Elements doesn’t store or organize image files. A lot of people really like the companion application, Photoshop Album. Unless you have another piece of software, like your long-gone one from Dell, you’re going to have to use folders on your hard drive. You might want to either find the old Dell software or purchase Album if you don’t like the way they’re now being ordered. A workaround while you’re using folders is to start each file name with a number with a leading zero. That’s the "trick" some of us use when we want to create a web gallery or slide show out of selected images and have them stay where we put them.
Ken,
Would that have been Dell Image Expert?
Hi Ken. I’ve found the easiest way to organize images (and free as well) is to create a folder on your C: drive and name it "Photos". Then I created several subfolders named Olympics, Kids, San Francisco, whatever.
To view the images, open PE2 and select File, Browse, and click on the subdirectory where your images live. (Watch in awe as they are displayed) They are arranged in alpha-numeric order. You’ll need to rename them to rearrange them in a specific order. If you want to move any images from one subdirectory to another, just click and drag. Double click the thumbnail to open it, and key Ctrl + to enlarge it on the screen.
I’ve used this ever since I bought PE2 and find it very convenient.
wrote in message
I have images ( 78 total) from three different compact flash cards that I
have combined into one folder and now I want to organize them into a specific sequence. How do I do this. I have looked into the book and help sections till I am blue in face and must be missing a simple step. It seems the pg organizes in random and will not let me re sequence them once I am in the folder. ??? When I installed Elements 2 ,I deleted my original program ( free from Dell when I purchased the system ) for organizing images so now I am in the dark as to how to get them in the order I want.
This is one of my major problems, as I have literally thousands of pictures, scans and digitals. I don’t have iPhoto nor Album, so I have made my own cataloguing system. You have to name and date everything! Start with the date, make your folders with year, month, and day, then subject.
Then you have to carefully name them, put them into folders like"Whoeverbirthdayparty" under the date, then make sure that each and every sub-folder is named.
I find that my own system is almost as good as the commercial ones, but I do look forward to iPhoto when I get an OS X Mac. I started early, so had to do this myself, but whatever system you use, make sure that you save your originals intact. CD or ext HD. And put the best of the best up onto the web.
Jane
Jane, you and I are going to have a hard time adjusting to iPhoto, I think. I have it on my Jaguar drive, but I’m so used to my own system that I haven’t seen any point in using it!
Jane, my downloading software automatically names the file into which it downloads with the date in year-month-day format; I then go back and rename it, leaving the YMD and adding some description of the content. If my download spans a couple separate activities, I’ll create a second folder with the same format and different description and drag the appropriate images from one to the other. So far, so good…
Beth and Jane, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t use iphoto at all. I’m too much of a control freak, I guess–but I want to decide where my photos go, and iphoto and I definitely don’t think alike.
You don’t have to use it just because you have X, you know. 😉
All these fancy new programs for image storage and organization are nice but I’m still using a piece of Shareware that I’ve had for a number of years and it’s got them all beat. It’s called Graphic Workshop Pro from Alchemy Mindworks. You can download it at their website.
Old Digital Bob
Your message prompted me to see if I could change sequence. When I bring up browse on a file, my pictures were sorted by file name, alphabetically. At the bottom of the screen display of thumbnail images, I clicked on the right arrow in the "file" box and it provided the descriptive "sort by." Clicking on that I saw choices for sorting based on a number of things; e.g., file size, date, name, etc. There was nothing that I could see that would allow you to order in a random fashion of your choice.
Are any of you guys familiar with Windows "Details" being able to SORT by ALPHA, SIZE, TYPE, DATE MODIFIED? And it’ll do it in order of preference and even from the Open menu in Elements (if you have XP or Win 2000). But in all cases, if you open Windows Explorer (logo key E), Click on View, Details you’ll note the column titles (as above). By default the sort is Ascending ALPHA (starting with symbols, then numbers, then letter "A" character). If you click NAME you’ll RESORT by Name, but in descending order starting with "Z". Click back to Name and it goes back to sorting as before, starting with symbols (tilde being first). Now click SIZE and note that you’ll SORT all files by their size in ascending order, but the Name will come second, in that all files of the same size will be organized with the Symnbols first, numbers, then alpaha. Click again and filesize by descending order will be the sort criteria. Next do Date and note that now the ascending date will be the prime sort, followed by size, then followed by Name. You can, of course, also add TYPE into the mix and all methods will sort either ascending or descending.
They will stay this way for THIS folder (unless you have your options set so ALL folders will respond to this change). This should also be reversed back to Alpha for normal use, if you have them all set to this, or you’ll really have trouble locating files in the normal run of things. And if you do this in Explorer, it stays like this for all OPEN menus in programs. Thus, if you wish to accomplish it, say by date for photos, just do it to the folders you have photos in and it’ll stay that way. If you then set to see Thumbnails, it’ll still stay in the SORT order you previously set.
Of course organization by folders within folders is easily customized by you, set to your personal thinking and preferences.
Bob
I like iPhoto it works great for me, I have about eight libraries and most have ten on so albums within the library. Makes it really easy to find the photos you want, maybe its simply a case of what you get used to.
Barbara not too sure what you mean when you say "but I want to decide where my photos go, and iPhoto and I definitely don’t think alike." as I certainly tell iPhoto where to put my photos and it does just that … if it didn’t it would get the sack :).
Maybe you are doing something different?
Wendy
Ken, your message makes me wonder if you’re taking advantage of the Windows VIEW feature. If you want your pictures arranged alphabetically (you didn’t say) then choose sort icons by name, etc.
Also, you could make sub-folders in the folder itself and drag the appropriate pictures into them. Naming appropriately is so important, too.
Jane’s tip is wonderful. I do much the same thing and have no difficulty finding the ones I want and I have over 2000 pictures.
The only problem I’ve found with any of the album-type software is that if I move a picture (which I’m forever doing) then the album can no longer find it, so I prefer to do it my way.
Good luck,
Lorace
Hi, Wendy. I just don’t want them all in the iphoto library–I usually have several different projects going on, and to me there’s no benefit to using iPhoto because I don’t want things organized by import or album, since I may want 5 folders of photos on the desktop, some others moved just to a backup drive and so on.
iPhoto is fine if you want an organizer–it’s better with iPhoto Buddy, but I just don’t care to make "pictures" my main directory, if that makes any sense to you.
I shuffle mine from CD to hard drive and hard drive to desktop a lot, too. I even kind of resent that "Pictures" area in Jaguar! Would anything important die if I just trashed it? I have a completely different kind of filing system that doesn’t include having all of my images stored in one place. A couple of times I’ve had that folder headed for the Trash bin and chickened out!
I would leave it, Beth, if you care about iphoto being able to run. I never use iphoto, but I leave the folder because someday I might want to order one of those books or something. I don’t like "pictures" either–too switcher-ish. 🙂
Wendy,
as I certainly tell iPhoto where to put my photos and it does just that … if it didn’t it would get the sack
I think one of the things Barb might be referring to is iPhoto’s internal organizational scheme. Have you ever looked at your actual Library(s) folder? It’s structure is archaic to say the least and if you need to ever find the original image within the folder structure, good luck. I have a real problem with how iPhoto organizes images internally, and I hate the fact that you have to quit iPhoto, rename the current library and then re start iPhoto to change libraries.
Having said all that, I Love iPhoto and use it every day. I just don’t use it as my only cataloger.
Joe
Hi, Joe. Yes, that’s it-I’m going to be in PE anyway, so I’d rather just use the file browser to find a photo than to launch a separate application just to find a picture that’s been put in a place where I really don’t want it to be.
I should mention that I really don’t do much printing of photos in regular standard sizes or I’d probably use iPhoto more. Most of the pictures I take are for use as graphics in another document, rather than just doing 4×6 prints or whatever.
IPhoto does have a nice red eye tool.
My all-time favorite image cataloging software (including Album & ACDSee) is called MyAlbum – creates simple webpages, organizes entire folders of images, sorted however you want them (size, date, name, etc.), generate contact sheets, thumbnails, slideshows & screen savers, add comments to images (where the photo was taken, what camera settings used, techniques used to get it just right, weblinks for tutorials, etc.) and add tabs to the bottom to sort images in an album by keywords –
and it’s freeware!
It’s called MyAlbum – www.myalbum.com
I’ve got several tutorials for it on my site: www.graficalicus.com under "Tutorials"
Check it out- the price is right, and this little app is perfect for my needs (I’ve got easily over 3000 photos, templates, web graphics, etc., and I can find them all easily with this!)
<mike>
http://digiart.graficalicus.com/index.php November challenge: "transportation"
Thanks everyone for the direction and help. I will explore "all" the options you have suggested. You guys and gals are great.
Ken
