Tags & Collections ... what's the purpose/difference?

[Shirley]

:confused: What is the difference between a tag and a collection? What is the purpose of each? How do they operate in relation to each other? I thought I understood them but then found myself wanting to duplicate a collection as a tag ... so, how do I understand them better without spending money on a newsletter or tutorial. Not that I'll never do those, but it's not in the budget at the moment. :(
TIA for your help!! I've already learned SOO much by perusing this site. But I suppose this is too basic a question, because I couldn't find it being asked before. Great for my self-esteem!! LOL

[Ward Grant]

Shirley
I'll take a quick stab, but I'll admit I am not an Organizer expert.

Let's say you have a photo of your nephew taken on his birthday.

Tags are identifiers to help you find pictures easier later. A picture can have multiple tags. So you tag this picture Nephew and Birthday. Later you want to find all pictures of your Nephew. Search for the Nephew tag and all tagged pictures of your Nephew show up, regardless of when they are taken. If you searched for pictures tagged Birthday, then all tagged photos of Birthdays would show up, including the one of your Nephew.

Collections are groups of photos often used for a specific project such as making an album or a CD. The photos in the collection can be grouped or sorted as you want.

To use the two together: Search for Nephew with the tag and then make a collection of the returned photos to make an album for a gift.

[Shirley]

Ward, Thanks for that explanation. It does sound like they operate pretty much like I expected them to operate.
Let me give some background: My first 'download' into PSE4 are my Thanksgiving photos (about 200). These not only are T-day itself, but include a family reunion, portraits, activies, etc. SO...what I did was make an entire collection of the photos. Then, started breaking them down into sub-'categories'. Each families individual family shots, all the shots I took of my daughters with their various cousins during the shoot, etc. So, after I made a collection called 'Cousins' (the shots w/ my daughters), I then wanted to make tags of each different shot of the girls with their cousins and realized I couldn't duplicate the name 'cousins'.
SO, my question is ... should I be doing the 'sub-categories' as tags and just leave the larger category as a collection, or what?

[willpresley]

Well a collection should be thought of as a set of pictures.

Tags are used as described and you can have sub-tags to any level you need. Always start with the broad category then create sub tags for more specific needs.

[Ward Grant]

I will bow to Will's knowledge as I am not a big Organizer user.

However, your question has raised one I hope someone else can answer.

So, after I made a collection called 'Cousins' (the shots w/ my daughters), I then wanted to make tags of each different shot of the girls with their cousins and realized I couldn't duplicate the name 'cousins'.


Is it not possible to have a collection called "Cousins" and a tag called "Cousins"? I am unclear why this is not possible.
:confused:

[kayser]

Ward,

I thought that WAS possible- I just tested it out, and it just warned me that I already had one with that name, but if you click okay, it goes ahead and does it.

[Shirley]

Oh - that's good to know! I didn't know I could duplicate the name. My only concern then would be when I do a search. Are the searches for tags and collections two SEPARATE things?

Am I REALLY showing my ignorance by even asking such a question??

[jazzfisher]

Shirley,
I do use the Organizer--this would be my suggestion;With your example.
I would have download & Tagged all 200 photos "Thangsgiving 05".That should be your first step. (you could put this tag under Family or Event or whatever you want. From there you can then create a tag for each of your daugthers (for instance) then tag those photos appropiately. (& so on either with other people or events of the day you may want to keep track of. Like you found out you can have a tag & collection with the same name but 7 Thanksgivings from now that will be very confusing. So Tag things with dates &/or years to pick out easily. Once everything is tagged--THEN make your collections (for example: Name your collection--then instead of viewing all Thanksgiving photos--just choose the tag of daugther #1, select only the photos of her with cousins to put in your collection. Do the same w/daughter #2 & so on.
It's very important that you tag your photos as you import them into PSE, Even if you only use a very broad catagory (Thanksgiving)you can sub-tag to your hearts content.

Hope this helps--ask if I was confusing:rolleyes:

[msmack]

Here's how I do it. I travel to Arizona and Palm Springs every year. In Tags under Places I have Arizona 2003, Arizona 2004, Palm Springs 2003, Palm Springs 2004. Those are my first Category Tags. Then I might tag some as trees, cactus, sunsets, friends, etc. I might even have subcategories that might look like Arizona 2003, subcategory in Arizona called Friends, subcategory under Friends called Julie.

If I had 50 pics to start with under Arizona 2003 I might then make a collection called Arizona 2003 with maybe the ten best or the ones I used for a slide show.

Hope this helps.

Merrill