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S
s_T_s
Known Participant
April 6, 2019
Question

Lost photos after Restore in PSE 15.

  • April 6, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 432 views

I wanted to gain access to photos I had in PSE 11, unusable with Windows 10 in a newer PC.  I restored them successfully to PSE 15 but now cannot find my newer set of photos (taken and uploaded to PSE 15 before I tried 'Restore' from PSE 11)  when I open Elements.  Those photos are still on my PC, as I can see them in 'Pictures' but not in PSE 15.  It's as if the 'Restore' has overwritten any photos I already had.

Any ideas, please, as to what has happened?

Thomas

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    MichelBParis
    MichelBParis
    Legend
    April 6, 2019

    STS1956  wrote

    I wanted to gain access to photos I had in PSE 11, unusable with Windows 10 in a newer PC.  I restored them successfully to PSE 15 but now cannot find my newer set of photos (taken and uploaded to PSE 15 before I tried 'Restore' from PSE 11)  when I open Elements.  Those photos are still on my PC, as I can see them in 'Pictures' but not in PSE 15.  It's as if the 'Restore' has overwritten any photos I already had.

    Any ideas, please, as to what has happened?

    Thomas

    If you restore photos from an older version backup, they will appear with the original catalog after a final conversion to the newer catalog format. The photos you have catalogued previously in the new PSE are in their own catalog. There is no simple way to 'merge' two catalogs. So, the best you can do is probably to re-import the photos in a catalog into the other, after 'writing metadata to tags' to recover most of your organization work.

    S
    s_T_sAuthor
    Known Participant
    April 7, 2019

    Hi MichelB,

    I'm not clear what you mean in your last post.

    If I were to create a new folder (I did so successfully for my Restore of PSE 11 photos), could I then Restore my (newer) PSE 15 photos as they are not in PSE 15 now?  (Thankfully I backed up all my newer photos on to an external H/D, so it should be easy enough to do.)

    I don't necessarily want to merge the older and the newer photos: I'm just happy to be able to look at my older photos.  I do of course want access to my newer photos; I've got photos already that I want to download and add to that collection. (Is what I'm calling a 'collection' what you refer to as a 'catalog' by the way?

    If I can avoid having to buy PSE2019 I'd be pleased; I'm quite happy editing in PSE 15.  If I can't somehow get my newer photos back into PSE15 though, I may have no choice.

    I can't locate my newer photos within PSE 15 now, so my assumption is that they were overwritten when I restored my older photos, but what do you think has happened?

    Many thanks for replying so promptly,

    Thomas

    MichelBParis
    MichelBParis
    Legend
    April 7, 2019

    Thomas,

    What I mean:

    You have two catalogs (two different databases with pointers to files located on your computer).

    The one which was created when you installed PSE15 (the new files you are still able to see in the explorer)

    The restored catalog which is located under the master folder location you have chosen when you did the restore. That restore did recreate both the media files folder tree AND that original catalog, and it also created a converted catalog copy from PSE11 to PSE15.

    Each catalog ignores what is in the other one. You can access any of your photo files from one or the other catalog. If you want to be able to see all your media files, ideally you would want both catalogs to be merged into a single one. That is not easy, but you can select the catalog which holds most of your photos (my guess is the converted one from old PSE11 catalog) and import the files catalogued afterwards from PSE15.

    Then all your files would be accessible.

    Good to know:

    1 - It's very easy to import those newer PSE15 files if you know where they are on your computer. There is no risk of importing twice older files in your computer. The import feature has a protection against duplicate imports.

    2 - Importing files is good, but importing them with their organization data (tags, captions...) is better. So, you'll have to select the catalog of the PSE15 files in our example, select all the files (Ctrl All) and write metadata to files (Ctrl W) to write all your tags and captions to the files themselves. That way, the photos will be imported  with all their tags and captions.

    If that is not clear, please come back.

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