Organizer:cannot locate file

MB
Posted By
Marie_Boyer
May 6, 2005
Views
451
Replies
9
Status
Closed
Newbie probem with organizer.

I thought I imported all my photos from a CD into the Elements Photo Browser. I could not find one that I was looking for, so I inserted the CD and located it. I went to "file" in Photoshop browser and tried to import the missing photos into the Browser. Elements would not let me import them because it said they already existed in the catalog. (I should tell you that the rest of the photos in this particular file on the CD did get imported into the browser, but only these 2 photos were left out.) They are nowhere to be found in my photo browser. I have looked through every single photo in the browser twice trying to locate them. How can I get it into elements so I can see it, tag it, and edit it? (Makes me worry how many other photos were not copied into elements when I first did this. Or maybe it is there, I just cannot see it for some reason?) Thanks for any help! (I consulted the knowledgebase and my 2 books on Elements 3.)

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CW
Colin_Walls
May 6, 2005
A good first thing to try is a catalog recover [File/Catalog/Recover].

Doing a find by import batch can be enlightening ….
MB
Marie_Boyer
May 6, 2005
Colin:
I did exactly what you suggest. But the photo is still nowhere in the browser. Do you have any other suggestions? Appreciation in advance!
O
o3v3tz
May 7, 2005
Marie,

Suggest that you use the Find menu of the Organizer, choose By Filename and then type in a partial or complete File Name of the photo that you are having difficulty finding.

Barb O
CW
Colin_Walls
May 7, 2005
You haven’t accidentally applied the Hidden tag have you? Select that to check.
MB
Marie_Boyer
May 7, 2005
Colin: There are no photos in the "hidden" tag. Thanks though.

Barb O: I did a search using the "find" feature and it appears as though the name of the missing photos is identical to the name of two other photos. I do not know how that could have happened.

a. I am guessing that I now need to go to the CD, save them in Elements to my hard drive under a new name, and then try to import them into Elements again? Is this correct?

b. Is there an easy way to find out if I have other photos that are missing from Elements because they (somehow) have the same name as some other photo? (i.e. a quick way to discover any other photos that are on my hard drive but missing from Elements due to this)?

c. Unrelated question: why doesn’t Elements remember the photos on my memory card that it has already imported into the browser? I did not delete the photos previously imported, and when I went back to Elements with the memory card, Elements checked all photos for import, instead of just the newest ones. I had to go through and uncheck the majority because they were already in the browser. Does Elements have this feature?

Thank you, thank you, for all your help. So appreciated by this newbie!!!
O
o3v3tz
May 8, 2005
Marie,

point c

My experience has been that when some of the photos have been previously imported, Elements writes a message line for each photo that it skipped because it already in the catalog. Normally I know which are the new photos and only Select the new photos, but if I accidentally Select an already imported photo I get the message. So I don’t need to "uncheck" anything and therefore I don’t understand your description of

Elements checked all photos for import I had to go through and uncheck the majority because they were already in the browser

points a and b

It is more than just file name that is used to determine a duplicate.

Referencing page 31 of "Organizing Your Photos with Adobe Photoshop Elements 3" book, "If you try to import a photo that has the same name, size, date and time as one that’s already in the catalog, Elements assumes it’s a duplicate and does not import it. This is true even if it is in a different folder."

So yes, if you copy the photo that did not import to your hard drive and give it a unique file name, you should be able to import it to the Elements catalog.

How you find any photos to which this happened in the past – hmmmm. Well there most probably was a message at the time that the file was not imported because it was judged to be a duplicate. However I don’t think that message is saved. Do you remember getting these messages?

For photos that you imported from folders on your hard drive, it should be possible to use a View of Folder Location in the Photo Browser to compare against another open Window of Windows Explorer pointing to the same Folder, to compare if all photos in a given folder have been imported. Unfortunately, this is tedious.

Additionally, any explanations of why the current 2 photos had the same name,size, date and time as others might help to establish a pattern.

Barb O
MB
Marie_Boyer
May 8, 2005
Barb O:
First of all, thanks for your help. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.

The missing photos have the same name only. They are completely different dates and times, and totally different images, as opposed to copies of the same photo. I think this is a one-time wierd episode that I will have to live with, and go through my current hard drive collection and check to see if I have everything in Elements. I would like to try to use the "view" feature for both Elements and my hard drive folders you described above. (I have never noticed any folder names in Elements though.) I will do it even though tedious.

I am just beginning, and have never tried much beyond just importing and tagging. Not even much editing yet, because my "Organize Your Photos" book recommends getting every photo inside Elements and then starting anew.

By the way, as I was importing into Elements, I do not remember getting ONE single message about duplicates. As a matter of fact, I was disappointed that Elements imported most of my duplicates. I am still going through and deleting those, as I find them.

Thanks again. Sometime soon I should have a real editing question!
O
o3v3tz
May 8, 2005
Marie,

I am puzzled about what you are experiencing for imports of files with the same name. You seem to experience some imported and some not. However your experience does not seem consistent with the file name, size, date and time criteria described in the book. However, my experience with the Organizer has been consistent with the book description.

So I suggest-
For the two photos discussed in the original post (that you will now copy to the disk under a different file name), I suggest that after these photos are imported to the Organizer that you look at the Properties window for the photo just read in and then also for the other photos of the same file name. Do they have the same Size in Pixel Dimensions, File Size, Date and Time?

Barb O
MB
Marie_Boyer
May 11, 2005
Barb O:
I was away for a day.

I returned and did what you suggested and pronto! The "watched folders" function immediately recognized the two newly named photos, and I was able to import them easily. I then compared the size dates etc…, as you suggested. The two newly-named photos have the following sizes: 802.3 KB, and 866.1 KB. There were three photos that shared the same names with these photos, two were 1.7 MB and one was 1.5 MB. (I wonder why the vast difference in size?) They had different dates of origin.

Does this help clarify anything? It seems as if I somehow messed up, before I ever had Photoshop, and allowed the computer to give the same file names to some of my photos. But shouldn’t Photoshop be able to identify the differences that lay behind the filename?

More importantly, any further thoughts on a way to detect which photos on my harddrive are not currently in Photoshop due to this same snafu? Can you tell me how I can use the view mode to scroll through both my harddrive and Photoshop browser at the same time?

Again, I really appreciate your help. Already figured out one of the issues!

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