Photoshop elements 10 to 2020

[bills88510733]

I currently have photoshop elements 10, in getting a new computer and would like to install 2020 on it. I have thousands of pictures on my old computer, ever one has notes and discriptions attached to each photo. What's the best way to move them from old to new and keep all of the content. Thanks

[Rinske2020]

I have the same question; only old version is V14 instead of V10.

I am trying to transfer all to my new computer, but still did not succeed.

The ways I tried: make backup on old computer, then restore backup on new computer.

Still did not succeed although tried this in a lot of varieties:

* backup old computer with V14, restore backup on new computer with V20

* backup old computer with V20, restore backup on new computer with V20.

- Both with restoring on network drive (\\DS218) and with restoring on D:\drive.   

 This backup is approx 600 GB (> 50.000 photos). 

In all cases, after restoring the backup, I first get a message that restoring was finished, but directly after clicking on <OK> I get the message "De catalogus voorbereiden", which is Dutch for "preparing catalogue".

After that you can wait for days, but nothing happens.

And restarting the computer only leads to a catalogue that does not show my photocollection.

Please help!

[Greg_S.]

As Regenbook has indicated, the best/easiest way to upgrade to a new computer is to backup the catalog on the old computer and restore the catalog on the new one.  It should not matter whether you first convert the catalog to the newer version on the old computer or the newer one.  At some point, the catalog has to go through a conversion process.  The catalog conversion process can occur when you first install the new version (2020) on the same computer as an older version.  Or it can happen when you restore the backup of an older version catalog to the new computer, using the newer version of the program for the restore. So:

@Billfd50,  you should backup the catalog to an external drive (or a hard drive that you are moving to the new computer), install 2020 on the new computer, and then restore the backup, using 2020.

@regenboog, each of your methods should have worked.  But, what kind of network drive are you using?  A wired network, a wifi network, or a NAS.  Elements does not work well with a NAS.  Are you being literal, when you say that the catalog preparation is taking days?  A catalog of your size would take many, many hours (if not days on a network device) for the process to complete.  So, it is quite possible that you have interrupted the conversion.  Have you taken a look in Windows Task Manager to see whether there is any active Elements process at the time you interrupted it?

In case the catalog was in fact converted, search for any files named catalog.pse18db on your computer.  Double-click on each one and see whether the restored catalog can be opened on your new computer.  Alternatively, look for any file named catalog.pse14db.  This would be a copy of your old catalog that has been transferred to the new machine and you might try to convert that catalog using the File>Manage Catalogs dialog.

One other point that I just noticed.  You are using a network drive  named \\DS218.  You should map it to a drive letter.  This could well be the problem.

[Rinske2020]

@Greg_S:  Thank you for your prompt reply.

First I tried to restore on my NAS; via LAN on my local network. The location is \\DS218. Since restoring did not fully succeed, I also tried to restore on my laptop D:\ drive, to make sure that not having a drive letter was not a problem.

And yes, I literally waited for more than two days. After that checked via Windows Task Manager if some active process was running, but it was not.

Your advise to check for a file named "catalog.pse18db" did do the trick. First nothing happened, but after stopping two Adobe Photoshop programms (Organiser + Elements) via the Windows Task Manager, double clicking on catalog.pse18db finally showed what I wanted to see 🙂 

(backup on D:\drive).

Now I only have to decide if I want to redo the job on my NAS, since my D:\drive is now full for 80% (the reason why I wanted to restore to the NAS first.

Thanks again for your advice!

[Rinske2020]

Extra information for future users:

After several attempts in various ways I can indicate the following:

Work to do: Photoshop elements Version 14 on old PC with Windows 7. To be transferred to Photoshop elements Version 20 on new Windows 10 laptop with NAS attached via network.

What I did:

* First "cleaned" the Photoshop Elements organizer: which photo's / videos can be deleted anyway / not to be backuped? Remove these from the Organizer. Also make sure that all photos that are in the Organizer  can be found. Result: only files in the Organizer on D:\pictures\

* Then installed Version 20 on old PC, to make the conversion on the old PC. Note: system gave a warning that Version 20 would not work on Windows 7, but ignoring that message still did the job.

* Then made full backup; backup files on NAS 

* Then restored the backup files from the NAS to the D:\ drive on the new laptop.

Remarks:

- restoring a backup to a NAS as location \\DS218 does not work (note: wired network / LAN)

- restoring a backup to a NAS as location P:\   (NAS mapped to drive letter ) does not work

- restoring a backup to the laptop as location D:\  does work

One final problem I discovered: after restoring the backup files to the D:\drive on the laptop, I was not able to import pictures from my Onedrive: the system kept giving a warning that the photos were already presetn in the Organizer.

So finally I had to delete the whole pictures folder from my D:\drive and finally had to do an old-school backup:

1) copy D:\pictures\ folder from old PC to new laptop (using the NAS as middle station)

2) copy "catalog.pse18db" from old PC to new laptop ; file to be found in C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs\xxxxxCATALOGNAMExxxxx

Obviously this was only possible since the location of the pictures is the same on the old and new computer.

After that I was also able to import pictures from the Onedrive.

[MichelBParis]

To Rinske2020

Many thanks for your very precise report on your experience with both using a NAS and syncing via OneDrive.

I am not sure your remarks will apply to other users with apparently the same configuration. I don't have a NAS, but I have read a number of different behaviours (maybe different NAS, OS, PSE versions...)

So, it appears that keeping it simple and using a conventional external drive does work as expected.

Even if you have a good reason to use a NAS, you are safe to backup and restore on a conventional external or internal drive. You can test and be happy with the result. Then I wonder if you can use the drag and drop option in the left folders panel to move all or parts of your library from the conventional drive to the NAS?

About OneDrive, there has been a recent discussion here about solving the issue with OneDrive syncing, then restoring a backup. Both processes are able to restore the media file tree. Only OneDrive can sync to the Cloud, Only restore can restore the catalog. In the other discussion, the solution appeared to first let OneDrive sync from the cloud, then use the restore to 'overwrite' the synced files while restoring the catalog.