Did I really lose the files?

[shipsdrummer]

I'm running Vista Home premium and to free up space on the hard drive, I dumped all the files from the "my pictures" folder into an external hard drive. This freed up about 30Gb. However...now when I open up PSE 6.0, the organizer can't find the missing files. They work in the editor, but elements can't seem to get them cleared in the organizer, then the searching for missing file dialougue appears.

Is there a file association required between the my pictures folder and PSE organizer? Will I need to dump all those pictures back onto the hard drive so I can view my catalog in the PSE organizer? Thanks.

[Jolieteddie]

I don't use the organizer in PSE6, but use Lightroom 2 for that. I suspect they both organize the same way: if I move files from my hard drive to an external hard drive, I must relink LR2 to the new location on the external drive. Then LR2 can keep track of where they are and I can edit, etc. OR as you are relizing, you need to recopy the files back to your hard drive.

[BobF]

PSE should simply show you a hierarchy of your drive structure on the left. If the external drive is connected then go to File>Get Photos and Videos>From Files and Folders. I've installed a new hard drive on my computer and while it's recognised it doesn't show as having any data because I haven't performed that Get Photos step on it.

[graphics12]

The organizer in PSE stores an electronic 3x5 card file of your images, that card contains the thumb nail you see in the catalog, the actual location of the file on your hard drive(or wherever) and other information. When you moved the files from one drive to another the catalog cannot find them because they do not exist where it is expecting to find them and so you get the missing file warning.

I know of three options to solve this problem.
Option one is to copy the files back where the organizer expects them to be.
Option two is to delete all of the entries in your organizer and then force it to recreate the catalog so it recognizes where the files are actually located.
Option three, and to me this is the very best option, do not use the organizer. If you do not use the organizer what do you do to keep track of your files. Use actual folders on your hard drive to organize your files instead of relying on a piece pof software that is easily fooled as you found out. So here is the basic idea of what I do.

Start with a folder for family photos.
Inside that there are folders for each event, things like Jim's birthday 2007, or Christmas 2008, sceninc and list goes on.
Once the files are sorted and stored in the appropriate folders Windows Explorer becomes your catalog and the beauty is everytime you open it up it automatically updates as to the location of files that have been moved, deleted or added.
Once you locate the image you want a simple click will open it in any program you want, or you can simply drag and drop it into whatever program you want.

G12

[BobF]

Having another look, you can reconnect the links. Sorry I missed this earlier. Go to File>Reconnect>All Missing Files. When the reconnect box opens up and starts to work automatically, click Browse which will open another dialogue where you can manually select the files in their current location and point them to the new location on the external drive.

You can select multiple files at once by holding the Alt or Shift keys as you would in other circumstances. You can also select the thumbnail images in the Organizer window then go to File>Reconnect>Missing File and it will automate the reconnection. This is probably the more efficient option. Once done, the files will show up with the new drive letter in the Organizer window.

The PSE Organizer is actually fairly robust (better than Bridge, at least to Bridge 2) so using it to keep track of photos isn't a bad idea. Having a good folder structure; as opposed to just tossing everything into My Pictures is a vital starting point though for good image management.

[shipsdrummer]

Thanks for all the help folks. I too thought that PSE organizer would be the ideal way to manage my catalog of images after any adjustments were made. Now I simply plug-in the external hard drive and open PSE and tell it to reconnect all missing files.

I managed to free-up 30gb of space on my laptop (wich is a good thing).

I imagine there's a way that's easier and more effective than this, but I haven't figured it out yet !