1. Page 1

2. Page 2 Genesis of this Presentation! This is SIR Phil Goff's PSE4 presentation from April 2007; updated by SIR Derek Southern to PSE 5, September 2007 for Br8 Photo group; now partially updated to PSE 7, November 2008 for Area2 CAT

3. Page 3 Storing and Organizing Digital Images Most people don’t do a good job of storing and organizing digital images including: Digital Photographs Scanned Images Photo organizer software greatly enhances the viewing and manipulation of digital images. How can you make it easy to enjoy them?

4. Page 4 Getting Started (1) FIRST establish a basic hierarchy of folders using Windows Explorer. (slide 6). 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.

5. Page 5 Getting Started (2) THEN open PSE 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.

6. Page 6 Establish an Easy to Remember Folder Structure Use Windows Explore to create folders to help you store and locate your pictures. Don’t make it so complex that it is difficult to remember. I organize pictures by year with a number of subfolders. These folders will be moved under a 2008 subdirectory early in 2009

7. Page 7 Picasa offers similar options Picasa3 is a free download from Google It is very elegant and quite handy If your organizational requirements are fairly simple then Picasa may be all you need

8. Page 8 PSE 7 Photoshop Elements 7 costs up to $99 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).

9. Page 9 Photoshop Elements 7.0 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.

10. Page 10 Photoshop Elements 7.0 Cons: Expensive. It costs up to $99 (depending on the deal from Fry’s!). It takes longer to learn how to use it well.

11. Page 11 Photoshop Elements 7.0 PSE has two main workspaces: Editor and Organizer. We will focus on the Organizer in this session.

12. Page 12 The Organizer PSE 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 -- Twins, PSE5 demonstrations, My Catalog (the default), etc – Many people only use one catalog.

13. Page 13 Use PSE to Copy Images onto Your Hard Drive Downloader will copy the files (pictures) from your camera or memory card to your Hard Drive, and put thumbnails in your catalog.

14. Page 14 PSE Organizer: get photos Imports pictures into PSE from your hard drive by locating the folders where you stored them. Imports pictures into PSE directly from your camera, or from a card reader (preferred).

15. Page 15 PSE Organizer: rename files Rename groups of pictures as needed to help identify them. Don’t leave them as IMG_4671, etc.

16. Page 16 Create and Design Your Catalog You create your own major “Categories” (PSE has some default titles you may keep or change. These are not folders; they are simply identifiers stored in PSE Organizer.

17. Page 17 Create and Design Your Catalog New category New Subcategory New tag

18. Page 18 Create and Design Your Catalog Subcategories are further broken down by “Tags.”

19. Page 19 Populate Your Catalog with Pictures Select the pictures and drag the Categories, Subcategories or Tags onto the pictures. Or drag the pictures onto them.

20. Page 20 Find your Pictures Click on one or more boxes to see the required pictures.

21. Page 21 Select RR Museum trip only

22. Page 22 Select Mt Shasta only

23. Page 23 PSE5 Organizer Features Simply adjust the slider to change the size of the thumbnail images being displayed.

24. Page 24 PSE5 Organizer Features Selected pictures can be viewed by Oldest first, Newest first or by Folder Location on your hard drive.

25. Page 25 PSE7 Organizer Features Select “Date View” to see the pictures from specific time periods.

26. Page 26 PSE7 Organizer Features The Album concept allows you to create a grouping of pictures across tags, etc. This is handy for selecting pictures for a slideshow, making calendars, etc. Was called a COLLECTION in PSE6 and earlier versions

27. Page 27 PSE7 Organizer Features You may move pictures in an Album into any order you wish. Just drag and drop them.

28. Page 28 Change order of pictures

29. Page 29 PSE 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.

30. Page 30 PSE Organizer Features Press F12 to view two pictures side by side on full screen. This is helpful to select the better picture.

31. Page 31 PSE7 Organizer Features Left-clicking on a picture brings up the “Properties - Metadata” dialog box with 4 iconic options. Click on “General” to add a caption, picture notes or change the filename. Click on “i” for metadata, on the yellow ‘tag’ for Keyword tags, and on 4 th icon for history of file.

32. Page 32 Photoshop Elements Organizer Things to Consider: Use PSE 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 PSE Organizer is quite slow. I use Ghost to make an image of my hard drive weekly.

33. Page 33 PSE Cautions Cautions: – Don’t move pictures around with Windows Explorer after they are imported into your Catalog. PSE Organizer will not be able to find them. (PSE Organizer has a Reconnect feature but it is slow). – Use PSE Organizer to move your files. It’s a little clumsy but keeps the thumbnails in your catalog.

34. Page 34 Move image(s)

35. Page 35 Add images and move

36. Page 36 Share your Pictures (PSE7)

37. Page 37 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. Once you have the pictures organized it’s easy to email pictures, get prints, make slideshows, calendars, digital photo albums, etc.

38. Page 38 Discipline leads to FUN! 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! Have fun! Its great to see all of your photos in an organized manner.

39. Page 39 Website URL and Contact Info A copy of this presentation can be found on our website http://www.sir-web.org/computer/ Download Picasa from http://picasa.google.com/ Questions? Contact philgoff@yahoo.com or 831-3692 or derek.southern@gmail.com or 253-1646