lost computer

[marc5C44]

Because of the fires in California I have lost the use of my computer. I have been using PS Elements 9 for years and luckily I was able to save several thousand photos to a portable hard drive. I was able to evacuate my home with this drive. My question is, if I get the newest edition of PS Elements will I be able to view my saved photos? If so, will they still have the original tags attached? I already have to learn Windows 10, I guess now I'll have to learn Elements 2021. Thanks for any help.

[hatstead]

Sorry about the loss that you and many others have sustained in this disaster.

If you have a backup of the Organizer, you should be able to restore it on a new computer:

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

As for Windows 10, I purchased a new destop with Windows 10 earllier this year, and it is a great operating system. Have not had any problems. 

[Greg_S.]

As hatstead says, if you did a backup of your catalog, you will be able to restore it using Elements 2021.  But it sounds like you only copied the photo files.  If that is the case, you will have to create a new catalog.  You will be able to restore all of the keyword tags if you saved all metadata to the files (using the Ctrl+W or menu commands).  If not, the keyword tags are automatically saved under other conditions, e.g. when you edit a file in the Editor.

Alternatively, did you save the catalog folder?  If so, it will be possible to restore it to your new computer.  But, depending on how the photos were originally stored, it may take some work to replicate the folder structure so that the Organizer's catalog database can recognize the files.

If you can confirm whether or not you saved anything other than the photos themselves, we may be able to give you further information.

And I too am sorry that you were affected by the fires.

[marc5C81]

Thanks for the replies. To be honest, I'm not sure what I saved. Whenever I got photos from a chip reader they were sent directly to the portable hard drive thru my PS program. Whenever  I copied  something frrom my Desktop, I used the function "move" and they went to the portable hard drive. I'm wondering if I can buy a download of PS Elements 9 and install it on my new computer then I would be able to access my photos and find a way to convert my catalog to the most receint version. Do you think that would work?

[Greg_S.]

You cannot purchase a download of Elements 9.  You may be able to find a copy on eBay or similar seller.  However, that won't do you any good unless you have the catalog file.  So, you should search your external drive for a file named catalog.pse9db.   If you don't have that file, you are going to have to start a new catalog from scratch.  When importing your photo files to the new catalog, you may be given the opportunity to import any tags that are found in the metadata of the files.  They will be stored in a tag category called Imported Tags in the tag hierarchy.  You can then click and drag the individual tags to a new tag structure that you will have to build.

However, do not despair.  There are many features of Elements 2021 that will help you.  For example, face recognition will analyze your photos for people and you can then easily tag the people with their names.  Similarly, Elements 2021 will analyze your photos for their content and tag them with Smart Tags.  You can then search for any number of words that you might have used as keyword tags and the artificial intelligence of the program will do a pretty good job of returning results for you.

[marc5C81]

Thanks Greg_S, I will try searching the drive. I know a couple of times I
went to access my photos, I got catalog not found, because I had removed
the portable drive. When I plugged it back in I was able to go to my
catalog. I definitely will load Ellements 2021 for future use. Thanks again
for teaching an old dog new tricks.