Photo Storage

• icarus

  Participant

  November 14, 2009 at 4:12 pm

  Wonder if anyone got any ideas about this one.

  I use Photoshop Elements 6 and download by photographs from my Nikon D90. When I load the photos onto elements from my camera they are also held in the ‘My Documents’ folder of my computer. Is it necessary to retain these photos in this folder? I am concerned the amount of space this is requiring on my laptop but I have had experience in Elements of the software not being able to find a photo that I have previously downloaded and am wondering if elements requires the photos to be held elsewhere within the computer as well?

  cheers
  5faythe

  Participant

  November 14, 2009 at 4:49 pm

  Hi Icarus,

  I am only guessing here.

  If you use the Elements organiser and you move or rename a file
  or folder Elements won’t be able to find that file if you try to open
  it into the editor from the organiser.
  They are not actually stored in the organiser but you can view and
  open them into the editor from here.

  With files getting larger with each new camera a computers hard disc
  can fill up quite quickly.
  You can store your pictures on media such as external hard drives.

  You should really store or backup your files in a number of locations
  to protect your precious images in the event some computer or
  hard drive malfunction.

  There have been a number of discussion threads on this topic.
  Here is one I remember: https://www.photographyireland.net/viewtopic.php?t=31474

  Not sure if I answered your question but if I haven’t let us know.

  Good luck.

  John.
  icarus

  Participant

  November 14, 2009 at 5:03 pm

  John,

  Thanks for replying, I think thats my issue

  1. Are the photographgs in the organiser actually ‘there’ or is that purely a tool for organising them?

  2. And by implication then must i retain the photographs in the picture folder of ‘My documents’?

  3. I have an external hard drive on which the images are also stored which is someting crazy like a trillion gig! If the external drive was connected to my laptop would that mean i could delete the images from the ‘my documents’ folder to free up some space and then organiser would still find them and they could be opened in editor as normal?

  not sure if im making sense or not!

  Cheers

  Icarus
  5faythe

  Participant

  November 14, 2009 at 5:31 pm

  Hi Icarus,

  You are making perferct sense.

  1. As far as I know the images are not stored in the organiser.
  The location of each image is stored.
  You can view the image from the organiser and open it into
  Elements from here.

  2. This is probably the only place they are stored on your PC.
  When you are in the organiser (or should I say organizer :) )
  it will use the location stored for an image to access it.
  If for some reason you move, delete or rename the image Organizer
  will not be able to find it.
  I did this many times when I started using Elements.
  The image will usually show some sort of broken link icon when
  you look at the thumbnail in the organizer.

  3. I suppose normally we would use the external hard drive as a backup.
  I have also used one to move images to when my laptop hard drive got too full.
  If you move them to an external hard drive and then delete them from the laptop
  hard drive organizer will not be able to find them.
  Don’t forget that if you do this you haven’t got any backup in the event that the
  external hard drive delelops a problem.

  So to recap:
  If you move, delete or rename a file after you have imported it into the organizer the
  organizer will not be able to find it unless you tell it where it is.

  It is recommended to back up your files a number of times and not to keep the backups
  in one location.

  Hope I’m making sense. :?

  As I said before if I’m not making sense come back.

  Cheers.

  John.
  icarus

  Participant

  November 14, 2009 at 6:40 pm

  Thanks again John,

  Clears up a number of issues for me, i thought I was dupilcating all my images in elements and in ‘my documents’ so at least that clarifies that for me and explains why i have ‘lost’ a few pictures in organizer. Appreciate your time with this slightly mundane issue, have to find another way to free up some space!

  Good to chat

  icarus
  miki g

  Participant

  November 15, 2009 at 12:08 pm

  Hi Icarus. I don’t know if this will help, but I usually transfer (not copy) my photos to an external hard drive if I want to store them for later use. I right click on the image and use “send to” and select the destination drive. This saves me from ending up with duplicates of everything (as it is the original photo that is being transferred). It is not stored on the computers hard drive (C drive). When I re-connect the external drive, the photos are easily located.