Transferring Keywords & Tags between computers, PSE 13

[billflyer]

Problem 1:  I have all my photos tagged and many captioned.  All are stored on the D: drive of my desktop computer, running Windows 10.

I have applied "Save Metadata to Files," and the tags and captions are shown in the Information/IPTC tab.  The D: drive is shared with my laptop computer, running Win 7.  Both machines have PSE 13 installed.  When I access the photos from the laptop, almost all are missing their tags.  All of the photos in a Local Album have tags, but only a very few others.  Why aren't ALL the tags showing on the laptop?  Most of the captions seem to be there, but some of those are missing also.

Problem 2:  The Local Album photos are shown right next to their "originals," looking like duplicates. Clicking on the album brings up just the album photos.  Can I "Delete from Catalog" on the laptop, without also losing the photos from the Album?

Problem 3:  I ran "Save Keyword Tags to File" from the desktop to the D: drive, then used "Import Keyword Tags from File" on the laptop. The import produced a lot, but not all, of my keywords, along with many but not all "People," "Places," and "Events" tags - all lumped together under "Imported Keyword Tags."  How can I get ALL the Keywords, Tags and subcategories from the desktop to the laptop; preferably in the right places?

Also, the Star Ratings do not show on the laptop.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[MichelBParis · Accepted solution]

The short answer is that there has been a lot of similar feature requests to share a photo library and catalogs on a network. Unfortunately, as far as I know, you can't do exactly what you are expecting.

I'll try to answer your questions in detail and to explain why it's not possible in a different post. (While I have a reasonable knowledge of how catalogs work, I am not a network expert).

The nearest solution is to understand that you can share the photo library (the image folder tree) but not the catalogue.

Sharing the library with keywords and captions means you'll have to be careful to 'write metadata to files' systematically. Then, you library will be accessible from the other comuter with all those data.

The usual and common way to share totally a library and a catalog is to store them both on an external drive which you plug in alternatively on each computer.

The correct way to move (or copy) the library from a computer (or drive) to another one is the backup and restore method.

Move Elements Organizer catalog

You can do the full backup to an external drive or a shared folder in your network. You can restore on any other computer in your network and have exactly the same library and catalog, including albums, version sets, stacks, creations and so on. When you have moved or copied your library and catalog, what is done in any of the computer is totally ignored by the other (no 'syncing').

Since there is no 'syncing' of catalogs, you may try to update the catalog in the second computer by taking care of 'writing metadata to tags' in the master computer and 'importing' new files from the slave computer. I am not sure the "watched folder service" would work in a network, but importing selectively should only recognize files not already in the second catalog.

Before continuing with more details when I have time, keep in mind that 'importing' in a new catalog will miss very important information like albums or version sets.

[billflyer]

Okay! Thank you VERY much. You've given me a lot to think about.  I'd love to hear more, when you have time.  I like the idea of using one external hard drive.  Would I have to manually add Keywords and Tags on each machine separately? 

[MichelBParis]

billflyer  wrote

Would I have to manually add Keywords and Tags on each machine separately? 

No, that's not necessary.

If you use the backup and restore process to move or duplicate:

The backup process creates renamed duplicates of your photo files and other assets in a single flat folder and copies a number of subfolders in your catalog. It also stores a renamed copy of your main sqlite database. For instance, a 'catalog.pse16'  is renamed 'catalog.buc'. The main resource in the backup folder is a file named 'backup.tly' which stores the structure of your image folder tree.

When you restore, the reverse process is performed based on the 'custom' location of your restore. Generally it's a new master folder on another computer or drive. The 'backup.tly' knows how to rename the photos back and how to reproduce the folder tree structure. During the restore, each renamed file entry in the catalog is updated to the new location (drive and subfolder).

So, the advice is to use that process to copy (or move) your media library and catalog to the external drive. The catalog is immediately accessible for any of your computers without further tasks. The original catalog and structure is still there (can be a kind of backup) but is never updated if you only use and share the external drive copy.

[MichelBParis]

Problem 1:  I have all my photos tagged and many captioned.  All are stored on the D: drive of my desktop computer, running Windows 10.

I have applied "Save Metadata to Files," and the tags and captions are shown in the Information/IPTC tab.  The D: drive is shared with my laptop computer, running Win 7.  Both machines have PSE 13 installed.  When I access the photos from the laptop, almost all are missing their tags.  All of the photos in a Local Album have tags, but only a very few others.  Why aren't ALL the tags showing on the laptop?  Most of the captions seem to be there, but some of those are missing also.

You have now two catalogs, right? I don't think it's possible to share the same catalog in a network. What is done in a catalog is ignored by the other. If you add keywords and captions from one computer and 'write metadata to tags', the catalog in the other computer is not updated. At most, you can retrieve captions by using the option to 'update thumbnails' in the second computer.

[MichelBParis]

Problem 2:  The Local Album photos are shown right next to their "originals," looking like duplicates. Clicking on the album brings up just the album photos.  Can I "Delete from Catalog" on the laptop, without also losing the photos from the Album?

An album is just a list stored in a catalog, just like a playlist for an audio files list. It only exists in a catalog and as noticed before, what is changed in a catalog is totally unknown to the other. There is no way to include that info in the files themselves - albums are not metadata.

[MichelBParis]

Problem 3:  I ran "Save Keyword Tags to File" from the desktop to the D: drive, then used "Import Keyword Tags from File" on the laptop. The import produced a lot, but not all, of my keywords, along with many but not all "People," "Places," and "Events" tags - all lumped together under "Imported Keyword Tags."  How can I get ALL the Keywords, Tags and subcategories from the desktop to the laptop; preferably in the right places?

Also, the Star Ratings do not show on the laptop.

Same answer as above for catalogs being totally ignorant of what happens in the other catalogs.

There are also several issues with the way special keywords like People and Places are 'imported'.

We have seen that importing does not recreate all the information in the files and the catalogs. Converting or restoring catalogs are the best solutions.

If you have serious reasons to reimport from the files, it's possible to first save the keywords structure in a text file and to copy it to the new empty catalog before importing. That way, the files will be shown under the original keyword level instead of the generic 'Imported keywords' category.