Replace proxies/previews by full images

[jes91354]

Way back when, in the era of Photoshop Organizer 1.0 and much smaller hard drives, I imported several CDs of images with the option to leave the images on the original media.  In this mode, proxies or previews were copied to the hard drive.  (Somewhere the nomenclature changed -- originally the created directories were called "proxies", but over multiple versions and migrations of PSE, they are now called "previews".  Except for one image on each CD which remains in the "proxy" directories.  Weird...)

Those images have been captioned, tagged, and put into version sets, but all that information is in the PSE database, not written back to the original images.

At this point I'd like to read the images off the CDs and have them replace the proxies/previews, but I haven't been able to find a way.  If I import them again, they will be separate images and won't have the captions, tags, and version sets.  I could try to copy the images over the previews, but I'm not sure what effects this would have on PSE, since PSE lists them as previews.

Thanks,

John S.

[MichelBParis · Accepted solution]

The 'previews' for images in CDs are used to enable visual organization when the CD is not plugged in. The 'thumbnails' in the database cache are much too small (360 x 240 pixels) for that purpose. When the CD is available the organizer uses the files on the CD.

I don't have such CDs since many years, but I would simply use the 'Move' or 'Copy or move to removable drive' options to move the files and folders in a CD to a new folder on a conventional drive. You can move the folders in a CD by dragging it from the CD to a new folder on the destination drive. Once the files are moved, the metadata can be written to files, contrary to CDs which are read only.

Could you do a test?

[jes91354]

Thanks for your quick answer.  I had to wait to get home to investigate.

But what I found is apparently at some time in the past 14 years the original images were included in the PSE database.  So this leads to the question, why are the previews still retained (and recently migrated to the new computer)?

They are about double the height and width you mention, so four times the pixels.  The references to the previews are now all incorrect, but PSE doesn't seem to mind (even when I do "Reconnect").  On the Properties/History tab, it's the field "Preview Location".  I'd like to get rid of the previews entirely, but don't see how.

Thanks again,

John S.

[MichelBParis]

John,

What we can find about 'previews" in the online help:

Troubleshooting catalog issues in Elements Organizer

at some time in the past 14 years the original images were included in the PSE database.

If you mean the images were copied or moved from the DVDs to computer drive and kept indexed in the catalog, that's possible.

To be precise, the images are never in a database, they are not either in the catalog folder, they are outside the catalog folder on whatever drive they were downloaded to (removable, external as well).

- The main database file in the catalog folder ("catalog.pse16db" now) contains lists and indexes, no image file.

- Another database file in the catalog folder is the "thumb.5.cache". This thumbnail cache contains small size images in two dimensions, the max one 320 x 240. Those images are not in a image format like jpeg, they are binary fields you can't use yourself. The thumbnail cache can be deleted and it will be re-created anew the next time.

- The 'preview' (proxy) is in the catalog folder ('preview' subfolder) as reduced size copies. In the organizer preferences you can set different file sizes. See A in this screenshot.

In the current PSE versions, offline media can be stored otherwise.

I simply 'imported' a file from a card reader, ignoring the normal option 'from card reader' and I choose from 'files and folders'. I choose to copy the file. The file was created in B, not in the usual date based folder structure and not in the preview folder.

[jes91354]

Michel,

Thanks again for your very thorough reply.  The pictures, as well as the link, were very helpful.

I'm familiar with how PSE stores the images, though maybe I didn't express it well -- I would have never bought a program that imported the pictures into a database.  (As mentioned, I bought Organizer 1.0 as soon as it came out in 2003, before Elements even existed.)  At some point I must have copied the images in question off the CDs and reconnected them (as your link mentioned).  So I'll mark that as answered to give you credit.

What I was trying to ask in my follow-up was if PSE still needed the preview directories and if it could delete them (as well as the links in the property/history pane).  PSE migrated the previews to my new computer, so it is aware that they exist, even though it references the full images and does not display the off-line icons.  I've since moved the catalog and preview directories, and PSE does not seem to mind that the links to the previews are all broken.  Reconnect does not apparently check previews.

John S.

[MichelBParis]

John,

I think the answer is in what I said:

- The 'preview' (proxy) is in the catalog folder ('preview' subfolder) as reduced size copies. In the organizer preferences you can set different file sizes.

So, the proxy is really in the catalog folder, as a subfolder named 'Previews' in the catalog folder. In this case, the catalog does contain image files (small jpegs). The previews are stored there and not elsewhere on your computer. That's why they are carried over when you backup or move catalogs.

I just played a little with test previews.

- I found more items displayed in the organizer browsing space than in the preview subfolder. The shown thumbnail in this case is the one from the thumbnail cache database in lower resolution.

- Deleting files from the  'previews' subfolder does not create any problem with the catalog other than losing resolution. The other information like exif and tags are kept in the catalog. I have not tried if the 'reconnect' function would work in this case with the original CD plugged in? Would the preview be re-created?

- Deleting files from the organizer also deletes the previews... So it seems that's the best solution in your case.