How can I get my old catalogue from a backup onto my new computer which has two drives rather than one?

[The Phantom Idiot]

I have just changed computers. On my old computer I had in excess of 13,000 images contained on Drive C: also installed on Drive C: I had Photoshop Elements 11. I used the Elements Organizer catalogue to manage my 13,000 plus images. I backed up this old computer regularly to an external hard drive.

I purchased my new computer from a local firm and I had them move all my data over to my new computer. I also got them to install several of my old programs onto the new computer Photoshop Elements being one of them. When I first opened up Elements Organiser there were no images shown in the Organiser, so I got the program to build the new catalogue. I was expecting, (wrongly it now seems) for the catalogue to have all the tags, rating and album information that I had added on my old computer, shown within the Organiser catalogue, it didn’t, it just showed all my images contained within their Windows Folders location.

In addition where my old computer had all my data, system and program files contained on the one Drive, Drive C: my new computer now has the system and program files stored on a SSD Drive C: and all my data files, (this includes my 13,000 plus images), stored on a separate drive, Drive F:. Now this makes my new computer very fast but I appear to have lost the Organiser catalogue information that I built up over several years. Now I would imagine this old catalogue information would be backed up somewhere on my backup drive that I used with my old computer and am still using with my new computer, this is Drive E:

So could you please tell me is there any way I can retrieve from my backup drive the catalogue that was made on my old computer and reinstate it on my new computer, bearing in mind that all file references in the old catalogue will I assume, be in the form of, C:\Pictures\folder name\file name, these very same images, (which are now stored on Drive F: ), will now be referred to on my new computer as F:\Pictures\folder name\file name?

Also with this new version of the catalogue I have built on the new computer, although the catalogue gives the correct location of the image file, (ie. F:\Pictures\folder name\file name) and shows the correct thumbnail of the images. When you right click on the image and select ‘Edit with Photoshop Elements Editor’, it does open the Editor but not with the selected image open within it. But if I the right click the image within a ‘Windows Explorer’ folder window, it will then open the Editor with the image in it…!! How can I rectify this?

Now I wish to get this all sorted out so that I can then safely upgrade to the latest versions of Photoshop Elements 15 and Premier Elements 15. But I’m reluctant to take this step until I can ensure that I have successfully retrieved all my information from the old catalogue. I would also like to be reassured that if I do upgrade from versions 11 to versions 15, I won’t encounter similar problems to those I’m currently having, bearing in mind that my program files will be on the SSD Drive C: and my images will be on the data storage drive, Drive F:.

System Details

OS System:      Windows 10 Home, Version 1607

Processor:       AMD FX(tm) -6300 Six Core Processor 3.50 GHz

RAM:               16.0 GB

[MichelBParis]

Very detailed description of your problems indeed.

To make it short, your solution is to use your backup and from your Elements organizer on your new computer, you do a custom restore to recover your catalog (which contains tags, albums etc) AND your photo files folders at the same time. You simply indicate the new location, drive and master folder.

Move Elements Organizer catalog | Elements 6 or later

The other advantage of this process is that even if you restore from a newer organizer version, after the restore, the catalog is automatically 'converted' to the new format.

Forget the copy you have already done of your media files folders. You would have to 'reconnect' all files even if you also restored the catalog folder. Changing the drive letter or the master folder automaticlly makes all paths stored in the catalog 'disconnected'.

After the restore on 'custom' location, both your images files and your catalog folder are on the new destination. You can choose to 'move' the catalog folder to the default location (a 'hidden' folder') on your SSD. Perhaps the best option for speed.

[The Phantom Idiot]

Hello Michel, thanks for your very quick reply, that’s very good of you.

I have tried what you kindly suggested but I’m having trouble accessing the backup of the catalogue file through Elements organiser. I notice it’s looking to restore from files with the suffix .tly which I have checked on the net and found to be files created by ‘Elements organiser backup’. I afraid I have to, rather embarrassingly, admit that I did not backup my catalogue through the ‘Elements Organiser backup’ function of Elements, so I assume the .tly file it wants will not be there?

The backups I was referring to are a general overall system backup which included my data and image files. I was assuming I would be able to find a file on my backup drive with all this information in, I really hope I can and that I haven’t lost all this information due to what is a rather silly oversight on my behalf…!!

I wonder do you think I might be able to retrieve this information from a general Windows backup and if so have you any idea where I might find it and what file name to look for and how I might retrieve and utilise the information contained within?

[MichelBParis]

Since you have no organizer backup, you understand that you need also the catalog folder of your old computer.

Only that catalog holds the information you are missing, tags etc.

So, the first thing is to do a search on the original drive for that catalog folder. If that drive is in good state, you may use it as a another internal or external drive (for instance putting it in a USB external casing).

Then you'll have to search for a file named 'catalog.pse11db'. By default it's in a hidden folder; you'll have to set the explorer settings to show hidden files and folders. Once you have found it, the catalog is the whole folder containing this database file; you can copy the folder where you want on your new computer.

Then, in the PSE version of your new computer, you'll have to use the catalog manager (menu File >> manage catalogs) to press the 'convert' button. That will create a new folder with the right format.

You can open the organizer with the converted catalog by double clicking on the 'catalog.psexxdb' file.

All files should be shown as 'missing' or 'disconnected'.

You should now try the 'reconnect' function by navigating to your restored master folder.

Photoshop Elements (PSE) knowledge base.

Please report back on your progress.

[The Phantom Idiot]

Hello Michel

So sorry for the delay but I do have slight problems.

First off the backup was done on a proper external hard drive using ‘Windows Backup 7’. So using the ‘Restore’ function I was able to locate the file you referred to, 'catalog.pse11db', so by going one level up, I located the folder in which it was stored. I was unable to restore the folder so moved back down a level into the folder and just restored the file, 'catalog.pse11db' into an empty folder I had previously prepared within my ‘Documents’ folder.

Having the 'catalog.pse11db' on my computer, (but minus all the other files in the backed-up version of the folder), I then double clicked the file and it opened the Organiser. It showed most off my images, some were blank and down in the bottom left of the Organiser window, the spinning disc icon was busy spinning round, this carried on for some time, during this period in my newly created folder, other files were created. When the spinning disc icon stopped spinning and disappeared, I was left with my old catalogue with all the Tags, Ratings, Album, People and Smart-Tags, just as it was the day my old computer packed up. This is a brilliant situation everything is back, totally marvellous.

Now as regard to the slight problems. Since acquiring the new computer and having loaded PSE11 on to it and making the new catalogue with the name ‘My Catalogue’ and finding my initial problem, during this period I loaded two batches of photographs onto the computer, which are referenced in the ‘My Catalogue’ catalogue.

When rebuilding my old catalogue, which I gave the name, ‘Old Catalogue’ and then viewing the old catalogue, the two new batches didn’t appear. So I tried to move them into the old catalogue using the Organiser function, ‘Get Photos and Videos from files and folder’ but it moved them in as copies and just added ‘-1’ to the prefix of each file ie P123_123.Jpg became P123_123-1.jpg, they also appeared in ‘All Media’ view in the Organiser but not in Folder then switching back to ‘My Catalogue’ they still had the ‘-1’ on them and when viewed in Windows Explorer they have ‘-1’ on them. Now when you view the information for any particular image within the catalogues, with regard to the address you get the following address details at the beginning of the file name:

For ‘My Catalogue’ you get:        F: \Pictures

For ‘My Old Catalogue’ you get, F:\Users\Owner\Pictures

To further complicate the situation if you go to ‘My Computer’ in Windows Explorer I find under the (F:) drive at the upper level there is a folder called ‘Pictures’ and within that folder all the images in the batch I tried to move have the ‘-1’ appendage. If I come back to the upper level of the (F:) drive and ‘drill down’ to F: \Users\Owner\Pictures then all the images in the batch I tried to move Do Not have the ‘-1’ appendage..!! Just how can I resolve this?

  The other small problem is, when you right click on an image within Organiser and select ‘Edit with Photoshop Elements Editor’, it does open the Editor but not with the selected image open within it, it does just open the Editor. But if I the right click the image within a ‘Windows Explorer’ folder window, it will then open the Editor with the image in it, and any changes made during a session will update the thumbnail image within the Organiser, (as long as it’s open that is)…!! How can I rectify this problem

[MichelBParis]

Having the 'catalog.pse11db' on my computer, (but minus all the other files in the backed-up version of the folder), I then double clicked the file and it opened the Organiser. It showed most off my images, some were blank and down in the bottom left of the Organiser window, the spinning disc icon was busy spinning round, this carried on for some time, during this period in my newly created folder, other files were created. When the spinning disc icon stopped spinning and disappeared, I was left with my old catalogue with all the Tags, Ratings, Album, People and Smart-Tags, just as it was the day my old computer packed up. This is a brilliant situation everything is back, totally marvellous.

Yes, that's a trick I did mention a few years ago in the defunct Elements Village forum.

You recover the main data in your catalog; you lose face recognition, visual similarity...

[MichelBParis]

When rebuilding my old catalogue, which I gave the name, ‘Old Catalogue’ and then viewing the old catalogue, the two new batches didn’t appear. So I tried to move them into the old catalogue using the Organiser function, ‘Get Photos and Videos from files and folder’ but it moved them in as copies and just added ‘-1’ to the prefix of each file ie P123_123.Jpg became P123_123-1.jpg, they also appeared in ‘All Media’ view in the Organiser but not in Folder then switching back to ‘My Catalogue’ they still had the ‘-1’ on them and when viewed in Windows Explorer they have ‘-1’ on them.

You can't have twice the same file name in the same subfolder. That's why if you want to download a file twice in the explorer, the file will be renamed with the -1 suffix. But, that should not happen if all you are doing is to 'import from files and folders', since there is no 'download' in the process, only indexing on already present files. You don't 'move' into another catalog, you 'import' (index) again. I am not sure what you did to get that.

Now when you view the information for any particular image within the catalogues, with regard to the address you get the following address details at the beginning of the file name:

For ‘My Catalogue’ you get:        F: \Pictures

For ‘My Old Catalogue’ you get, F:\Users\Owner\Pictures

My guess is that the files shown in ' F:\Users\Owner\Pictures' are the result of the restore to custom location with the option to keep the folder structure. In the Explorer, what you see as the 'Pictures' folder is just a shortcut to the real location C:\Users\Owner\Pictures. That structure is kept, not the shortcut.

To further complicate the situation if you go to ‘My Computer’ in Windows Explorer I find under the (F:) drive at the upper level there is a folder called ‘Pictures’ and within that folder all the images in the batch I tried to move have the ‘-1’ appendage. If I come back to the upper level of the (F:) drive and ‘drill down’ to F: \Users\Owner\Pictures then all the images in the batch I tried to move Do Not have the ‘-1’ appendage..!! Just how can I resolve this?

I think that you have duplicates on account of your two kinds of backups; the one made by Organizer is in the restored physical folder structure as suggested above.

[The Phantom Idiot]

Hello Michel

That’s it..!! You said “that should not happen if all you are doing is to 'import from files and folders'”,

I know just what I have done now, I have used the command ‘Get Photos and Videos - From Files and Folders’ instead of the command I should have used ‘Import - From Files and Folders’, what a twit. This is why I have the ‘-1’ suffix shown in the folder and the originals without the ‘-1’ appear in another location.

I appear to be stuck with this problem of how the two catalogues are referenced ie:

For ‘My Catalogue’ you get:        F: \Pictures

For ‘My Old Catalogue’ you get, F:\Users\Owner\Pictures

When viewing an image that has been just been stored in an existing folder called say, ‘ABC-Folder.’ Using the old catalogue it will show in the ‘All Media’ view of the organizer but not in ‘Folder’ view alongside all the other files that are stored there. To view it within the ‘Folder’ view you must travel further back up the ‘Folder Tree’, out of the \Users\Owner\Pictures\ABC-Folder then relocate your view to \Pictures\ABC-Folder instead but when viewed in this area only the image that has just been added will be shown, you could have a hundred other images in that folder and they won’t be shown. So effectively the old catalogue when in ‘Folder’ view splits the folder into two locations, old ones are in one position new ones in another.

Now when using the new catalogue, ‘My Catalogue’ to view the newly added image contained in the, existing folder called, ‘ABC-Folder’, it appears exactly where it should in both ‘Folder’ and ‘All Media’ views, along with the old existing files that were transferred over from my old computer. But I now have no tags attributed to the older images or any ‘Albums’. I have imported these from my old catalogue but unfortunately it only seems to import the structure of both the ‘Tags’ and the ‘Albums’ and when clicked on in the new catalogue there is nothing there.

So I have a situation where my new catalogue functions as it should and my old one sort of works but is a little flaky. I can live with that I think, I can use my old catalogue to refer back to as an archive and rebuild my new catalogue to incorporate the information from the old catalogue as and when I need to. I am very grateful for your assistance in getting me this far though when I had thought I had lost all this information. It does serve as a reminder though of the benefits of backing up your catalogue within PSE Organiser, I suspect had I have done that I would not have had all this trouble.

  Putting all the above aside there is still the other problem of when you right click on an image within Organiser, (with both catalogues), and select ‘Edit with Photoshop Elements Editor’, it does open the Editor but not with the selected image open within it, it does just open the Editor. But if I you right click the image within a ‘Windows Explorer’ folder window, it will then open the Editor with the image in it, and any changes made during a session will update the thumbnail image within the Organiser, (as long as it’s open that is)…!! Have you any ideas on how can I rectify this problem, remembering the program files are stored on the C; drive and the image files on the F: drive?