Skip to main content
larrywoodman
larrywoodman
Participating Frequently
June 11, 2018
Question

PSE 2017 & Apple Mac

  • June 11, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 490 views

I have recently upgraded from PSE 8 to PSE 2017 and - at the same time converted from Windows 10 the Apple Mac Pro and have had nothing but problems. I have watched videos, read FAQ's and searched on the Forum but have not been able to find the answers to help me...possibly at least partly because of trying to learn Apple and new PSE at the same time. Current questions - and there are several others:

On windows, I had all of my photos - almost 100,000 - on an external drive. I've been trying to do that on the Mac with the new PSE but have problems. When downloading photos from my camera (Canon7D), Photoshop/Apple put up a window saying it cannot write to the directory on the external drive. I have tried several directories - even tried to crate a new one - but still cannot save to the external drive. I have finally created a special directory on the Mac and downloaded to it with the hopes that I can eventually transfer all photos to the external drive. I travel a lot in an RV and do not always have access to the internet or any cloud and, therefore, am reluctant to put all my photos on the cloud at this time.

Possibly related - permissions - in trying to edit a picture, I could make the desired changes but the Editor said I did not have write permission to save the changed photo. I am the only user of the Mac and have all the permissions required.

When I imported the photos from PSE8, several problems occurred, but the photos were imported. Some and some of the tags while others did not have tags. However, a large list of the tags were imported - and appear to be connected to some of the photos. Most of these tags are labeled as "Imported Tags" with some being Places, some being People and some objects, etc. How do I move/change the "Imported Tags" to people or places?

Related to "Places" - with a 100,000 photos, any map would be obliterated with pins/pix or whatever. Many of the Imported Tags are Places. New photos added to my catalog - Yes, only one - I am reluctant to connect to a Place. Is it possible to not use the map and tag the photos with a Place and establish it under the "Places" subject?

More questions but responses to these will help a lot!!

Thanks

Larry Weaver

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

MichelBParis
MichelBParis
Legend
June 11, 2018

Larry,

I don't have a Mac, so I'll start with issues not related to the OS platform.

1 - Place tags.

Before PSE13, there was no special tabs to manage places (nor people, events...)

You simply used  a pre-created 'standard' hierarchy category 'Places'. You could as well create a category called 'My Places', 'Mes Lieux' or whatever. Just like you can create your 'animals', 'Sports' or 'School' categories. You can still do that now. The advantage is that you can create your places subcategories freely instead of being restricted to the Google Maps hierarchy. You can assign several keywords for the same location: the local one and the usual English one. The search tools will combine the criteria if needed.

2- You should not 'import' files when moving to a new computer. In your case there is the standard procedure for moving libary and catalog to a new drive or computer:

Move Elements Organizer catalog

(see the part for moving from Windows to Mac).

The backup / restore process restores everything in the catalog (the 'convert' catalog also, when installing a new version).

Importing can recover the tags, captions and ratings if you have 'written metadata to tags - shortcut Ctrl W) but not albums, stacks, version sets or creations.

3- 'Imported keywords category'.

The import process stores your tag in the correct category if it is already present in your catalog. For a new catalog, everything wil go under the same 'imported keywords' category. The solution is to save the keyword hierarchy (the container tree) in a small text file and to recover it in the new empty catalog before importing. There is a small icon on the title of the keyword panel opening a menu with that option.

4- About permissions and Macs:

It may help to keep in mind that when you copy or move a whole catalog folder from explorer or finder, its contents are not changed. You may try to store a copy elsewhere (desktop or external drive) and see if that copy works. In the catalog manager, tick 'custom location' and browse to the new folder. More simply, double click the 'catalog.pse16db' database file to open the organizer with the catalog copy.

In your use case, people generally store both catalog and photo library on the external drive; that's what happens when you move with the backup/restore process. Working with a catalog copy on the laptop is possible and probably a little more responsive.

larrywoodman
larrywoodmanAuthor
Participating Frequently
June 11, 2018

Michael:

Thanks for the quick reply and info. I’ve already moved/imported my PSE-8 info so some of what you are advising is not possible.

First, I went on-line to Adobe with my old PSE and- with the assistance of their support person downloaded the new PSE - 2017/2018. We tried the backup process on Windows but the new PSE on the Apple Mac wasn’t able to read it. We/he tried several alternatives, without success. We finally took my external drive from the Windows machine and connected it to the Mac and tried to get the new PSE to read it. This was partly successful as we got all the pics and some had tags and some not and results as noted in my post.

Now to your response....Places tags...I have lots of them, some connected to pix but all with the “Imported Tags” ID. Is there a way to convert these to Places? If not I can make new Places tags for each old one, select pix with the old, apply the new to them and then delete the old one. As there are LOTS of these tags, it will take awhile, but can be done. No, how do I create the new Places tags? You said I could but I don’t think you said how.

As to the rest, let me go through what you have said and see what I can do. I am currently on a ferry with our RV so it may be awhile before I can do that

Thanks again and please let me know the “how” on Places tags and IF I can convert the Imported tags to Places tags

Rgds,

Larry

Sent from my iPhone

larrywoodman
larrywoodmanAuthor
Participating Frequently
June 20, 2018

let me know the “how” on Places tags

1 - Opens the menu to manage standard keyword tags and their sub categories.

2 - The "+" dialog lets you change your choices, change the name of the tag, a keyword to a sub-category and much more.

...if I can convert the Imported tags to Places tags

You can convert 'imported keywords' into your own 'my places' standard keywords category, not in the new 'places' tab which is linked to geotagging.

Let's say you have already a sub-category 'Europe' and 'France' is an imported tag.

- You can drag that tag over the 'Europe' category.

- You can use the arrow nr 2. The edit dialog lets you change the 'master' category to 'Europe'

- You can select several items beside 'France' by Ctrl or Shift clicking and drag them.

Moving keywords from the 'Imported categories' to the right master category is fast and easy, especially if you have the right category hierarchy set up before;  also it's often possible to move several tags at the same time.


Michael:

It has been a busy couple of weeks, but I have tried some of your suggestions and also figured out something - the Apple part.

The external drive that I have - that has about 400GB of pix is the one that I was using on my Windows machine and, although readable by Apple would not allow the Mac to write to it. I have to transfer all the data elsewhere and then reformat the drive to Apple specs and then put the data back on it…NOT fun. I will likely buy another external drive, formatted for the Mac and just copy the data to it.

On the Places tags, I have been working on that - have a few hundred tags and have to do each one - sometimes more than once - change the “parent” for the tag and change the tag to a sub-category tag separately. It’s working but still have a way to go.

I have a problem, however. The “Imported” tags include some People tags but to change from the “Imported” tag to something else, I have to have a People category to change it to. I have created some by modifying existing People tags that were recognized as People tags, but the tags in the Imported group don’t see them. What I guess I will do, is select all the pix with each of the imported tags and assign my new tags to those pix and then delete the old Imported tag.

One last item: There is a place to create image tags but I do not see where - or how - to create a completely new Places tag. Could you please educate me a little more?

Thank-you!

Regards,

Larry

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices