Not able to launch Organizer after installing Adobe Photoshop Elements

Welcome to this this blog on Adobe Photoshop Elements and following article can be helpful to you, if you are not able to launch Organizer after installation of Adobe Photoshop Elements on your computer. This can be helpful, so try steps mentioned below - 

(Below mentioned steps are for version 9 of Adobe Photoshop Elements, but can be tried for other versions by replacing version number in paths mentioned below)

Win:

1. Navigate to location 'C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Elements Organizer\9.0 and delete/rename the 9.0 folder.

2: Go to 'C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs‘ folder and rename the Catalogs folder.

3: Launch EO. It will throw ‘No catalog found’ error. Create a new catalog and click on ‘OK’. Now EO launches with first launch scenario.

MAC:

1: Go to /users/labuser/library/application support/adobe/elements organizer and rename or delete ’9.0’ folder.

2. Rename or delete the ‘catalog’ folder.

3: Launch EO.

Is Adobe Photoshop Elements crashing on launch/Start-up || Organizer is crashing on launch/start-up || Editor is crashing on launch/start-up

For Crash problem for Organizer :

A. Launch the catalog manager dialog box before launching organizer.

For this follow the steps-

1. Click on 'Adobe Photoshop Elements 10.0' icon on desktop.

2. Hold the 'shift' key from your keyboard and click on 'organizer' tab in welcome screen.

3. Catalog manager dialog box will be launched. Create a new catalog. Probably Organizer will be launched.

4. If so, click 'catalog' under 'file menu' Select your catalog (with which organizer was crashing) and click on 'repair' button. Click on 're index visual similarity data' and click on 'ok' button. After this click on 'optimize' button.

5. Select the catalog and click on 'open' button.

B. If crash continues then you have to create a new catalog.

For Crash problem for Editor: 

 Delete Preferences: Try to launch Editor and keep pressing - ‘Ctrl+Alt+Shift’. It will show an option to delete preferences and then try to relaunch again.

How to restore back-ups of older versions (7.0, 8.0, 9.0) in latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements (10.0) || Restoring PSE7/8/9 catalogs in PSE10

Here we are going to talk about very basic workflow of Backup/Restore between different versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements. Every latest version of Adobe Photoshop Version supports backward compatibility for Catalogs, which means that any catalog of older versions can be reused in upper versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements. Normal Catalogs of old versions can be converted directly into newer version catalogs and if there are backups of catalogs, restore operation automatically convert the catalog for new version. Let's take an example of PSE8 backup which we want to restore in PSE10 -

1. Launch Organizer of Adobe Photoshop Elements 10.0

2. Go to Restore option under File Menu

3. Go through guided steps of locating backed up files and start restore. 

Hopefully Restore in newer version works well for you. Please feel free to post any comments for further queries around specific scenario about Backup-Restore in Adobe Photoshop Elements.

New Features in 10th Version of Adobe Photoshop Elements - Object Search

For me Elements Organizer is main component, so starting with new features in Elements Organizer 10.0. Object Search is one thing which I found really very helpful and especially users like me who have large catalogs with thousands of files. E.g.- It will be really helpful for me to figure out photographs of my dog, which are clicked over the years.

Let's go through actual workflow provided in Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 -

Moving from one machine to other when all files are on External Hard Drive and don't want to go through Backup/Restore route

Today one of the user asked on forum about transferring Organizer metadata to a new machine without Backup/Restore because all the files are already on an external hard drive which can be used with new computer.

It's not a recommended workflow and always recommended way is to backup and restore from one machine to other.

Anyway, if you want to try this route, please make sure that drive head on new computer is same as that of old computer. E.g.- If this hard drive is detected as E drive on old computer then is should be detected as E on new computer. Even if that's not the case, one more step will make things work for you.


Steps -


1. Launch Organizer on your old computer
2. Open the catalog which you want to transfer to new computer
3. Go to Help Menu and select 'System Info'
4. Copy path for 'Catalog Location :'
5. Open this location in Windows Explorer
6. Copy all the files/folders from this location and move it to new computer
7. Launch Organizer and open this catalog now by keeping USB HDD connected.
8. Try some operation on files in Organizer and see if things are working.


If drive head is different on new computer, reconnect all your files correctly and go ahead !!!


Try this and leave your comment about the experiences...

Now I feel a need for Catalog for Catalogs

Its been more than 5 years now that I have been using various versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements and all my photographs used to be in one catalog. Over the time, I found it difficult to organize thousands of photographs in one catalog as  number of Albums and Tags was increasing every week.. Huge size of catalog with Thousnads of photographs and hundreds of albums/tags... For last one year, I have been organizing each shoot in separate catalog which means 250-2000 photographs per shoot ! Now I have lot many catalogs but it becomes difficult when I need some specific kinds of photographs irrespective of the event or photo-shoot.
So, here is my wishlist as a continuous user of Adobe Photoshop Elements Organizer !!!

Wish-list :

- There should be a catalog for catalogs
- In that master catalog, it should be very convenient to see low-res thumbs of photographs in various catalogs spread over various drives/folders on the hard-drive.
- It should be easy to merge two catalogs with all the existing Albums, Tags, Star Rating etc.
- It should easy to access photographs for other catalog on the basis of various metadata things like star rating, Albums and Tags etc..

Creating new Catalog in Adobe Photoshop Elements - Organizer

I am sure you know about CATALOGS in Adobe Photoshop Elements, if not check out following link and proceed further...

CATALOGS IN ORGANIZER 

Its pretty easy to create a new catalog in Organizer:

1. Just go to File Menu

2. Select Catalogs

3. Following dialog will be shown, Click New button on right top.

4. Following dialog will be shown, enter the name and click OK.

5. Welcome to new Catalog.

NOTE:

There are following three options in Catalog Management Dialog. These options decide where your catalog is going to create:

1. "Catalogs Accessible by All Users"

If this particular option is selected, catalog will be created @

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 7.0.0

WIN_XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\Catalogs

WIN_7 : C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\Catalogs

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 8.0.0

WIN_XP: C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Application Data\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs

WIN_7 : C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs

2. "Catalogs Accessible by the Current User"

If this particular option is selected, catalog will be created @

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 7.0.0

WIN_XP: C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\Catalogs

WIN_7 : C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\Catalogs

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 8.0.0

WIN_XP: C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Application Data\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs

WIN_7 : C:\Users\USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs

3. "Custom Location"

Here you have an option to select appropriate location. Click on BROWSE button in front of this option and select the location where you want to create new catalog.

What is Catalog in Elements Organizer?

Most of Photoshop Elements Users know what Catalog is, but this post is more about details related to catalogs.

Catalog is a logical storage of your photographs, audio and video which helps in organizing media files in better way. In Organizer, we can create different catalogs. If I define it technically, its a database which keeps information about all your files, albums, tags  and their metadata etc. It keep all relationships and doesn't alter your media files unless they are explicitly changed through Editor, Photoshop or quick-fixes in Organizer.

We can have multiple Catalogs for different purposes. Many times people prefer to have single catalog and organize different genres of photographs using Albums/Tags.

I will be sharing more about Catalog Operations like creation, repairing, deletion, merging soon..

How Backup-Sync Works in Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0

 How Backup-Sync Works in Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0

 Only one catalog can be marked for sync at one time At any particular instant, only one catalog can be marked for sync. When you switch from a catalog that was marked for sync to a new catalog then a warning is appears as shown in mage below. The previous catalog continues to be synced until you change the Sync preferences to either turn off sync or mark another catalog for sync. 

 Catalog Switching: How to mark a different catalog for Sync

1. Open the catalog you want to sync: Launch the catalog manager. You will see the following message:

 Click ok. Then you can choose to create a new catalog or select an existing catalog from the list of catalogs shown in catalog manager dialog box.

2. Launch Sync Preferences: To configure the new catalog for Sync, launch Sync Preferences. A message will appear that tells you that the previous catalog will stop being synced if you choose to sync the new catalog. The full message is shown in image below:

Select Backup/Sync this catalog and proceed to next step.

3. Set your preferences for the new catalog:  

Specify your preferences for Sync in the Sync preferences dialog box and press ok. Now you have turned off sync for the previous catalog and configured the present catalog for sync.

Backup/Sync preferences are catalog specific  

Say in one catalog ‘x’ you change the default advanced settings or the settings of which albums or media are to be synced. Now if you switch to another catalog say ‘y’ then the Sync preferences for the new catalog ‘y’ will again be the default settings until you change them. Return back to the previous catalog ‘x’, the settings will be same as those set by you previously.

Selected albums can be synced in a particular catalog  

A tabular representation of the Albums on the Desktop Organizer and the Album on Photoshop.com is displayed in Sync preferences. This table also includes the column Sync. If you want to synchronize an album, select the option beside the album name. The image of Preferences dialog box shown below highlights the 3 fields available in the table. These are:

1. Desktop Organizer

2. Sync

3. My Photos on Photoshop.com

 Also when creating a new album you can either mark on or mark off sync for that album using the backup/sync checkbox that is shown in the album details pane.

How to sync entire catalog (whole catalog including all albums and loose files with www.photoshop.com and other machines)  

In the backup/sync preferences dialog box, choose the ‘Backup/Sync Entire Catalog’ option to synchronize all the albums and loose media available in the catalog.

File Changes and Metadata changes Synchronization 

 Backup/sync propagates any file edit/delete changes made on your computer to the online account and vice versa. Likewise changes made to the metadata for example star rating; tags, captions, etc. are also propagated both ways.

Behavior of Stacks/Version sets  

As a rule, the top element of the version set is synced by default. Any other element in the version set can be synced by setting it as the top element of the version set.