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heatherm60466444
Participant
December 17, 2018
Question

Photoshop 8 to 2019 and Windows upgrade (new computer)

  • December 17, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 431 views

I am planning on purchasing a new computer, and would like
to know if anyone has any suggestions for issues in upgrading.

At present, I have Windows 7, Photoshop Elements 8.  All my pictures are in the file
Libraries/Pictures/MyPictures  and they
are organized by date (2015/10/21, etc.)
In my Photoshop Element program, I have a catalog for each year, and have about 4-5 albums per year. Some
photos are in no album.

I am planning on upgrading to Windows 10 AND Photoshop
Elements 2018 or 2019.

I am planning on having the computer store do a data
transfer from my old Windows 7 computer to new Windows 10 computer.  In Elements 8, I have already made sure all
photos are connected to my present files.

Would this be the procedure:

  1. Do a
    backup for each catalog.  (Is there a way to do all catalogs at once?)
  2. Do a
    restore for each catalog.
  3. Clean up and
    do reconnections, etc. (hopefully, there are none?)

Does anyone see any issues with this plan?  Would love to hear views of experts, before I
take this step. Among other issues, I am wondering about pictures transferred
via data transfer AND restore...a problem?

Thanks in advance.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    MichelBParis
    MichelBParis
    Legend
    December 17, 2018

    heatherm60466444  wrote

    Would this be the procedure:

    1. Do a
      backup for each catalog.  (Is there a way to do all catalogs at once?)
    2. Do a
      restore for each catalog.
    3. Clean up and
      do reconnections, etc. (hopefully, there are none?)

    That's the right thing to do.

    (Forget data transfer by the shop. The backup process needs to backup and restore both the media files and the catalog.)

    - You have to backup each catalog separately. That is nearly always done by storing the each backup folder on an external drive.

    - You have to restore each catalog separately under the new master folder for your library. The restore option lets you specify the custom folder where you'll restore a given year, keeping your folder structure.

    The restore process from the  new Elements version will restore each catalog and prompt you to convert the catalog itself to the new catalog format. No need to reconnect anything.

    H
    heatherm60466444Author
    Participant
    December 19, 2018

    Many thanks for your reply.
    Makes me feel better about doing this!

    But I am a little confused....

    1. My present photo files are in
      Libraries/Pictures/MyPictures and are arranged only in folders by date:
    2. e.g. 20150215, 20150216, 20160520, 20170723.  But of
      course lots of these folders. 

    Since I will be doing a restore for each year (I have a
    catalog for each year), could I just not do a Restore to Original Folder?)  This is where I get confused.

    I have been reading the help link

    https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/kb/backup-restore-move-catalog-photoshop.html

    and the section “Move catalog (restore) to another computer”.  The example given for Original Location, New
    Location and New Location with the Restore Original Folder Structure is
    confusing to me.   If my old path is
    C:/Libraries/Pictures/MyPictures/20150215 
    (and other dates), wouldn’t the NEW Location be the same? So I would “Restore
    to Original Folder”????

    1. Because I have
      some photos that are not on Photoshop Elements but still in the
      C:/Libraries/Pictures/My Pictures/ files, if I have a data transfer done by a
      computer shop which will include my documents and photos, will the RESTORE
      duplicate photos?  Or will it pick up the
      duplicates if  I just do a restore?

    Hope someone can help...

    MichelBParis
    MichelBParis
    Legend
    December 19, 2018

    If my old path is

    C:/Libraries/Pictures/MyPictures/20150215 

    (and other dates), wouldn’t the NEW Location be the same? So I would “Restore

    to Original Folder”????

    1. Because I have
      some photos that are not on Photoshop Elements but still in the
      C:/Libraries/Pictures/My Pictures/ files, if I have a data transfer done by a
      computer shop which will include my documents and photos, will the RESTORE
      duplicate photos?  Or will it pick up the
      duplicates if  I just do a restore?

    The problem with 'restore to original folder' is that when you upgrade Windows from older versions, the path for your 'Pictures' is different. So, the restore process won't restore exactly in the same folder hierarchy. No issue if your present library is totally stored under a master folder directly under the root drive, that is not in the 'libraries' or 'Pictures' default Windows folders. There is also the situation when your library is stored on different drives or master folders such as 'Pictures'.

    Since your own photo 'library' is not stored independently from the default Windows location, I can't be sure what will happen in your case when you restore from 'original location'. My guess is that it will work, but maybe not exactly as before. You'll only have to restore a first backup, then another and see if the result is good for you.

    I definitely warn against having your library transferred. There is a big risk that the location of the transferred files will be different than the 'original' location recorded in the backup folder (the backup.tly file). This means total duplication with only drawbacks and no advantage. Anyway, even if the location is the same, you'll do twice the restore of the photo files and you'll have to be careful to specify you want to overwite the already present files. Totally meaningless.

    I would recommend creating a master folder on your chosen drive or partition in the new computer, different from any 'Pictures' or default library in the Win 10 new computer. You restore the first backup stating this master folder and a year subfolder as the 'custom' location' without keeping the original structure. You create a second year subfolder and restore the next year backup there and so on. This way, after the second restore you can check that your various hierarchies are correctly restored. If it's ok, you can process the other year backups.

    Of course, that proves that having a catalog for each year is far from optimal, hence the general advice to keep a single catalog... unless you have hundreds of thousands of items in each year catalog.

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