PhotoElements Organizer 2018 Outdoes Itself this time (Page 2): You are right. Great minds think alike.

maxlieberman Loc: 19027

You are right. Great minds think alike.

don26812 Loc: South Bay of Los Angeles, CA

It has been my experience that most of the problems that users have with the Photoshop Elements Organizer is that they do not understand that it is a database. That is it does not contain your photos. Part of the information about a photo is a pointer that indicates where on your computer, the photo is stored. What that means is that one must obey the following Cardinal Rules.

Do Not Move Photos
Do Not Rename Photos
Do Not Delete Photos

UNLESS you do it from in the Organizer with its commands.
DO NOT Use File Explorer to perform the above operations.

I do not know whether the original poster's problem or other issues mentioned in the thread were partly cause by violating thee three rules or not. But over the 15+ years I have been using the Organizer, Violating these rules have been the root cause in a large number of cases.

I have written a series of tutorials/tips on using the Organizer over the years. The following link lists many of the more recent ones.

https://don26812.wordpress.com/photoshop-elements-tutorial-series/

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

47greyfox wrote:

With PSE 2019, you are stuck with a screen that has no options. However, looking around the Adobe program folder, there is an application for just the editor. I created a link to just that application. I don't see the overall opening screen. The organizer is taking up drive space that could be (perhaps) better utilized. In the old days of Windows, you could right click on an executable and one of the choices was "uninstall." Not so anymore...

I use Elements 14 and it can be set up in
Preferences.

xptom Loc: Concord, CA

Here are two other options. Adobe uses Bridge in Photoshop and other programs and it can be downloaded as an individual program free from Adobe. You also might check out luminar from skylum as a replacement to Lightroom it looks like it really works very very well and handling images

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

I've used Elements for years but have never used their organizer. I think I have a problem with people telling me what to do and how to do it -- that's the reason I ditched Picassa; they made multiple copies of my photos and I got tired of it.

I just transfer my photos into my laptop; I select the file name (the date) and a brief description of what's in the file; I do this by using the f2 key on my laptop. I only edit my files in PSE.

RichardE Loc: California

Linda From Maine wrote:

I "think" I recall an opening window tha... (show quote)

Only for Windows computers

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

2mdman wrote:

I miss the good old days of Picassa. You know you could organizer your files in folders, delete them, rename them, move them, and it all worked. When Google stopped support, I switched to PhotoElements. I’ve always had problems with the Organizer. Creating, renaming, moving folders has always been a fraught exercise. Instead of say editing a folder of pictures in my work area and them move the folder on-mass to my storage drive, I now create a folder on the storage drive and move the pictures individually. Attempts at using the more efficient folder move have rarely worked. Sometimes it moves the files, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the new folder is there when Elements says its not. Its all rather silly.

The most recent failure by PhotoElements outdoes them all though. I moved some video files from my GoPro (using TeraCopy to ensure accuracy) to my photo work area. Since it was a MOVE operation, the original files were deleted. No problem, they’re now on my hard drive by a verified copy. I imported the pictures and video into PhotoElements and as I usually do, started to look at them and catalog them. I was looking at one video and decided to rename it. Simple – right? Well, NOOOO. After the rename, Photoelements goes into its endless loop scenario (happens many times), in which I have to use Windows to shut it down then relaunch it. After relaunching, I tried to view the video again (the name was still the original, not the rename). It wouldn’t load. It said it was an unrecognizable format. I went to the file directory and saw the file, this time under the renamed version (figure that out). I used VLC (a great program) to launch it and it wouldn’t load either. So, now I’m without a video (actually this happened twice). I had to do a deleted file recovery from the card to get the files back. Never will I allow Photoelements to do anything to my videos from now on. You lost your data because you did not take any precautions to protect it.

How does a program blow a simple RENAME operation? It seems like PhotoElements was written before the Windows file system was invented and relies on some bizarre code to do basic file management. Reporting to Adobe will only result in a statement to upgrade which I’ll have to pay for and will not likely have fixed this issue. Such is life today in the brave new world of computing.

I miss the good old days of Picassa. You know you ... (show quote)

Forgetting for the moment the various issues you are having, hopefully you have learned at least one valuable lesson after losing your video files. Never, never, never use a Move feature when importing files, always use Copy. After you've visually confirmed the importing and file renaming was completed correctly, and you've backed up your files (you do back them up. I hope), then, and only then do you consider deleting the original files from the source.

Software will fail or have glitches, or will succumb to user error. Hardware will fail or have glitches, or will succumb to user error. This is the nature of current technology. It is up to the individual user to protect their data as much as physically possible through such things as redundant physical backups and perhaps the addition of cloud storage for extra protection and easier file sharing. To do less than that is to set yourself up for disaster. You initially lost your data because you did not take any steps to protect it. Do not blame Elements for that. Luckily you were able to recover it, but that may not always be the case.

papakatz45 Loc: South Florida-West Palm Beach

Linda From Maine wrote:

And yet there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of users for whom PS Elements Photo Organizer works just fine. Perhaps when you're done ranting and lamenting the good old days of Picasa, you'll organize your thoughts and seek specific step by step help. Or simply use your Windows file management system and uninstall the PSE Organizer?

cyan Loc: Northern NJ

[quote=Linda From Maine]I "think" I recall an opening window that asked if I wanted the editor or the organizer. After a couple of openings, I noticed the box that said "make default" or some-such. So the organizer is invisible to me aside from taking up HD space. I merely click on the icon in my taskbar to open PSE editor.

I like the free FastStone Image Viewer to browse the pics prior to selecting one to edit in PSE:
https://www.faststone.org/

I use Faststone also & love it. I have PS Elements, but never use the organizer.

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

Where people run into problems in Organizer is when they try to move things OUTSIDE Organizer. If you always use Organizer, it keeps things fine. Tags also work fine IN Organizer. You can restore lost files by selecting the file you want, go to File at the top of the screen, and select Reconnect. It lets you search files to find the missing one and put it back.

jamesl Loc: Pennsylvania

47greyfox wrote:

Linda, how do you uninstall only the "PSE Organizer?" A few days ago I hoped to do just that, but was unsuccessful. It is not listed as a separate program in the W10 list of applications or any other utility program. And Google produced results like, "it's integral and can't be uninstalled independent of the main program."

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I don't think you can just uninstall the Organizer module, just don't start it. Create a link directly to the Editor so Photoshop Elements will open the editor when you start it, then just don't bother switching to it and just stay in the editor.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

jamesl wrote:

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I don't think you can just uninstall the Organizer module, just don't start it. Create a link directly to the Editor so Photoshop Elements will open the editor when you start it, then just don't bother switching to it and just stay in the editor.

Yeah, that’s what I did. Too bad, not that space is a premium these days, but it would’ve been nice to just unload it.