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Question

New Computer, Win 10, how to transfer photos in Elements

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
August 13, 2018
3 replies
2456 views

Started to try to get my new Win 10 computer up and running today. It has been pretty much a nightmare for me. Part of the problem, is that I don't understand exactly how the photos in my Elements 15 are saved or not. I have file folders from several different years that I keep on my desktop but also have several catalogs of photos in Elements 15, 14, and a couple others I don't remember the number of right now. At any rate, I don't want to lose any of my photos but not sure how or if I can transfer the Elements programs over to my new computer with the photos in them or not. I need someone to help me with this, if possible. Sorry for my lack of knowledge. I know I have lost photos before or at least it seems I have as I sometimes will click on a photo in a catalog and it will say searching for it but never finds it! I have also seen where I just have a question mark up for the photo in a catalog. Your help will be most appreciated and I apologize for my ignorance.

transferring photos to new computer

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M

missb0307

Participant

How do I import pictures from my google photos instead of the ones that are saved to just my computer? Any help is much appreciated!

MichelBParis

Legend

missb0307 wrote
How do I import pictures from my google photos instead of the ones that are saved to just my computer? Any help is much appreciated!

You'll have to download your Google photos on your computer.

Use the Google help or many tutorials on the web, such as:

How to download photos and videos - Photos Resources

Once they are on your computer, you can use the organizer to import the download photos 'Import from files or folders'.

hatstead

Inspiring

It seems to me that you have an opportunity to create order out of chaos. The photo-files are not stored in the organizer, they are on your disk wherever you put them.

Consider repopulating the organizer from scratch on your new computer, leaving old catalogs and tags behind on the old machine. You don't have to do this in one day!

My 2 c worth.

J

jmillspAuthor

Known Participant

Please see my response to Michel and thanks for the tips!

MichelBParis

Legend

On one side you have your images stored in your computer drive(s). You can see them and manage them (move, delete, rename...) from your Explorer or Finder.

On the other side, you are using catalogs in the Organizer. Catalogs are just lists, sophisticated lists, but only lists of pointers to the real location on your drives together with the info about each image (exif, tags, captions...)

So, that explains why you may have 'missing' or 'disconnected' files in your catalog. If you move, delete or rename files from the Explorer or finder (or even from a different catalog), the pointer in the catalog is wrong. Reconnecting may be very difficult for the organizer.

In your situation, the organizer provides a way to move your images files as well as your catalog folders to another computer or drive.

Move Elements Organizer catalog

This is a very frequent process which ensures that both the image files and the current catalog are moved where you want and that the pointers to the files location is updated in the catalog.

In your case, that is several catalog versions, you'll have to think about what you want to do with the old catalogs from older PSE versions or for other (non current) catalogs from the latest version. The above process can be made separately for each catalog from its original organizer version (PSE14, 15...) The question is to decide where to store the restored catalog without creating problems with the already restored catalogs and images. It's safe to restore to a different master folder on the destination drive, but that will create duplicates.

J

jmillspAuthor

Known Participant

Trying to follow you here. I am admittedly slow on the uptake. As I understand it, all the photos that I can see in my "catalog" within Elements, are on my computers hard drive somewhere. I have now put all my photos from my old computer that I knew existed onto my new computer and to save space, have put them onto a 2 tb hardrive that is my D drive. C is only a 500gb SSD and I want to keep it with as little data as possible for speed sake. If I now put Elements 15 onto my new computer, would you put it on the C drive under programs or D? Also, when I do that, will it automatically recognize the photos that were in the catalogs previously and put them back in? I am not sure how I will now know which photos were in the catalogs? I am also wondering if I even need to put any of the prior versions of Elements back on my new machine?? Would this be a good time to go with a new version of Elements altogether?? I was having issues with 15 when I tried to upload photos to it as it would say something like the photo was a duplicate or something like that. I finally solved that issue by loading all my files into a file on my desktop and then copying them into Elements from their but I think I end up with photos that I don't necessarily want that way. Thanks for all your time and help!

MichelBParis

Legend

Thank you for all your knowledge and help. I am trying to follow you to the letter here. I have now made a backup copy of all photos in all my catalogs onto an external harddrive. I have about 8 or so catalogs and really, the only reason I have 8 is because I have had problems trying to upload photos into Elements 15 for the past year or so. Always coming up and telling me that the file already exists or something like that. I found a work around by loading them first onto my desktop in a file and then transferring from there, rather than directly from the sd card. At any rate, I really see no need for those various catalogs so am wondering if I might be wise to try to just make one catalog for them all??

Now, relative to what you are telling me previously, are you saying I should now make a folder in my D: drive called Restored photos or Copied Photos and then plug my external drive that I have copied them onto and transfer or copy them into that folder file?

You have already copied your photo files to your D: drive. If you have chosen to copy the files while keeping the folder tree, the folders are either directly under the D/ root folder, or in a master folder you have created for the pupose. Anyway, what is important is that you may be able to separate clearly:

- the copied photo folders. If you have created a single master folder that will be simple. If your copy resulted in several folders just under the root drive instead of a single one, you'll have to take all of them into account when importing after the restore.

- the folder created to receive the 'restore' from your external backup. I suggested 'Restored Photos'.

- A different master folder 'Copied Photos' to receive the batch of imported photos (which ignored duplicates).

You already have:

- the master folder or the different folders in which you have copied your photos on D:

- The backup folder in your external drive.

Step one now:

- Do the restore process from your external drive to the 'Restored Photos' folder.

Then, do the Import task from either the master folder or the various folders under D: root (ignore the restored photos folder in the latter case).

In the organizer, sort your images by 'Import batch'. You can select the imports you have just done, and move those files in the 'Copied Photos' folder. After that, only duplicates will stay in the folders you have already copied your media files. The managed files in the catalog will be in the 'Restored Photos' folder, the non-duplicates imported from your copy will be in 'copied Photos' and only duplicates will remain where you have copied them. You now can delete them from the Explorer.

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