Missing Tags from all photos that were previously tagged

Report · Jun 06, 2017

I have been using PSE 14 for several weeks. Everything appeared to work fine after backing up (full back up) to a Seagate external hard drive from an HP Win 7 computer using PSE 12. After restoring my catalog onto a new HP Win 10 computer with PSE 14 on it, all my tags that were previously on various photos are gone. These tags were not the result of facial recognition, but were individually added and attached to the photos.

Does anyone have any idea what happened??? I see other individuals have had similar problems restoring into PSE 15???

Report · Jun 06, 2017

Hi,

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Requesting you to provide more details here:

1. Which all tags are getting missed? Is it specific to people tags or similar issue is happening with keywords and places tags as well.

2. Can you see those tags on right panel (Click on Info/Tags icon present on action panel in media view)

3. Restoring PSE12 catalog to PSE14, did the conversion went fine?

Thanks,

Anwesha

Report · Jun 09, 2017

Anwesha, Thank you very much for your interest and prompt response . Here answers to your inquiry about my problem:

1) all the tags on the "actual photos" of all categories/subcategories were gone and also the pictures on the subcategories on the right side panel were not present.

2) the tags on the right panel including categories and subcategories were present sans pictures.

3) the restoration from PSE 12 from a Win 7 computer to PSE 14 on another computer with Win 10 went fine.

When I clicked on a category or subcategory all the pictures in that subcategory were present but no category/subcategory tag were on any of the pictures. I went into Edit/preferences and realized that I needed to click on "large tag/icon". Then all the pictures in the right panel in the categories and subcategories showed up as they were supposed to, but no tags showed up on the pictures in the Album.

I suspect that after PSE 12 it was decided that it wasn't necessary to put tags on the pictures in the album as it took up lots of space especially if there were multiple tags on any given picture ( indicating that the picture was included in multiple categories or subcategories)?

It is too bad that the tags on the pictures in the album are no longer present because they allowed an easy way to see the location of the pictures in the various categories and subcategories. This was a nice convenience.

E Koenig

Report · Sep 23, 2017

Was there an answer somewhere I missed? Same problems. I add tags, Categories and Sub_Categories. They appear in the thumbnail then immediately disappears. When I look for them at a later time, they're gone. I use an iMac and Elements 15 that I purchased last week! Help please, this is frustrating!

Report · Sep 23, 2017

Was there an answer somewhere I missed?

Maybe...

First question, where do you look at the tags? By default, PSE15 and other new applications show the thumbnails in 'adaptative grid' mode. Only images, no text, no file name, no date... Just use the shortcut Ctrl C to display in the good old detailed mode. If your zoom selection for thumbnails is big enough, you'll see your tags. Otherwise, the tags are displayed in the bottom of the Info panel on the right side.

If you don't see any tag in that info panel, the most frequent situation is when users read the title of the backup and restore method without reading the detailed workflow. They use any kind of external backup, re-import their files in the catalog and wonder why the tags are not written to files. Even if you use the 'write metadata to files' from the old Elements, that only writes tags, captions and ratings and no album, stak or version set.

A less frequent situation is when people believe that saving the keywords hierarchy in a text file and restore it before reimporting: that only restores the hierarchy (the container), not the content of that hierarchy tree.

Report · Sep 25, 2017

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your quick response. Excited to use the Organiser, but getting frustrated when hitting walls.

I'm afraid I'm a novice and not understanding enough of your advice to put it to practical use. Let me explain the steps I'm taking and my understanding/misunderstanding of how it should be done.

Today, I used "Import" to upload photos from my iPhone.

- Once imported, I deleted the photos not of interest

- I had already created Several Keyword Categories and Sub-Categories (i.e. Birthday, Granddaughter, Location, etc) I hi-lighted the photos of interest and did a drag/drop of the keywords to the applicable photos.

-Following your suggestion, I expanded the size of the thumbnail to verify the keywords were present (they were there)

- I renamed the folder

Questions:

* Not having a clue to the difference of adaptative grid and the detailed mode I did the "Ctrl C" (I'm on an iMac if that matters) nothing changed on the display.

* Here may be the million dollar question. What do I do with the Folder (with the downloaded photos) after adding keywords and I'm finished with it?

- I can't find a save function in the menus.

- The "Delete Folder" option on the above scenario is greyed out.

- Previously, when I imported photos from my camera (as a test), I did the keyword application and was able to delete the folder

- I then used the Import Folder function to import the folder with the photos. No keywords

Again, I'm a novice so apologize if I'm asking stupid questions.

Report · Sep 25, 2017

Questions:
* Not having a clue to the difference of adaptative grid and the detailed mode I did the "Ctrl C" (I'm on an iMac if that matters) nothing changed on the display.

Sorry... I do apologize.

It's not Ctrl C, it's Ctrl D (or the menu View >> Details)

* Here may be the million dollar question. What do I do with the Folder (with the downloaded photos) after adding keywords and I'm finished with it?

Let's start with the 'Import' process.

It has two purposes: downloading the images files from your camera or card to your computer - and - creating an entry in a catalog (same use as a paper catalog or a spreadsheat but a 'database' catalog).

- the first step is needed when your photos are on your camera or your card is inserted in a card reader). You are generally supposed to want to copy the image files from the card to somewhere on a disk in your computer. Note that you don't absolutely need Elements to do that, your OS (explorer or finder) can do that download task. You choose to copy your files to the computer and optionally to delete the originals in your card to get space back for new photos.

- The second step, importing in the catalog (better words: registering or indexing) means that your files are read, all the useful information in the exif header of your photo files are read: date, size, shutter speed and much more. All that is written in the catalog; a small image (thumbnail) is created for visual search and stored in the catalog.

That explains why you have the choice to import either from 'camera or card reader' or to import from files on your folders (for instance, scanned photos, photos from the web or copied from any external media like DVD, thumbnail stick...

Once you have 'imported' files, you can see the thumbnails and the properties of the files in the information panel on the right side of the screen. You can add your own keywords; that's what you have done. The keywords are written in the catalog and should appear both on the bottom of the information panel and under the image in the browsing space if you zoom completely to see a single image. The keywords are NOT written to the files on your computer. But you can decide to write them in the files themselves if you want. You use the menu 'File >> Save metadata to files, and your tags are available just like your shutter speed and aperture and can be seen from your explorer/finder or any other editing software.

So, the first key concept is that the photo files are not in the catalog, they are on your disk. The information (tags...) is stored as links in the catalog.

The second one is that your tags are only kept in the catalog unless you voluntarily copy them to the files.

Report · Sep 25, 2017

Hi (Again) Michael,

I believe I have it functioning. The "Save Metadata to Files" was the action I wasn't taking. After I added the Tags (Keywords) and used the Add Metadata function I believe it's doing what I was attempting to accomplish! Now the photos I archived to my external drive have the keywords.

Thank you! It's a fantastic tool but even with Scott Kelby's book, it gets confusing.

Thank you again!