Apple Photos and iCloud substitutes to use with Photoshop Elements 2018?

[JAHJHK]

I am a watercolor artist who paints from photo references, and I use Photoshop Elements to edit the references to get them as close to my vision for a painting as possible (I combine photos, change colors, alter shapes and sizes, move items, and so on). I am also an amateur photographer who wants to have a simple place to store and organize family photos, and attach text to them that is portable and permanent so a future generation will be able to see what a photograph was about.

I have struggled with Apple Photos and iCloud for the last couple of years. I like that they work well within my Apple ecosystem. I don't like the organizing tools. I don't like  that you can't attach a paragraph of explanation to a photo and count on it staying with the photo if you export it. I don't like how getting a photo from Photos to Elements is rather clumsy.

I thought I found a solution: The Lightroom plan for $10/month. I had already upgraded my iCloud storage to $10/month because of the number of photos I have (almost 20,000), so this seemed a good substitute.

This is what I THOUGHT Lightroom would do:

1. I thought it would easily send photos in and out of Photoshop Elements. Unfortunately, I discovered that, unlike Lightroom Classic, it does not export to Elements, only to Photoshop. The Photography plan (also $10/month) does work well with Photoshop, indeed, it comes with Photoshop, but it has only 20GB of Cloud storage, not 1TB as does the Lightroom plan.

2. I thought it would be possible to put explanatory paragraphs in the Metadata that would travel with the photo and be permanent. I'm still not sure if this is true.

3. I thought it would be a good substitute for Photos and iCloud, since it has 1TB space, and with my $10/month I also get Lightroom. Of course I'm now not sure if I really need Lightroom. I am not a pro photographer, after all, and I mostly wanted Lightroom for organization and its Cloud.

I bought Lightroom CC with the Lightroom plan, and I even migrated all my photos from Photos to Lightroom. Afterwards I discovered those problems above, so I think I will return it.

These are the things I want:

1. A simple, clean, organizing tool. Should I just organize my photos in folders on my computer and use Bridge for my viewer? Should I use the Organizer that comes with Photoshop Elements? Does it really work well?

2. Online backup. Should I just organize by folders, or with the PSE organizer, and use something like Backblaze backup?

3. To put actual text paragraphs in a photo's Metadata, and know that they will travel with the photo and be permanent. It would also be nice to make slideshows from the photographs, to put on Apple TV.

4. A way to easily open photos in PSE. I supposed if I just organize them in computer folders, I can do that.

Of course I still want to be able to take pictures with my iPhone camera. Perhaps I should keep Photos and a smaller iCloud just to run the photos through initially before putting them on my computer? I can keep a few photos in Photos, those that I want to show to others on my iPhone.

Does anyone have any brilliant ideas? I am out of my depth. I truly appreciate any help.

Jan

[Greg_S.]

JAHJHK  wrote

These are the things I want:

1. A simple, clean, organizing tool. Should I just organize my photos in folders on my computer and use Bridge for my viewer? Should I use the Organizer that comes with Photoshop Elements? Does it really work well?

I have been using the Organizer seriously since Elements 3.  I currently have about 150,000 media files in my catalog and can generally find what I'm looking for in a matter of seconds.  So, for me, it works really well.  I would certainly recommend using a database program like the Organizer to organize files for viewing rather than a file browser

2. Online backup. Should I just organize by folders, or with the PSE organizer, and use something like Backblaze backup?

This is probably a matter of personal preference.  With the size of my catalog, I don't use an online service for backup of my media files, turning instead to numerous internal and external hard drives.  I occassionally make a backup using the Organizer's backup and restore options, but this feature is somewhat slow because of the numerous small database files that are included in the catalog.  Compressing the catalog files with a zip utility and copying the zip file to another drive can be a lot faster.

3. To put actual text paragraphs in a photo's Metadata, and know that they will travel with the photo and be permanent. It would also be nice to make slideshows from the photographs, to put on Apple TV.

Here's a difficult question to answer.  I don't think any solution can be future-proofed.  The problem is that each OS and program handles metadata differently.  The Organizer can write notes and captions into the files, but I think we can only anticipate that they will be readable by future versions of Elements.

As for slideshows, Elements 2019 has what I consider to be a great slideshow feature.  It even has an auto-creation feature that will do the job for you and create slideshows with music that can be edited with a variety of templates and images and music of your choice.

4. A way to easily open photos in PSE. I supposed if I just organize them in computer folders, I can do that.

For me, the Organizer acts as a browser that easily opens the images in the Editor  with a keyboard shortcut.

Of course I still want to be able to take pictures with my iPhone camera. Perhaps I should keep Photos and a smaller iCloud just to run the photos through initially before putting them on my computer? I can keep a few photos in Photos, those that I want to show to others on my iPhone.

That is of course an option for you.  But I store all of my iPhone images on my computer and catalog them through the Organizer.

If you are still uncertain about what Elements can do for you, you can get a 30 day trial to see whether it is suitable for your needs.

[JAHJHK]

Thank you so much for your detailed, helpful reply, Greg. It is encouraging to hear that the Organizer has been taking care of a 150,000-file catalog and doing it well. It is interesting to hear your methods of backing up.

You may wonder why I asked the question in the first place when I tell you that I have Photoshop Elements already, and have used it happily for the past 8 years. I never used the Organizer seriously, and I made a mistake when deleting some files and now can't open my current Organizer (for PSE 2018). Your post has inspired me to get it open and give it a good try. Might as well, since I already own it!

Thanks again for your help.

Jan

[Greg_S.]

Let us know if you need help in getting the Organizer open.  (Try holding down the Shift key when opening the Organizer - it will take you to the Manage Catalogs dialog where you can create a new catalog or possibly find an old one.)

[JAHJHK]

Thank you, Greg. I'm already having problems. I don't know if I should start a new discussion or not.

I imported all my files from my computer into Organizer overnight. The next morning I found that most of them were broken, and they had "time machine" in their pathways. I did some reading and found out that you can't really import into Organizer when Time Machine is working. The answer seems to be to put all your photos on an external hard drive, to continue to back up the rest of your computer with Time Machine, and to back up your photos with Organizer?

[Greg_S.]

Sorry, I know nothing about Macs, but I have seen on the forums that the Organizer does not play nicely with Time Machine.  So, the solution you have found will probably work just fine. If you need more help or suggestions then certainly start a new thread on the forum and include Time Machine in the title. 

[JAHJHK]

Thanks, I will.