Bringing Back photos from Offline DVD storage

[sailkelli]

Ok, maybe I'm really bad at searching these forums but I got frustrated trying to find an answer to a question that I am dealing with right now.
I just moved a bunch of photos from my catalog offline to a couple of DVDs. After it was done and the originals deleted from my Hard Drive, I decided I wanted a whole set of them back into their original spots on my hard drive. How exactly do I do this?

[johnrellis]

Use the File > Move command.

[sailkelli]

Well, I guess I could do that one at a time into numerous dated folders if I can remember which photo went into which folder or if all of them were originally from the same place. The dilemma is that I used tags to select the photos, not folders and the photos are from all over the place and from over a dated span of 7 years or so. I thought that when I used the "move offline" command that it somehow retained the path of where it used to be and could be restored there at a future time if I need those originals for editing or printing or what not. Are you telling me that I will have to figure it out and put them back manually a few at a time or individually? OH NO! That is not good news at all. That really throws a monkey wrench into my organizing plan.

[johnrellis]

No, PSE doesn’t remember the original path of offline photos.

For most people, that wouldn’t matter, since the photos are organized by date/time, tags, captions, notes, and star ratings, not by folder. I’m curious why it would matter in your organizing? You said you selected them original for archiving by selecting tags, not by folders, so isn’t it the tags that you use for identifying the photos, not the folders?

For better or worse, PSE really isn’t designed for organizing by folder (as shown by all the problems with Folder Location view).

[Juergen D]

...if I need those originals for editing or printing or what not.
Just in case you are unaware of this, there is no need to bring the photos back to their original location for these purposes.

Juergen

[sailkelli]

I guess you are right - both- that I don't need to ever put them back where they were originally as long as my Organizer is functioning well and I don't want to change to some other kind of organizing scheme that would rely on folder locations and identification. I have become so reliant on my organizer that it sometimes scares me.
I have over 29,000 photos in my catalog and every year I put in more than the previous. I wonder if you could tell me how, when I upgrade to a new version of PSE or when I upgrade my computer, the files that I decided to store on DVD's will be "moved" or identified. Have there been any problems with this regard having pictures in numerous places... like different hard drives and removable media. Should I be systematically centralizing all my photos onto the same letter drive?
Also, reading some other UNanswered questions I came across a good one: is the incremental back up in any way "messed up" by having files offline?
I'm not sure why this question wasn't answered (back in 2007).
Thanks for any enlightenment :)

Kelli

[johnrellis]

…how, when I upgrade to a new version of PSE or when I upgrade my computer, the files that I decided to store on DVD's will be "moved" or identified.
In general, the locations of all the files in your catalog (their path, the drive or disc they are on) are recorded in the catalog file. When you upgrade to a new version of PSE, it converts the catalog, preserving that information. When you upgrade your computer, you use one of a couple of different methods to move the catalog and the photos to that computer; these methods change the locations of the photos recorded in the catalog as appropriate if you are moving from one hard drive to another.

Have there been any problems with this regard having pictures in numerous places... like different hard drives and removable media. Should I be systematically centralizing all my photos onto the same letter drive?
There have been a few posting on the Adobe forums who had archived photos in versions 4 or 5 and only much later, after upgrading to 6 or 7, discovered that somewhere along the way that PSE (most likely, the catalog upgrade process from 4 to 5) had recorded the incorrect locations of the offline photos. Luckily, it was possible to recover all the photos and their catalog metadata (tags, dates, etc.), though it took one person many hours to do so.

In general, after archiving photos, it’s a good idea to “check your work” by reinserting the CD/DVD and then accessing several of the photos (e.g. with full screen view) to make sure that PSE really can retrieve them.

More and more people are finding, however, that the economics of external hard drives are such that it’s almost as cheap, and certainly more convenient, simply to get another external hard drive rather than continue to archive to CD/DVD. A brand new 500 GB external hard drive from Amazon costs $80, or $0.16 per GB. In comparison, a stack of 100 top quality DVD-Rs holding 4.7 GB each costs $29.24, or $0.06 per GB.

I don’t see any pressing need to centralize all your photos on one drive. PSE keeps track of all the file locations for you. If you upgrade to a new computer, you could take that opportunity to centralize the files on your brand new humongous C: drive (which will fill up soon enough :-)).