Photoshop Organiser or directory tree?

[zedbra]

I've always used my own directory structure when storing files for photography, music, or anything else. It makes sense that way and I see little reason to complicate matters by using software's own way to organise files. Before the organiser part of Photoshop Elements 4 stopped working when I updated my PC, I used the organiser for viewing and choosing photos to edit, but I still used my own directory structure for storing the files rather than using the Organiser's method. Using my own method, I can also find my photos in the same way when I want to use them for something else (attaching to emails, uploading to online printers, etc).

I'm getting Elements 7 in a couple of weeks (waiting for my Birthday!) and am wondering if I should use the Organiser 'properly' this time. Do people find it better than using their own directory structure? Are their benefits to it? My main concern in the past has been that if one file gets corrupted, would I not then lose the whole thing and then have all my photos bunched together in the same place? I can imagine spending weeks sorting through them again! I keep backups but even so, I can imagine the problems it may cause.

Any comments/help on what's best will be much appreciated.

 

[Paul-S]

There is no reason why you cannot continue to use your filing system and Organizer. But remember any images moved or renamed outside of Organizer will not be recognised by Organizers database and will show as missing in the catalogue and this is true of any DAM software.

My three main recommenditions if using the Organizer ( or any other good dam program) as your main dam program are...

1- after importing your images apply all the tags (keywords) and captions to the images that you will need.

2- Then go to File > Write Keyword Tag and Properties Info to File. This will then store all the info within the image file itself and be avalable for any dam program you may use in the future, even Windows explorer will now be able to search your images in a given folder by these embeded tag keywords.

3- Back up your newly tagged images to a external hard drive. Now even in the event of a complete computer crash and losing all data or even being stolen all you have to do is put Elements back on the computer copy your images from the EHD to the main hard drive and organizer will rebuild your tags and captions for you from the embeded data in the image files.

Basicly its just good image managment, as to is it better using your folder stucture could you find all images on your computer of say one person but exclude all image where another person or/and pet appeared in that photo with them in a matter of seconds..you can in organizer or any good dam program.

 

[zedbra]

Thank you for all that Paul, it's very helpful. Being able to use both filing systems would certainly help. I didn't realise I would be able to write the tags to each file? That's really good to know.

I do already keep backups on an external drive, so that's all good. I remember when I used the Organiser before there were other things about it I wasn't sure about, but I won't know what they were until I use it again. So look out for more questions in a couple of weeks time.

Thanks again Paul.