PSE 3 to PSE 4: help!

[STS]

I recently had to buy a new computer. My old one had about 1600 photos on it, nearly all tagged or in tagged version sets, in PSE 3. I aked the shop to drag all my photos and documents across to the new hard-drive, which they did.
I wanted to use PSE 3 on my new computer but had to buy PSE 4 for it; when I imported the photos from the 'Old Files' folder which had been set up on the new PC, PSE 4 found the files and I then clicked on "Get photos". I was asked if I wanted to import all tags, so I clicked on "Yes", thinking that this was going rather well!
However, although all my photos are now showing in "All photos" in Organizer, only 177 tags have appeared, listed under "Imported Tags". What has happened to all the others? I know that not every single photo had an individual tag as some were in Version Sets, but I can easily see that lots of tags aren't now there. Even more oddly, some tags that are showing are earlier versions: I had some moth species listed as UnIDed but I'd later IDed them and had changed the tag accordingly.
Can I get around this by uninstalling PSE 4 and trying to re-import the photos.......with all their tags, I hope? Or can I delete the first attempt at importing and try again?
Unfortunately, the Windows file that the photos were dragged to does not show Adobe tags nor, presumably, can it cope with Version Sets. The fact that some tags came through on my first attempt is hopeful though??
Any help gratefully received and thanks in advance.
Thomas

[prostie1200]

Hi
Have had no expereince with PSE, but would imagine that the program works in the same way as most for storing Data.
Would advise you look at the folder that all your PSE3 sets are stored in on the Hard Drive, hopefully the people who copied the data over to your new Hard drive did so by copying the complete folder - then look for the data store folder on the PSE4 - then copy the contents and paste to that folder.
See if that works.

Cheers
Brian

[STS]

Thanks for your suggestion, Brian. Unfortunately the files had been removed from my old HD in order to drag them on to my new PC.
I remembered my Back-up discs so decided to delete (in PSE 4) all the photos I'd imported from the 'Old Files' folder and to import my photos from the discs.
However, even that didn't really work out too well as only a few tags were imported from each back-up disc. I had to re-tag nearly all my photos, which was a complete pain and took days; thankfully I had pretty good notes to work from.
I am now concerned that at some point in the future I may have to import my photos from back-up discs and that the tags again won't be imported, or at least all of them.
How does anyone else identify their photos in PSE? And does the method survive being copied to a back-up disc then being imported to PSE again?
Thanks, Thomas

[prostie1200]

Hi Thomas
I find the easiest method to be - catalouge my shots,ie Wildlife, Family,Herons,Boats etc etc and create folders for each and then copy them onto 8gig DVD RW's.
Useing the Backup facility I find a pain, it takes too long, and if you want say just one or two photos you have to upload the whole before you can get at them. My method allows me to use the DVD Discs as just another hard drive.

Cheers
Brian

[STS]

I'm not sure that you can 'create folders' in PSE 4. I suppose it would be possible to copy photos to folders in Windows, e.g., to "My Documents / Birds etc. " and then copy them to DVD from there.
Doing that would mean losing the tags though, which is the only way I have of knowing a photo's 'what/when'.
How do you label your photos such that you can copy the extra information to DVD, certain that that info will be retained should you need to import the photos to your PC at some time in the future?
Maybe I'm missing something basic here, but not being able to keep tags (labels, names, whatever) seems crazy!
Thanks for your help so far Brian.
Thomas

[yelvertoft]

Thomas,

You can edit the EXIF information to add the what/where/when. This information will then be embedded in the jpeg file. As long as the image editing program doesn't strip the information out, "save for web" is a typical action that wil remove it, then it should stay with the image file regardless of the application used to view it.

You can edit the EXIF information using Photoshop, I think it's file -> properties, but I'm not certain off the top of my head.

Duncan

[Craftysnapper]

This may go unread after such a break in time..but in future in the organizer highlight all your thumbnails then go to file and select "write tag info to files" this writes the tags as IPTC keywords which will stop with your images and Elements will recognise them and add the appropriate tags should you need to re-import them (it pays to do this everytime you tag a batch of image), this does not work on raw images though.

Also Elements reminds you periodicly to back up your catologue and images to Disc/Discs ..if you had done you would not be having this problem..strange how people never bother to learn the software till its to late

[STS]

Thanks for the first part of your reply, which may turn out to be useful.
The second part is (almost) amusing, since if you'd bothered to read post 3 you'd see that I had indeed made back-ups. Maybe quite crafty at snapping but not so hot at reading, lol?
Thomas

[prostie1200]

Hi Thomas

Just read through my post and should have said, as I shoot in RAW then when my files are copied to the DVD disk the Exif goes along with them.

Cheers

Brian

[Craftysnapper]

Originally Posted by STS

Thanks for the first part of your reply, which may turn out to be useful.
The second part is (almost) amusing, since if you'd bothered to read post 3 you'd see that I had indeed made back-ups. Maybe quite crafty at snapping but not so hot at reading, lol?
Thomas

Sorry if i misread your post

I aked the shop to drag all my photos and documents across to the new hard-drive, which they did.
I wanted to use PSE 3 on my new computer but had to buy PSE 4 for it; when I imported the photos from the 'Old Files' folder

But backing up your images and PSE Catologue to CD or DVD does not seem to be what you have done from this statement.

The Adobe Elements catolgue file is located at C Drive>Documents and settings>all users>Applications data>Adobe ...were these files dragged across as well as your images and documents or if you did back up the catologue to a seperate hardrive using this feature
http://www.pbase.com/craftysnapper/image/61916488.jpg
Then the images AND catologue will be at that location you backed up to and can be restored.

As a beta tester for Elements 4 (and soon 5)I can say that if you have done the backup correctly then restoring a PSE3 catologue to PSE4 should not be a problem.

Happy to have been of help in the first part and sorry you misconrsued my second statement and I will refrain from replying in future