Importing "Old" Catalogs into 9

[VonB]

Just wanted to share my experience in moving from PSE 4.0 to 9.0. I've spent the last two weeks trying to import/restore catalogs from PSE 4 on my old XP computer into 9 on my new Win 7 computer. Nothing worked. Catalogs would restore/import "successfully" but every photo, slide show and video was a grey box with a dead flower in it (I'm assuming without evidence the graphic represents a dead flower because of my state of mind). Tried reconnecting, but program kept saying "no files to reconnect." The problem was that the catalog pointed to the photos being on an "E" drive that didn't exist on my new computer. Tried different locations for the catalogs, different settings for importing, having the photos already on the hard drive, letting restore bring in the photos, ... Nada. Adobe tech support was erratic. I had 3 good short sessions exploring dead ends I'd already tried, and two days in the middle when the technicians put me on hold to "check with another technician" and then kept me on hold for 1-1.5 hours until they closed for the day. I left some scalding comments with Adobe after that. One technician asked if I still had PSE 4 on my old computer. I did - not wishing to be completely without access to projects on which I had invested 50-100 hours! He suggested installing PSE 9 as a trial version on my old computer, then converting and importing the catalogs in PSE 9 on that old computer, then optimizing the catalogs, copying them to an external hard drive, and trying to import the converted optimized catalogs on my new computer. Not sure why this was a better path than backing up with version 4 and then restoring into 9 on my new computer, but it worked, for the most part. I am now able to import the 4.0 catalogs. The only glitch is that my most recent slideshows in one catalog don't work (naturally, since they are the closest to being complete). Even though all photos in the slide show have been imported, all the slides are black. The text slides created with photoshop are fine. The only thing I can figure is that those slide shows had 1 or 2 slides in which I used a pan effect. Doesn't make sense, however, since the pan effect shows up OK, just not the photo!

Now, my next problem is to figure out why my old .prel files are brought into Premiere 9 OK, but I cannot render the workspace. The red line stays above the track after trying to render, and the playback is, of course, slightly degraded from what it would be if I could render the workspace. There is no convert or optimize option for .prel files.

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Von, Welcome to Muvipix

Can't help you much, especially with the catalog as I never could get used to it and have since found Adobe Bridge and am happy with that.

Every time a new version comes out we always say "complete your projects in the version they were created in". If by chance you do want to try opening an existing project in a new version be sure to make a copy first, once you save it in the new version there is no going back without a copy.

There are known bugs that have to do with the timeline needing to be rendered again once a program has been closed and then reopened.
I don't think that is the same problem you are having. I would tend to believe that your issue is that the project started in version 4.
There are some really good catalog experts here that I'm sure can help you with that part, as far as the project goes I hope you saved a copy first

Also, make sure you have the most current video drivers available and also the most recent version of Quicktime, those two things can really cause problems otherwise.

All the best,
Chuck

[Barb O]

One technician asked if I still had PSE 4 on my old computer. I did - not wishing to be completely without access to projects on which I had invested 50-100 hours! He suggested installing PSE 9 as a trial version on my old computer, then converting and importing the catalogs in PSE 9 on that old computer, then optimizing the catalogs, copying them to an external hard drive, and trying to import the converted optimized catalogs on my new computer. Not sure why this was a better path than backing up with version 4 and then restoring into 9 on my new computer, but it worked, for the most part. I am now able to import the 4.0 catalogs. The only glitch is that my most recent slideshows in one catalog don't work (naturally, since they are the closest to being complete). Even though all photos in the slide show have been imported, all the slides are black. The text slides created with photoshop are fine. The only thing I can figure is that those slide shows had 1 or 2 slides in which I used a pan effect. Doesn't make sense, however, since the pan effect shows up OK, just not the photo!

I will try to help you with the slideshow. However, I am not sure if a slide show can make the jump fro PSE 4 to PSE 9.

My first questions are :
1 -- Since you do have PSE 9 installed on the old computer, please tell me if that slideshow that won't work on the new computer will work on the old computer under PSE 9 ? (in other words can you see the photos within the PSE 9 slide show on the old computer?)
2 -- clarify where the slides are black -- is it only in the Preview window when you do a preview play OR is it in the "storyboard" along the bottom where it shows the individual photos that will be in the slide show ?
3 -- please post more details on exactly what folders and files you copied to the external hard drive for this PSE 9 catalog AND how (what commands) you used the first time you opened this catalog under PSE 9 on the new computer

[Gerlinde]

Hello and welcome new poster and hello Barb
I don't mean to interfere with your excellent detective work Barb, but maybe I can save you both some grief. I went to the same kind of problem when upgrading from PSE4 to PSE5. I believe at that point Adobe has changed to a different database system. While it was possible to convert all your content to the new database, that proofed to be problematic for created slide shows. Some would convert, some would not. I spend a lot of time emailing back and forth with Adobe tech support and got nowhere.
Your best option is to complete your slide show in PSE4 and maybe keep PSE4 around in case you would like to edit it in the future. Sorry I can't add anything more positive

[Barb O]

Hello and welcome new poster and hello Barb
I don't mean to interfere with your excellent detective work Barb, but maybe I can save you both some grief. I went to the same kind of problem when upgrading from PSE4 to PSE5. I believe at that point Adobe has changed to a different database system. While it was possible to convert all your content to the new database, that proofed to be problematic for created slide shows. Some would convert, some would not. I spend a lot of time emailing back and forth with Adobe tech support and got nowhere.
Your best option is to complete your slide show in PSE4 and maybe keep PSE4 around in case you would like to edit it in the future. Sorry I can't add anything more positive

Thanks for your post. I do agree with your suspicions that the slide show may not be "upgradable" to version 9.

I do think that it would be interesting to know if that specific slide show, displays the photos under PSE 9 on the same computer as they were created under PSE 4. Because IF it works under PSE 9 on the same computer, then maybe there could be a positive outcome by copying additional files (perhaps slss files) from the old computer to the new computer. If it fails to work on the same computer, then I agree that the outlook is not positive.

FYI - it was PSE 6 that totally changed the database used by the Organizer, but that is really a minor point in this discussion of PSE 4 to PSE 9.

[Gerlinde]

Barb you are most likely right. I could not exactly remember if it was PSE5 or 6. I only know, that I at first did not notice that something was wrong. But one day, I had the idea to make some changes to one of my slide shows. To my surprise all the thumbs in the slide show editor were black. I realized that I had move the pictures from the slide show to a different location. No problem, I'm going to just move them back to the old location. That did not help, the thumbs stayed black.
I went back to PSE 4 to see if I can fix the problem from there. I successfully reconnected the missing pictures and the slide shows were restored in PSE4, but after converting the Organizer to PSE 6 they were still broken. I even tried to look at the database file directly and maybe point the slide show editor in the right direction. But nothing worked. In the end I decided to move on with my life and leave the slide show as is.

[VonB]

Thanks, everyone. Yes, the slides were blank/black in PSE 9 both on my old computer, where the files originally resided, and my new computer. The individual slides are black, in the timeline, even though they definitely exist and appear just fine in versions of the slideshow just a week or two older. As noted, the only difference between the slide show that doesn't work and the ones that do is that pan and zoom is applied to two slides. Weirdly, the pan and zoom settings appear just fine, on the black/blank slides. I have given up, as I was able to import the catalogs. (Would that Elements had Bridge - don't make us poor folks jealous now.) As I've now solved 98% of my problems I will not invest any more time in trying to solve the remaining 2%. I was not able to get PSE 4 to install under Win 7 Professional 64 bit, even in XP mode, although Premiere 2 did install. PR 2 is a bit twitchy, but works. I'll use it to finish up some projects. Heck, I'm so used to it that I find myself wishing 9 retained some of the v2 features, like having all the audio tracks on the bottom.

[Chuck Engels]

I find myself wishing 9 retained some of the v2 features, like having all the audio tracks on the bottom.

You are not alone there Von, thanks for the update