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jmillsp
Known Participant
August 13, 2018
Question

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

  • 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.

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3 replies

M
missb0307
Participant
October 9, 2018

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
MichelBParis
Legend
October 9, 2018

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
hatstead
Inspiring
August 13, 2018

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
    August 13, 2018

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

    MichelBParis
    MichelBParis
    Legend
    August 13, 2018

    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
      August 13, 2018

      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
      MichelBParis
      Legend
      August 14, 2018

      As a matter of fact, Hatstead suggestion can also be used after the backup and restore solution.

      With your good description of the present situation, it's possible to suggest an efficient workflow.

      You have already copied all your old files to a new external drive.

      That's good.

      (Side question:  I suppose you can use that external drive alternatively on both computers?  )

      It would be interesting to know how much diskspace that requires for your image files. I think that with 2 tB you are at ease.

      The general idea is:

      1 - to use the backup and restore function now, restoring on a new master folder on your D drive.

      2 - to use Hatstead suggestion to import everything already copied on the external drive into the new restored catalog. The duplicate protection of the organizer will ignore files already in the catalog.

      3 - to get rid of the ignored duplicates, it's possible to select all the files in that 'import batch' and to move them to a new, different folder on your D drive. Then you can delete the remaining files from the location you copied them. If they have not been imported, that means they are duplicates. You delete those files from your Explorer or Finder.

      If that is ok for you, i can go into more details.

      Note that the backup and restore process generally requires a second external drive. If you don't have one, you can use the same external drive if you have enough space (about three times the size of your media files library). The process will be longer and you'll have to be careful to store the backup folder separately. Anyway, you'll need another drive for future backups...

      For the moment, I would not bother with older Elements versions, but in case of need, you could reinstall them in the new computer.

      - if you don't intend to use the old computer, deactivate all Elements versions (menu Help >> deactivate). That will make possible to reinstall them in the new computer.

      - look for the location of the different catalog folders (menu Help >> System information) and archive those catalog files.

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