Storing and Organizing Your Digital Images Most people don t do a good job of storing and organizing digital images. This includes: Your Digital Photographs Digital Photographs and images from others Scanned Images Photo organizer software greatly enhances the viewing and manipulation of digital images. You spent a lot of time taking pictures. Make it easy to enjoy them! Page 1
Establish an Easy to Remember Folder Structure Use Windows Explore to create folders to help you store and locate desired pictures. Don t make it so complex that it is difficult to remember. I organize pictures by year with about 10 or fewer subfolders. Page 2
Picasa2 and Photoshop Elements 4.0 use similar concepts, just different terms Picasa2 is a free download from Google It is very elegant and quite handy If your organization requirements are fairly simple then Picasa2 may be enough. Photoshop Elements costs about $50 and is huge. It can easily handle 50,000 photos with complex cataloging I run both programs on my computer. They do not interfere with one another. (Note: if you use one program to move pictures on your hard drive, the other program will not know where they are). Page 3
Picasa2 -- Getting Started Download pictures from your camera or scanner and store them in folders of your choice. Setup a high level folder such as My Pictures and put all your subfolders under this main folder. (As shown on Slide 2, I create a folder for each year with a few subfolders). Picasa2 scans the folders you designate and creates thumbnails of the files. Within Picasa2 you make Collections of the Folders and label groups of photos. Page 4
Picasa2 Put a green checkmark by the folders that you want Picasa2 to scan and import the pictures. Page 5
Picasa2 Initial view shows the folders you selected. All are listed under the Collection Folders on Disk. Page 6
Picasa2 Labels Collections You create your own Collection headings to organize the folders any way you wish. Labels are virtual groups of photos from multiple folders. Folder Names Page 7
Picasa2 A folder can contain as many pictures as you wish A Collection can contain as many folders as you wish Additionally, you can add Labels to groups of pictures such as Grandchildren or Cruises, etc. Picasa2 creates a virtual folder for each Label. Remember, you are working with the thumbnails of your pictures. You may delete them from the catalog without affecting the actual files on your hard drive. Page 8
Picasa2 Picasa2 makes it simple to print, email pictures, etc. Note: The Export command creates a copy of the file in any location you wish. Page 9
Picasa2 Provides a variety of simple editing options Page 10
Pros : Picasa2 Free and fairly easy to use Very elegant interface Easy emailing of photos Easily create slide shows on CD s (for computer viewing) Easily order prints from a variety of suppliers. Cons: Limited functionality, e.g. only one catalog, limited editing, etc. Not sure of the future of free programs (Will it continue to be updated?) Page 11
Photoshop Elements 4.0 Pros: Flagship product of Adobe Systems and widely recognized as the industry standard. Will be upgraded for future computer systems Will probably do everything you ever want for digital images. Cons: It costs $50 or so. It takes longer to learn how to use it well. Page 12
Photoshop Elements 4.0 PSE has two main parts: Editor and Organizer. We will focus on the Organizer for this session. PS Organizer creates a database of thumbnails of your pictures. You can add or delete pictures from PSE Organizer without affecting the actual files stored on your computer. A catalog is the highest level of grouping pictures. I have several catalogs -- Old Family Pictures, SIR Pictures, My Current Photos, etc. Many people only use one catalog. Page 13
Getting Started with PS Organizer Establish a basic hierarchy of folders using Windows Explorer. (See slide 2). You can change them later as needed. If you have pictures stored on your hard drive, drag them into the new folders with Windows Explorer. If they are too jumbled leave them in their existing folders. Open PS Organizer and click on Get Photos from your folder(s). Use the Rename function as necessary to give groups of photos a common base name, e.g. Christmas 2005, etc. Use the Move function if you want to move them to new folders. Page 14
Use PS Photo Downloader to Put New Pictures on Your Hard Drive Identify folder to store pictures Give them a base name for identification Downloader will write the pictures to Hard Drive and put thumbnails in your catalog. Page 15
Photoshop Elements Organizer Import pictures on your hard drive by locating the folders where you stored them. Page 16
Photoshop Elements Organizer Rename groups of pictures as needed to help identify them. Don t leave them as IMG_4671, etc. Page 17
Create and Design Your Catalog You create major Categories (PSE has some default titles you may keep or change. These are not folders; they are simply identifiers stored in PS Organizer. Page 18
Create and Design Your Catalog Create as many Subcategories as you like. Page 19
Create and Design Your Catalog Subcategories may be further broken down by Tags. Page 20
Populate Your Catalog with Pictures Select the pictures and drag the Categories, Subcategories or Tags onto the pictures. Or drag the pictures onto them. Note: You may make multiple assignments to individual pictures. Tags with a? indicates no pictures are yet associated with that Tag. Page 21
Populate Your Catalog with Pictures Once you have tagged all your pictures you can view a selection by clicking on the box next to the Category, Subcategory or Tag. Also you can click on combinations of tags to see special groupings of pictures. Page 22
PS Organizer Features Simply adjust the slider to change the size of the thumbnail images being displayed. Page 23
PS Organizer Features Selected pictures can be viewed by Oldest first, Newest first or by Folder Location on your hard drive. Page 24
PS Organizer Features Select Date View to see the pictures from specific time periods. Page 25
PS Organizer Features The Collection tab allows you to create a groupings of pictures across tags, etc. This is handy for selecting pictures for a slideshow, making calendars, etc. Here I will select the best pictures from 2 different years at Capitola. Page 26
PS Organizer Features You may move pictures in a Collection into any order you wish. Just drag and drop them. Page 27
PS Organizer Features Press F11 or Ctrl-Space to view a picture on full screen. Use your arrow keys to scroll through pictures. The toolbar at top lets you zoom in, etc. Page 28
PS Organizer Features Press F12 to view two pictures side by side on full screen. This is helpful to select the better picture. Page 29
Photoshop Elements Organizer Section of My Personal Catalog Category is Trips. Subcategories are groups of years. Sub-Subcategories are single years. Tags are the individual trips. Category Subcategory Sub-Subcategory Tag Page 30
PS Organizer Features Right-clicking on a picture brings up the Properties dialog box. Click on the General and you can add a caption, picture notes or even change the filename of a single picture. Page 31
PS Organizer Features Click on Tags and it displays the Tags assigned to the picture. You can delete selected Tags or add more. Page 32
PS Organizer Features Click on History and it displays information about when the picture was edited and imported to PSE. Page 33
PS Organizer Features Click on Metadata and it displays information about the camera and settings used for the picture. Page 34
Photoshop Elements Organizer Things to Consider: Use PS Organizer for pictures, documents or anything else you wish to organize. I store pictures of old family documents along with old photographs. Don t forget to backup your Catalogs. The Backup utility in PS Organizer is quite slow. I use Ghost to make an image of my hard drive weekly. Cautions: Don t move pictures around with Windows Explorer after they are imported into your Catalog. PS Organizer will not be able to find them. (PS Organizer has a Reconnect feature but it can be slow). Use PS Organizer to move your files. It s a little clumsy but keeps the thumbnails in your catalog. Page 35
Photoshop Elements Organizer Things to Remember There is no right way to organize and store photos. Develop a process that works for you. The end result will be very personalized. Develop a simple workflow to download pictures and save the good ones. Do it right when you download the pictures; don t wait until everything is disorganized! Once you have the pictures organized its easy to make slideshows, calendars, digital photo albums, etc. Have fun! Its great to see all of your photos in an organized manner. Page 36
Email Photos from Organizer Page 37
Email Photos from Organizer Page 38
Order Prints from Organizer Page 39
Order Prints from Organizer Page 40
Order Prints from Organizer Page 41
Order Prints from Organizer Page 42
Website URL and Contact Info Adobe Acrobat Version: "How to Organize and Store Your Digital Pictures Using Picasa2 and Photoshop Elements" --> http://www.sir-web.org/computer/4-06 Files/April Digital.pdf PowerPoint Version "How to Organize and Store Your Digital Pictures Using Picasa2 and Photoshop Elements" http?//www.sir-web.org/computer/4-06 Files/April Digital.ppt Download Picasa2 http://picasa.google.com/ Questions? Contact me at philgoff@yahoo.com or 831-3692. Page 43
Where Do We Go From Here? The next session will be on editing photos. I ll focus on photo restoration since that uses many of the tools offered by PSE 4.0. I ll bring my scanner and show my workflow for scanning prints and negatives (or slides). PS Editor can be much more complicated than the Organizer so I will focus on the more common tools. Any other suggestions or questions? Page 44