Using Elements' Organizer for multiple shots

[Gerry]

I really like Photoshop Elements' "Organizer" for giving me thumbnails of what's on CDs. But it has one terribly annoying feature that, perhaps, can be shut off or something.

Often I have the same photo on multiple CDs because I've used it for a multitude of projects. Let's call it PICT001. And let's say it exists on CD1 and CD5.

I run CD1 through the organizer and it's fine. But when I run CD5 through the organizer, I get messages saying "PICT001 already exists" and so it doesn't get a thumbnail.

Now... what happens if CD1 gets irretrievably destroyed, and I need to find PICT001. I know it exists on another CD, but which one? I don't know because Elements never got the thumbnail from CD5.

Is there some way to turn off that feature? Or, outside of renaming PICT001 on CD5, is there some workaround?

Sorry if this has already been posted somewhere... I thought I posted this question last night, but I don't see it anywhere. Maybe I was dreaming or something...

[Chuck Engels]

An excellent question Gerry, I have wondered the same thing myself. Maybe Barb has an answer?

[Barb O]

Is there some way to turn off that feature? Or, outside of renaming PICT001 on CD5, is there some workaround?

Probably not

Description of how the Organizer analyzes duplicates from "Organizing Your Photos with Adobe Photoshop Elements 3" by Michael Slater.

"If you try to import a photo that has the same name, size, date and time as the one that's already in the catalog, Elements assumes it's a duplicate and does not import it. This is true even if the photo is in a different folder."

My experience is that this description also applies for PSE 4 and 5. I can not immediately think of any way to bypass this logic. So I think that you would need to change file name or one of the other criteria.

[Gerry]

I can not immediately think of any way to bypass this logic.

Well, nuts. Thanks a million, Barb.

Sure would have been cool, though, if there'd have been an option to turn that on or off. I can understand the logic for the soccer moms and little league dads who are just collecting their snapshots. But for more sophisticated cagaloguing it's more of a hindrance than a help.

Then again, I'm sure neither of the Elements programs are Adobe's big profit centers. So it's kind of no wonder they're not perfect.

[Bob]

Gerry,

May I make a suggestion?

Instead of trying to import the same image multiple times into the Organizer database, you can create a tag for each cd, say CD1, CD2, etc. Then, when you import the images, simply add the appropriate tags to the image to identify which cd(s) it is on. Once tagged, you can use the organizer search capabilities to quickly select images by cd or you can view the tags for a specific image to see which cds it is on.

[Chuck Engels]

And if you haven't yet read Bob's article on archiving
http://videoinasnap.chuckengels.com/sou ... tstars.htm

Thanks Bob, great idea

[Gerry]

Then, when you import the images, simply add the appropriate tags to the image to identify which cd(s) it is on. Once tagged, you can use the organizer search capabilities to quickly select images by cd or you can view the tags for a specific image to see which cds it is on.

This is an interesting idea, Bob -- I'll have to try it. It may not help for the ones that are already done (lotsa work!) but the future ones it could be really good.

My problem is with the number of duplicate images. I shoot a lot of photos for magazine articles, and I tend to take a million shots of everything. I'll keep an "All shots taken" DVD, and then a second one with the 12-18 shots that are the "selects." If I tag them as I'm cataloguing this could work, but after that "the following images weren't added" screen goes away, it may be a lot of work to go back and try to figure out which ones are duplicates, and where the originals are.

Thanks for the suggestion!!