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bradleyl82667092
bradleyl82667092
Participant
January 28, 2018
질문

What's the best way to consolidate photo's from several computers, elimate duplicates, tag and upload to to the cloud?

  • January 28, 2018
  • 1 답변
  • 2286 조회

I have photos stored on a computer with the old Picasa, a newer laptop with Elements 2018, a Flickr Pro account, and an external hard drive. Most likely, there are several thousand photos on each, plus hundreds on my IPhone. With all this, I moved photos back and forth over the years and have tons of duplications.

For years I've been trying to figure out how to get all these photos in one location, eliminate the duplicates, add the appropriate tags, categorize them by year and store them back on Flickr for easy retrieval when I want to share photo's. I also tried FastStone and Windows editors for Win 7 and 10. I often stop because I'm not sure what the end result will be. not sure if I should up load everything to Flicker or down load every thing to elements, add tags and upload everything back to Flickr. I'm also concerned about duplicating everything again on Flickr.

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    1 답변

    MichelBParis
    MichelBParis
    Legend
    January 29, 2018

    That's a pretty big project indeed .

    I'll start with a few questions first:

    - it seems you are new with Elements, my guess is that you have not yet used some of its features like albums, stacks, version sets?

    - Did you use face recognition in Picasa?

    - Your library on Flickr: How big in size and number of items? Which library do you trust most: the one on the desktop or the Flickr one?

    - Are there many videos or raw files? Or mainly jpegs?

    - I am not familiar with Picasa nor Flickr: did you assign many tags, keywords or captions and add them to the files themselves?

    - Are there already many pictures managed by PSE 2018 on your new laptop?

    - The external drive: how much free space? Does it contain pictures or backups?

    Now, without knowing the above details, here are a few thoughts.

    - Flickr is perhaps your main or only backup? Managing files on any Cloud storage is slow and limited in features. I would first download the full collection to the external drive for easier, faster and more powerful management with PSE.

    - The PSE organizer will be the tool to merge your present storage devices and to deal with duplicates to a certain extent.

    - The organizer works on catalogs, it does not contain files, only links to the files on the various devices. Its consolidating job will end up with a single catalog referencing all the files.

    - Once your catalog is clean, you can use its backup and restore process to create a single image file folder tree on a single device, combining all selected files.

    - We'll have to discuss the structure of the folders tree, the chronological organization is probably the best.

    - Lastly, the final catalog and photo files folder will be on a computer or on the external drive. It may be possible to upload only files not already present in Flickr.

    - Your master library will be on your computer and you'll have to manage the updating on Flickr in the future.

    - You'll have to create backups on external drive periodically for safety. Flickr will no longer be the backup. Those backups (photo files and catalogs) are also necessary when you want to move or the library to a new drive or computer.

    bradleyl82667092
    bradleyl82667092작성자
    Participant
    January 30, 2018

    Thanks Michel, Thanks for responding, and your right on with my mess.

    I started with Picasa 10 years ago without any problems. I had one point and shoot camera and always added my photos to Picasa and created folders. Google bought it and doesn't support it anymore. Now I have a DSLR and an IPhone, text pictures and e-mail pictures. Plus my wife and daughters I-phones. The last 3 years I've been trying different organizers. Everyone says theirs is the best. But I'm fearful of doing all the work, then have to do it again because something wasn't quite right. Last year I signed up for the free Flickr account , then went with the paid Pro version because it had an auto uploader. I wasn't overly thrilled with it. Your right, it's slow. I bought Elements at Thanksgiving and the next weekend, had to buy Elements for Dummies. It seems like an awesome program for not much money. I was pleasantly surprised. And I'd be grateful if you can walk me through it.

    My goal is to have all my pictures in one spot and available from my computer or I-Phone.

    I want to tag them so I can find them easily.

    I want to sort by years, months, and events.

    I want to preserve the photos for the next generation.

    -my guess is that you have not yet used some of its features like albums, stacks, version sets? I started reading up on these today at lunch and I see where your heading.

    - Did you use face recognition in Picasa? Yes, and also with Elements to some degree.

    - Your library on Flickr: How big in size and number of items? about 15,000 pictures dating back to 2004.

    Which library do you trust most: the one on the desktop or the Flickr one? Based on my experience and what you said, I like Elements. l was hoping to use elements as my work in progress then upload to Flickr.

    - Are there many videos or raw files? Or mainly jpegs? Only Jpegs.

    - I am not familiar with Picasa nor Flickr: did you assign many tags, keywords or captions and add them to the files themselves? Some, but not many.

    - Are there already many pictures managed by PSE 2018 on your new laptop? about 15,000 pictures. 121GB use, 670GB free space.

    - The external drive: how much free space? 1T, about 40GB used. Does it contain pictures or backups? Interesting, What's the difference? 

    Now, without knowing the above details, here are a few thoughts.

    - Flickr is perhaps your main or only backup? Managing files on any Cloud storage is slow and limited in features. I would first download the full collection to the external drive for easier, faster and more powerful management with PSE.

    - The PSE organizer will be the tool to merge your present storage devices and to deal with duplicates to a certain extent.

    - The organizer works on catalogs, it does not contain files, only links to the files on the various devices. Its consolidating job will end up with a single catalog referencing all the files.

    - Once your catalog is clean, you can use its backup and restore process to create a single image file folder tree on a single device, combining all selected files.

    - We'll have to discuss the structure of the folders tree, the chronological organization is probably the best.

    THE FOLDERS TREE is not well organized either.

    - Lastly, the final catalog and photo files folder will be on a computer or on the external drive. Great.

    It may be possible to upload only files not already present in Flickr. I believe your correct.

    - Your master library will be on your computer and you'll have to manage the updating on Flickr in the future. Yes

    - You'll have to create backups on external drive periodically for safety. Flickr will no longer be the backup. Those backups (photo files and catalogs) are also necessary when you want to move or the library to a new drive or computer. Interesting. I don't really have any of them backed up.

    Brad

    MichelBParis
    MichelBParis
    Legend
    January 30, 2018

    Your requirements are very similar to mine, and to most amateur photographers:

    My goal is to have all my pictures in one spot and available from my computer or I-Phone.

    A very concise formula; all photographers would agree.

    The problem is that, as you have already found, the only way to share all is to store all your files in the Cloud (Flickr or similar).

    I want to tag them so I can find them easily.

    Unfortunately, I don't know of any cloud service which can offer this ease of search to your computer and smartphones. Maybe Lightroom is the nearest solution?

    I want to sort by years, months, and events.

    Ok with the organizer in your computer, but what for sharing with other computers or smartphones?

    I suspect you want not only the 'virtual' database organisation in the catalog, but a logical reorganization in folders on your computer? And the same on Flickr (don't know how that works)?  That physical reorganization of your folders on your computer is possible from the organizer, but it's far from fast and easy; it's also a bit risky.

    I want to preserve the photos for the next generation.

    Good.

    The best solution is perhaps to rely both on the Flick account and on a 'merged' version of all files under a single master folder and a single catalog. That also means that you are doing regular backups of the library and catalog on your computer.

    So, if you can't have all your requirements at the same time, you can try to achieve a good solution with acceptable compromises.

    - considering the Flickr account as the 'sharing' site and the site for future generations. Only a selection of the best and meaningful files. A logical organization in folders or albums, according to the Flickr features. The full library on your computer.

    - Reorganizing also the folder hierarchy in your computer may not be necessary, but it will be useful for future generations. You might wait to choose a new structure for new files immediately, and perform the transformation of older files hierarchy later when you have time. Same idea for the hierarchy in Flickr.

    What do you think about those compromises?

    Anyway, we can already start to find your best workflow to get the files from your camera, card reader and phones.

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