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Question

Unsuccessful initial cataloging of pictures Photoshop Organizer 2020

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
June 13, 2020
4 replies
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I just intalled Windows Photoshop Elements 2020. Using the Organizer I attempted a Buld import of all the images on my hard drive. It said it completed and it imported files. However, it then says "No media available. Click 'Import' to add media. I tried again using imprt of pictures folder, with same results. I checked the \ProgramData\Adobe\Elemnts organizer\Catalogs\MyCatalog and catalog file is only 143kb, yet the thumb.5.cache is 202,268 kb. My understanding is the latter is the cache for the thumbnails. It seems an appropriate size. The catalog file seems much too small. For more complete info I am copying the directory below. Any suggestions?

Problem or error

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Greg_S.

Community Expert

When you used the In Bulk importer, did you add your Pictures folder to the import dialog? If not, the importer would only have used the default Pictures folder which exists on your OS drive. It looks like you have copied or moved the Pictures folder to your D drive. It is therefore possible that the Bulk importer never even looked at those files on the D drive.

I only suggested that you import a single folder via Import>From Files and Folders in order to troubleshoot the problem. Since it worked, I would have told you to go ahead and select the parent folder or multi-select the sub-folders via the same method. This would probably have worked and saved you some time.

jeling said:

I am reading Photoshop Elements 2020 by Scott Kelby. That book really did not help me adddress this problem. Do you have anything else that you think would be better for someone who is pretty much a novice?

Scott Kelby is one of the top authors of photo editing how-to books. I still have my copy of his Photoshop Elements 4 book. There are many resources available to learn Elements. I suggest you look at the Welcome Screen and try some of the tutorials and how-tos found there. If you have a particular question, you can also use the Search bar on the Welcome Screen.

Greg_S.

Community Expert

The reason some files have not been imported is easy to explain. Elements no longer supports some (many) kinds of pdf files, so they will not be imported into the catalog. The other files in your screenshot are .json files. These files are text files (that are used by the Organizer to locate faces for face recognition). So, these too will not be imported into your media catalog.

Further clues from your screenshot reveal that you apparently attempted to import from a Backup folder that was created with the Organizer. When a backup is created, the photo files are renamed in the backup and given an alpha-numeric identity with a B prefix.

So my next question is what method did you use to import the files? If you used the Bulk importer, you must have pointed it at a directory that includes sub-directories of both your media files and a backup of the media files. The Organizer probably recognizes that these are duplicate files and will not import both. (I'm not sure about that.) What happens if you use the Import>From Files and Folders method and select just one folder. (With the folder selected in the dialog, choose the Get Media button:)

In any event, none of this explains why no files are showing up. So, lets look at other possibilities.

First, go to the View>Media Types menu. Is everything checked? If not, check them.

If that doesn't fix the problem, next go to the View>Hidden Files menu. Make sure that Show All Files is checked.

Next, if you are selecting a folder in the Folders panel, click on All Media back arrow:

Let us know if any of these suggestions fixes your problem

J

jelingAuthor

Participant

Thank you both for your assistance. I had previously tried the bulk importer and most recently picked Import and selected the pictures library of my hard drive. The Pictures library did have a previous version of Photoshop Element's catalog as a backup and included some pdf pictures as well. I can accept those would not be imported. I could/cannot understand what was happening with the jpeg files. All media types was checked and show hidden was also checked. I was able to ultimately get everything imported by using the recommendation of going one folder at a time and improting it. While laborious, it appears to have worked. I now have 8914 images showing in "Catalog", which is more than the 8417 that it previously said it imported but did not appear in the catalog (see above posts).

While I beleive it was successful, Is there anything else I should look at to be certain it worked?

As a side note, I am trying to teach myself how to use the program. I am reading Photoshop Elements 2020 by Scott Kelby. That book really did not help me adddress this problem. Do you have anything else that you think would be better for someone who is pretty much a novice?

Greg_S.

Community Expert

Aside from creating a new catalog, have you tried to import any media into it?

J

jelingAuthor

Participant

I'm sorry I was not clearer. I created the new catalog, again tried importing all thepictures on my hard drive into it. It starts looking at the pirctures on my hard drive, and I see them flash as the scroll bar showing the process progressess. The next step, it shows the keyword tags attached and asks me to select the tags I would like to import. I have tried slecting all and in previous attempts tried chosing none. I then get notice that 8417 media files were imported and 1890 files were skipped because they are laready present i the catalog or are not supported as indicated in this screen shot:

After I click OK, I then get;

From other posts on th einternet I thought that thumb.5.cache is a file that holds a cahce of thumbnails. It has a size of 51,027k, so I thought something is being created. However the catalog file has only 1kb, when I tried this now for this post, so despite saying it imported 8417 files, nothing seems to be there, unless there is some other place I should be looking. The screenshot I posted prior to this post has all the files in the ProgramData>Adobe>Elements Organizer>Catalogs>Catalog

I have already also tried uninstalling and reinstalling Photoshop Elements. However, I do not know if that did anything to the organizer as I also have installed premiere elements.

Any suggestions of what is happening or how else to get help?

MichelBParis

Legend

You don't have the explorer set to show the files extensions, but they are shown in the 'type' column. As a matter of fact, the full name of the sqlite database PSE2020 is 'catalog.pse18db. The sqlite database in recent versions consists of three different files. As I understand, the last two contains modifications or safety data, and only the sum of their sizes is significant.

The thumbs.5.cache is also an sqlite database and works with the two companion files (.shm and .wal)

On the other hand, the rejected files with the .json extension are there after the face recognition. They are rejected because they are already in the catalog (second attempt).

I have no idea why you don't see the supposedly imported files.

Greg_S.

Community Expert

Yes, it appears that something is definitely corrupt. Unless you have only a few photos in the catalog, it should be larger.

I suggest you create a new catalog and start over. Go to File>Manage Catalogs and click on the New button. Enter a new name and follow any prompts.

J

jelingAuthor

Participant

Tried creating a new catalo, called Catalog (not much originality) and again I got "No media available. Clinck import to add media."

Again the size of the catalog is smaller than the thumb.5.cache

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