Handling Offline Media on CD/DVDs in PSE’s Organizer

In PSE you can move some of your images offline to CDs or DVDs, and only keep a low resolution ”preview” (called a proxy in earlier versions) on your PC’s hard drive. Doing this was a good strategy as your hard drive began to fill up when using PSE 5 or earlier.  External hard drives were not very common back then. Electing to keep only a preview on your hard drive greatly reduced the amount of space each photo consumed. Within the Organizer’s Edit > Preferences > Files dialog you could set a maximum resolution of 1280×960 to maximize the usability of the previews in your Catalog. If you wanted to edit the photo, you would need to load the appropriate full resolution file from CD/DVD as prompted by PSE in order to proceed.

For almost everything else, PSE would prompt you giving you option to use the preview instead of loading the applicable CD/DVD. With the 1280×960 image size used for generating the previews, one could do almost anything with the preview without sacrificing quality. For example, such things as displaying an offline image full screen (F11), making a slide show, and even printing a 4×6 photo could all be done using the preview without needing to load the CD/DVD into the drive. PSE would use the preview from the hard drive.

All of that changed with PSE 6. With that version, Adobe made major changes to the database (Catalog) and you could not do hardly anything useful with offline media without loading the applicable CD/DVD. That really impacted the way I was doing things back then. At that time, I had about 16,000 pictures in my Catalog, and 12,000 of these were on CD/DVDs that became pretty much useless, unless I loaded their CD/DVD into the drive. Faced with that, I decided to bring all of the images back online to my C drive. It was a long tedious process, due in part to some CD-identifying bugs in early versions of PSE. My current Catalog of 25K photos is still currently on my C drive.  Today there are other options for dealing with offline media, like external hard drives.  

Right now I have plenty of disk space for future growth, but I am now shooting RAW images with a 10 MP camera (hopefully upgrading to one with 18 MP) and taking more and more video. Sooner or later, I will want to seriously think about offloading some of my older images, possibly even putting some onto CD/DVDs. I had an occasion to review how PSE 8 handles offline media stored on CD/DVDs. It may not be as restrictive as it was back when PSE 6 was introduced, but there are still some serious restrictions in PSE 8. The table below summarizes how things are done in PSE 8 for some common activities.

Feature or Activity	Can Use Preview
Display Image in Full Screen Mode (F11)	No
Use in a Slide Show From Slide Show Editor	No
PDF Slide Show From Share > More Options	Yes
Print From Organizer	Yes
Export	No
Email – Attachments & Photo Mail	Yes
Share > Burn Data to CD/DVD	No
Share > Mobile Phones and Players	No

 Below is an example of a typical dialog box that allows you to use the Preview. In this case it is for printng from the Organizer.

 

The figure below is a typical dialog box that does not allow using the Preview as an option, in this case displaying the image full screen

It is intersting that some of the activities where the preview cannot be used require the least resolution for a quality output, such as displaying the image full screen or sharing the image to a mobile phone, are those that do not require high resolution images. Fortunately, most people probably find using external hard drives for offline storage works fine and in many respects much easier that keeping track of CD/DVDs. By keeping the the external hard drive connected, PSE always has access to the full resolution image. 

Please comment with your thoughts and experiences. What do you do as your main hard drive gets full?

A Poll Regarding Comments

This is a test of how to put a reader poll into my blog. I tried one several months ago, and it did not work right. If you see the poll please take a moment to respond to it.

Thanks.

Photoshop Elements Feature Comparison

Whenever a new version of Photoshop Elements is introduced, current users of a previous version must decide whether or not to upgrade to the latest version. Often the answer comes down to whether or not the new features added in the latest version are capabilities that could be useful to the individual. In September, I posted a chart that compares features for PSE 6 through PSE 8. It is not totally complete, but does cover the most import features in my opinion. Here is the link to that earlier post.

PSE 6 through PSE 8 Feature Comparison

In general, I recommend that if someone is still using PSE 4 or an earlier version, it is probably time to upgrade. However, deciding to upgrade from PSE 5 may not be that automatic. For example, PSE 6 was the first version that introduced the dark background. Many people found this hard to read. Adobe has continued their attempts to improve the readability in more recent versions, but it is a work in progress.

Another reason to upgrade to the latest version  is the hope that whatever bugs/problems that existed in earlier versions have been corrected.  That is not always the case. And of course, there are times when new problems are introduced in the latest version. That is the nature of software development. But generally speaking, problems in earlier versions are often, if not always, addressed and corrected. And of course, if you do not use a certain feature or capability of the the program that has a bug or problem, then its presence is not that relevant to you.

PVNET Photoshop Elements Tools Class Rescheduled

The start date for Photoshop Elements Editing Tools class I will be teaching for PVNET has been changed to Monday, January 25th. The class will run through April 5th.

The Group Shot tool I discussed in THIS RECENT POST is just one of the many tools we will be using in the class.  To find out more about the class and how to register, CLICK HERE. You may find the wrong date still listed, because we just made the change. But you can still register from that page. Or alternatively, you can email Diana Logan at DianaL@palosverdes.com.

Happy Holidays!

To all of you stopping, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New! 2010 promises to be an exciting year.

The courses I will be teaching this winter at each of the schools are shown in the left pane. Once the classes start, this where you will be able to download the class handouts. Both the South Bay Adult School and the Torrance Adult School start their term on January 5th. My class at PVNET Annex begins January 11th. Registration is currently taking place online for all three schools. If you are considering taking any of the classes, you should register online or fax your registration information to the applicable school. If you wait to register in person on January 4th, you may find that it is too late. CLICK HERE for more information about the classes and how to register.

Also, I have recently posted a few video tutorials here on my blog. I have consolidated these tutorials on my website. You can see the complete list and access the links to the tutorials by CLICKING HERE. I will be posting additional videos soon.

Photoshop Elements Group Shot Tool

Here is a video demonstartion shows how Photoshop Elements’ Group Shot tool can help you salvage group photos where it was hard to get everyone to take a good picture at the same time.

The tool is easy to use once you see how it is done. By the way, this is just one of the many tools we will be using in the Photoshop Elements 8 Editing Tools class I’ll be teaching at PVNET in January. To find out more about the class and how to register, CLICK HERE.

Here is the link to the Video. You will need the Apple Quicktime Player installed on your computer.

Starting off Right With Photoshop Elements 8

Photoshop Elements 8 comes with two new features that may be useful, but can cause new users some problems. These features are the Auto Analyze function and the ablilty to automatically backup your photos to Photoshop.com and/or sync your catalog with another computer.

Both of these are a drain on your computer resources, and the backup/sync can cause a new user problems. I do not use either of these features, although I do use Photoshop.com to share my photos.

I have included a short video here that demonstrates how to turn these features off if they are not already deactivated. First, open PSE 8 in the Organizer mode. Then on the Menu bar, click on Edit > Preferences > Backup/synchronization. CLICK HERE to view the video.

Even after you turn these features off, you will still get a message that pops up randomly on photos asking “Who’s this?” This can also be turned off by clicking on Edit > Preferences > Tags and Albums > People Recognition Hints > Hide.

Don

Class Handouts Removed

As promised, I have removed the password protected pages for the fall classes for both the South Bay Adult School and the Torrance Adult School. The handouts for PVNET will be available for another week.

Registration for all three schools is currently active for the upcoming winter term.  For the PVNET Photoshop Elements 8 Tools Workshop class I’ll be teaching beginning in January you can CLICK HERE or click on the PVNET Page tab above. 

Don

Movie Maker and Windows 7

Before I get to the subject, I want to remind all of you that winter registration for the South Bay Adult School and mail-in/fax registration for Torrance has started with walk-in due to start December 7th.

Additionally, I will be teaching another new class for PVNET that differs substantially from any course I teach at SBAS or Torrance. Click on the appropriate tab above to find out more.

 Those of you who have taken my Photo Projects class know that two of the programs we work with are Movie Maker and Photo Story 3. With the introduction of Windows 7, things are changing for these two programs. In the following I summarize a few of the points discussed in an article by PapaJohn,the well known exert/author regarding all things Movie Maker.

http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/video/articles/25282.aspx

Starting with Photo Story 3, it appears that Vista is the end of the road for this program. It can not be installed on Windows 7. There is a way to get it to run in Windows 7, but it is not straightforward at all. I have it running on Win 7, but only because I did not do a complete reinstall when I upgraded to Win 7 from Vista.

For those of you who like/use Movie Maker, the situation is much better, but somewhat complicated.

It is clear that Live Movie Maker is the future. It’s part of the “Live” series of programs that Microsoft has introduced over the past couple of years. However as of right now, it does not have nearly all of the features that Movie Maker 2.1 (the flagship version) has yet. It can be downloaded for free.

Movie Maker 2.6, which can be downloaded for free runs on Win 7. However, it’s my understanding based on the referenced article, that it does not support acquiring video directly from a video camera, like Movie Maker 2.1 It does run on both Vista and Win 7.

Movie Maker 6 is the version that is part of the Vista operating system. It can be copied over to Win 7 and after some relatively complicated adjustments, I believe PapaJohn got it running on Win 7.

PapaJohn also got Movie Maker 2.1 to run on Windows 7, using some advanced computer magic. This is important, because it is this version that supports hundreds user written free profiles and effects. Eventually, similar user-written effects etc will be written for Win 7 compatible versions, but for now if someone is using these add-ins, the ability to continue using MM 2.1 in Win 7 is very important. I had loaded a few of these in MM 2.1 when I still had Win XP. I believe some are also working in Vista’s MM 6.

For most people, it seems the best path to follow is to download the free MM 2.6 for use in Win 7, or use Live Movie Maker, which is bound to have features added as time goes on.

Torrance Adult School Winter Registration

Winter session registration for the Torrance Adult Adult School begins December 7th for Mail-In Only, and walk-in registration begins December 16th.