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J
JeepCJ
Participant
July 8, 2017
Question

Elements Organizer - Photo Downloader - Sort by Date Created

  • July 8, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1457 views

With my iPhone connected, I'm finding that the Photo Downloader only sorts the photos by date modified vs. date created.  This is an issue as the iPhone appears to update the date modified based on how recently the file was opened.  As a result, the Photo Downloader default sort method makes it nearly impossible to select an original grouping of photos to download. 

Is there a way to change the sort order in the Photo Downloader to sort by date created?

Adobe Photoshop Elements 15

WIndows 10

iPhone 6s with IOS10.3.2

thanks,

-Jeff

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    S
    Skippy12345
    Participating Frequently
    May 19, 2020

    Unable to download from IOS. This is a problem with Apple IOS as much as PSE and lots of us have experienced this (for every version of PSE).  Your best option is to forget about PSE to download IOS content - I use syncios instead - free software and also keeps the right date/times on the photos (unlike PSE). Might be fixed in a future version of IOS and/or PSE but I would not be holding my breath.

    MichelBParis
    MichelBParis
    Legend
    July 8, 2017

    I am not familiar with iPhones, but if I understand well, the problem is to be able to show the files on your phones in a given sort order so that you can easily select the files to import?

    That has nothing to do with the sort order of the database, which is 'date_taken', not date modified or created.

    Photoshop Elements 6/7/8 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

    Since it's a downloader feature, I would try to use the iPhone to select and transfer your files to a temporaty folder on your computer. Then you could 'Import' from 'Files and folders' instead of from 'Camera or card reader'.

    J
    JeepCJAuthor
    Participant
    July 8, 2017

    Michel,

    Good idea.  I gave this a try and realized that the Import from Files and Folders retains the original location on the local drive, thus eliminating the functionality that comes with the import from Camera or Card Reader.  So I did the following and this does solve the problem, but I would say that it's a time consuming work around which could be avoided with some future enhancements to the Adobe product considering the quirks of how the iPhone sorts and files images.

    For anyone who comes across this in the future, here is the step by step:

    1. Open your iPhone in Windows explorer

    2. Enter *.* in the search field of Windows Explorer (this shows you all files in one place vs. having to open and look in each of the random 100Apple, 101Apple folders)

    3. View by details

    4. Sort by Date Created (not Date Modified which is the default)

    5. Find your set of pictures you want to import. 

    6. Insert a blank USB thumbdrive or SD card or similar

    7. Cut or Copy your pictures, then paste into the Thumbdrive location.

    8. Select Import in Photo Shop Elements Organizer, From Camera or Card Reader

    9. Direct it to get photos from the location of your Thumbdrive

    10. Proceed with your import with the preferences as you see fit (i.e. Renaming files, folder location, delete originals,etc)

    11. If you didn't select delete originals, go back and delete the files off of the thumbdrive to avoid redundancy.

    12. Done.

    Hope this helps someone else in the future.  Keeping pictures cataloged by event is so much cleaner when they can be imported together, renamed with a common file name, etc.  The iPhone can easily become the modern day equivalent of a shoe box full of Polaroids when trying to bring them into a PC.  Certainly it must be easier on a Mac, but I have no intention of getting rid of my PC.

    Thanks!

    -Jeff

      MichelBParis
      MichelBParis
      Legend
      July 8, 2017

      Jeff,

      Thanks for detailed and helpful details.

      I do like the idea of using a thumbdrive or card reader for another reason.

      I think that there are two different choices for subfolder hierarchies: One based on date_taken, the other based on Events or similar.

      Once the media have been imported in a catalog, you no longer rely on the folder organization, you can work from dates, events or a combination of both. Seen from the organizer, you get the same possibilities from both hierarchies.

      You must have some type of hierarchy, that's why the 'date' choice is the most used, being simple and done automatically at import time... if you import from camera or card reader. You select a subfolder date template, and the downloader creates or uses the correct subfolder.

      A typical use case: I have to import files taken from various cameras and grouped on an external drive. Instead of importing from files and folders, I copy all the files to a thumbdrive and import from camera or card reader. All the files are now nicely stored on the date hierarchy in my computer.

      Another one: I have a whole big library of tagged files to import. No problem: I can use a thumbdrive to import by smaller batches. Even if I have ten batches to run, the result will be a single neat date hierarchy.

      And that hierarchy will be only based on date_taken, the only criteria known by the catalog, not the date created or date modified ones which are useful for the OS.

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