don26812 Loc: South Bay of Los Angeles, CA

If you use the Organizer in Elements 15, I am surprised that you had not run into your problem or a similar one before. Both Elements and Lightroom work the same. Their catalogs don't contain the pictures themselves, just pointers to where the pictures are located on your system. Once you have imported a photo into either program's catalog, you must not delete it, move it, or rename it, unless you do it with the commands of that program. If you do, you end up with your problem.

If you decide to stay with Elements, I believe you should upgrade to PSE 2018. Yours is getting a bit long in the tooth. Historically Adobe has released a new version about this time of the year, so you may want to do your recovery in PSE 15 and then upgrade once your catalog is fixed. Come to think of it your PSE 15 catalog may also have some disconnected files for the reasons stated above.

Others here have provided good ideas regarding which way to proceed - Lightroom, Photoshop or Elements.

FWIW

jayluber Loc: Phoenix, AZ

Call Adobe support and they will do an interactive session with you and help you fix it. You just need to point LR to the right place.

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

Well, I really like your idea about taking up drinking again. It may or may not fix your problem but should make you not care about it. And who knows, maybe when you come back it will click into place.

OK, I also relate to your LR problem. I find that even though I understand some of the more complex parts of LR I have trouble with the very basic ones like understanding where my images are and how to access them. I've had the exact same problem as you and haven't completely resolved it.

This is how I understand it where it is technically true or not. You download pictures from your camera (memory chip) to your computer. Then you may or may not change the names in you computer. Then you download to LR and it defaults back to the original name. You make your changes (improvements we hope) to the image in LR. (Note also that you may delete one or more images in LR in one of two ways--If I understand it correctly you can delete from disk or remove. I think deleting takes it off LR but not off your computer and remove takes it off everything.) When you are done LR stores the modified image in LR and the unmodified image stays in your computer or wherever you originally stored it. Yet your computer and LR retain a link between the two images.

Your (and my) issue comes up when you want to do something with the image in LR. If you have deleted the image from your computer for any reason you will get the message “Folder could not be found." I think the same thing happens when you decide to MOVE your computer images to your external hard drive--the link between the LR image and the computer image is severed and you the the could not be found message because LR can't find the image where it expects it to be (I don't think it effectively searches everything attached to your computer.) So I think if both of us look at the like provide above we may be able to figure out how to connect the LR image with the images moved to your external hard drive as long as you haven't otherwise deleted them.

This is not a sure fix for your problem but it helps me conceptualize what I think is going on in LR and the computer. Good luck and remember, "It's 5 O'clock somewhere..."

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

That's unfortunate because Lightroom is a very powerful tool. Too often people jump into it thinking they can just use it and learn as they go, but Lightroom does have a learning curve and is not usable by anyone without first learning a bit about how it works. Once you understand the whole paradigm about the catalog and the import process, with experience everything else pretty much falls in place. Where newbies fail is right at the beginning when they fail to learn how to properly import images, often don't understand where their images reside, don't understand the purposes of the catalog and how it works, and don't understand that imported images cannot be managed outside of Lightroom.

Once those basics are learned and adhered to, there are usually very few problems. Of course to get the best out of Lightroom and develop an understanding of how the tools work with each other requires additional training which some people are loath to do. This is professional level software. You get out of Lightroom what you are willing to put into Lightroom. Those not willing to take the time and effort to learn how to use properly should stick to simpler entry level packages.

akamerica

I could not agree more with using Bridge and Camera Raw. This has been my solution to being north of 50 and double learning the trick (file management) before the treat (Lightroom). Why Adobe has to have a parallel system to File Explored is the root of the problem. I would love to use Lightroom and still allow Windows to mange the edited pictures.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Not quite.
You download your pictures to the computer. You change the names of the files.
If you then download your pictures through LR you do get the original name because you are downloading from the card (although LR allows you to change the name on download). At that point you have downloaded your pictures twice and have two copies on your computer. The first download and name change are ignored by LR because LR was not involved in the download and name change.

Note that when you "download" through LR you are not downloading the pictures INTO LR. You are downloading them into your computer. The terminology is important here. LR does not hold your pictures, it only holds the location of the pictures you IMPORT (not download) into LR. LR takes the file from the card, changes the name if that is selected, and the downloaded files go into your computer and the location of the files goes into the LR catalog (not into the LR program).



Almost.
When you are done with your edits, LR stores the steps you took to edit the image in the LR catalog. It does not store the modified image until you export it.

As you say, the unmodified original image stays where you originally stored it. LR got the location of the image when you imported it, and that link does not change.




The part marked in red shows where a lot of people have a problem with LR. LR does NOT search for the image. It relies on the link formed at import. It is possible to modify that link if you move the image by telling LR where it is now. But you have to do the searching, LR does not.

chrisg-optical Loc: New York, NY

Yes the lesson is simple....with LR ONLY move the files from within LR - don't use explorer or other file management app....

Girl with A Canon Loc: Myrtle Beach,SC

Thank you that is just what I did. They were so helpful I now have a clean slate to work with. And he was surprised that I understood right away about plugging in my WD external HD to locate the files. I would not have been able to do so if it were not for everyone’s help here.

lloydl2 Loc: Gilbert, AZ

This is a really easy fix. You just need to right click on the highest level folder with a question mark and then navigate it to your new location and everything in and under that high level folder should resolve. In the future any changes, adds, deletions, moves etc should be done from within lightroom in the library module. Hope this helps

RRS Loc: Not sure

No it would not be good or correct your problem by canceling your subscription to Adobe. If you are paying $9.99 a month then you should also already have PS. The elements program you have should do most everything you will need. Go to the Adobe Creative Cloud icon, click on it and see what you have. Bridge is a stand alone option with Adobe Camera Raw. Make sure that you update PS if you have not been doing so. Also, the software, DPP-4, that came with your camera can help arrange and keep track of your files. Not the best software but a good first step to learning some kind of system. I don't know how you download your files but bring up Bridge and see if by chance that your files are already there. I bought the very helpful CD from Laura Shoe but after learning the LR system I didn't like the requirement of having to name or label everything and now don't use LR at all, just my personal preference.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Sorry, can't help. I am one of those people who can take a set of instructions/check list and follow them exactly from point to point so I "learn" how to do a process but each time I run into a new situation I need to find another checklist made by someone who has done it to follow.
Gets me in trouble with my wife "But you know all about computers!" - Well, no, I just know how to follow directions from an expert - I know how to "use" it (for some things) - otherwise I agree with a friend who was an Army trained computer expert back in the day "Don't try to understand it, they really work by black magic."

juanbalv Loc: Los Angeles / Hawthorne

bobfitz Loc: Kendall-Miami, Florida

First of all...you must realize that Lightroom is not and never will be the same or a substitute for Photoshop. Lightroom has become an extremely powerful tool for cataloging your photos as well as brilliantly editing and saving your photos in a non-destructive manner. It also allows for portability of your files and much more.

Needless to say...there is a learning curve which all of us who use Lightroom have had to wrestle with. Between youtube and Adobe tutorials you should be able to get started. However, you will have to put in the time and you'll be glad you did.

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

Thanks to everyone who responded to my reply. I was hoping the reply was similar to her question and may help us both. Your answers did help me better conceptualize how the downloading and modifying work.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

True, Lightroom is a light editing tool coupled with an excellent database driven organization tool. While it does not reach the capability of Photoshop, the two programs talk to each other, making it easy to send an image to the heavy duty editor Photoshop if necessary. When the work has been done in Photoshop, saving the work will send the resulting image to Lightroom, where it is added to the catalog.

Lightroom is non-destructive in the sense that it will not change the original image file. If the original is a raw file it's not an image until it is exported as a jpg, tif, or other image format. If the original is an image file such as a jpg, Lightroom will not allow you to save the file with the same name in the same folder so you can't overwrite the original file. It gives you the option to produce a distinctive name. That is a good idea, since it will be immediately obvious which file is the original and which the edited copy.