has a different serial number. The PSE catalog would have broken links for all of the images.

In these situations, you can use PSE’s backup/restore to move your catalog and photos. It is the procedure recommended by Adobe, and they have a tech note that explains how to do it. It’s reliable but a non-trivial task requiring care, patience, and free disk space or many, many backup CD/DVDs.

As you observed, trying to use File > Reconnect to do a mass move of your photos can be painfully slow, but it generally works if you disconnect as many drives as possible and let it run for many hours. On the Adobe forums, I posted a trick that often speeds it up by getting PSE to look in the right places quickly, but it hasn’t worked for everyone.

[dj_paige]

Is there a way to have PSE store the relative paths to the files and not the full paths? This way, I can keep the photos in the 'My Pictures' area and maybe have the catalog in a folder at the same level. As long as I kept them relatively in the same areas, the catalog will not be broken.

Maybe I am not thinking like the Adobe folks want me to, but it seems like the PSE catalog is too rigid.

The PSE Catalog is quite rigid. You either learn its rules, learn how it works, and work within its rules, or you suffer (or get rid of PSE).

Many people have requested a utility to globally change the drive location in the PSE Catalog — so, for example, if your photos are in D:\My Pictures, and you move them to E:\My Pictures, then this utility would go into the database and make the change on every image. I'm sure a qualified SQL programmer could do such a thing, with the right software.

So I agree with John R Ellis, use the catalog backup feature. It is the only sure way to move your photos and catalog to a new computer.