PSE 8 Catalog Problems

I have lost access to my PSE 8 Catalog. When I opened PSE 8 the other day I received the error: The catalog could not be opened. It is either corrupt or the version is out of date and can not be updated.
I have called Adobe twice and they have not been able to help.
I do have a directory and file with the catalog name on my hard drive and it seems to have the correct date.
I have created a new catalog under a new name and reimported all of my photos, and while it did import some existing keywords, the structure of what I had initially created is not there.
What other info can I provide and what else can I do to try to restore this. (Shame on me for not having a good backup!!!!!)

I was able to open your catalog file in my PSE 8. My utility "psedbtool" was also able to read it, and I was able to browse around in it using SQLite Database Browser. Nothing appears amiss.
I wonder if it's not your catalog file but rather the thumbnail cache or another file in the catalog folder that's corrupted. Try this:
1. In Windows Explorer, make a copy of your catalog folder and call it "Test".
2. In the Test folder, delete all the files except for catalog.pse8db and the two subfolders of photos that should be there, "2009 12 13" and "2009 12 15".
3. In the Test folder, double-click catalog.pse8db.

Similar Messages

PSE 6 Problems Fixed in PSE 7

Over the past year, Ive kept a list of PSE 6 problems Ive encountered and verified:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b65e1b/0
Ive tested those problems in PSE 7 on my computer, and the results appear below.
PSE 6 problems that appear to have been fixed in PSE 7 are marked [F], and problems that arent fixed are marked [NF]. Because of limitations of the forum, this list is split across several messages.
Overview
The good news is that Adobe has fixed many of the most serious problems with PSE 6:
- The missing Help content.
- The inability to use raw files on a newer computer.
- The Move command that deleted files.
- The low-contrast grey-on-black user interface.
In addition, the PSE 7 Organizer seems significantly zippier for scrolling and searching (with my 13K catalog and someone elses 68K catalog).
The not-so-good news is that a fair number of serious problems and a large number of minor ones remain unfixed:
- The Organizer still gets horribly confused by reassignment of drive letters and drives with duplicate serial numbers, situations that occur when people upgrade their computers.
- Numerous problems with searching, including the broken timeline and exclude keyword category.
- Folder Location view still shows incorrect folder contents.
- Map view remains a buggy toy that cant handle more than several hundred photos.
- Date/times set by Adjust Date and Time can still be lost silently.
- High-resolution displays with DPIs larger than 96 arent supported.
- The Organizer shows incorrect colors for Adobe RGB photos.
There are 65 issues listed here, 37 of which are major, causing data loss or seriously impeding functionality with no easy, obvious workaround. Of the 37 major issues, 13 have been fixed. Of the 28 minor issues, 8 have been fixed.
Ive reported all of these problems to Adobe. Almost all of them are in the Organizer. Based on all the reports on the forums, it appears that the PSE 6 Editor has far fewer problems the Organizer. Perhaps thats because the Editor shares the same code with the professional Photoshop, while the Organizer appears to be an orphaned consumer product whose development Adobe has moved offshore.
For reference, my computer is a midrange laptop with a dual-core 1.8 GHz processor, 3 GB of memory, and a 7200 RPM disk (the same speed as desktop disks).
Raw Files
Major Problems
[F] On a multiprocessor, the Organizer behaves erratically with catalogs containing raw files: sometimes it crashes, sometimes it shows the hourglass icon for raw files, sometimes it shows the broken-image icon.
[F] In a catalog with large numbers of raw files, scrolling quickly over dozens or hundreds of large-sized thumbnails will consume 100% CPU for a minute or longer.

Part II
File Management and Tagging
Major Problems
[F] The File > Move command will silently and permanently lose a file if the destination folder has a file of the same name as the file being moved; this is different behavior than PSE 5.
[F] The File > Move command loses the association between the photo and the audio caption, even though it moves both files to the new location.
[F] If you move or rename a catalog using File > Catalog > Move/Rename, you can no longer edit existing slideshows in the catalog.
[F] Tag hierarchies with more than 500 or so tags make the Keywords pane unusably slow (but worked fine in PSE 5).
[F] The Photo Downloader process APDProxy.exe crashes at startup because of a missing DLL.
]This problem doesnt occur in my PSE 7. But it was clearly a timing-dependent bug (a race condition) that came and went for me and many others, so it may be still lurking. Adobe has a tech note that says it occurs with PSE 7, but the tech note gives symptoms and a workaround that only apply to PSE 6, suggesting a cut-and-paste error by a PSE 7 support person.
[NF] The Organizer fails very ungracefully when two drives have the same volume serial number, e.g. because of the use of a disk-cloning utility.
]Im very disappointed that Adobe didnt add the three lines of code that would have issued a warning when it discovered two drives with the same number. While most people will never encounter this, when it strikes someone, its symptoms are very mysterious. Adobes tech note on the issue gives incorrect and misleading information about possible solutions.
[NF] The Reconnect command fails to reconnect when: you move your photos to a new drive, assign the drive the letter of the old drive to the new one, and leave both drives connected to your computer.
[NF] If a hard drive containing photos in the catalog gets its drive letter reassigned by Windows, then the left-hand folder pane of Display > Folder Location view shows the old drive letter, not the new one, as containing the photos.
]This sounds innocuous, but it led a user on the forums to select the wrong drive when dragging and dropping a folder, permanently deleting some files. This bug and the previous one with Reconnect have the same underlying cause the Organizer doesnt update drive letters in its catalog.
[NF] Folder Location view shows incorrect folder contents when more than one keyword tag is selected in the Keyword Tags pane.
]Based on reports on the forums, there appear to be other situations where Folder Location view shows incorrect folder contents, but they havent been easy to reproduce.
Minor Problems
[F] The File > Rename command no longer includes leading zeroes, causing the renamed files to sort incorrectly in Windows Explorer.
[F] Display > Import Batch shows the wrong time for batches imported by the Photo Downloader; if the local time zone is UTC-8:00, then the time will be 8 hours earlier.
[F] The Organizer doesnt unlock an edited file saved to a folder whose name contains an apostrophe.
[NF] In File > Export, the Common Basename can no longer be empty, and a hyphen is added automatically, so you can no longer get files named 1.jpg, 2.jpg, etc.
]You can get files named 1.jpg, 2.jpg, etc. but you cant get files named p1.jpg, p2.jpg, etc. a hyphen is still added in that case.
[NF] Setting the Apply Metadata > Author or Copyright fields or the option Preserve Current Filename In XMP of the advanced options of the Photo Downloader causes duplicate files to be downloaded and imported.
Map View
Major Problems
[NF] Map view is unusably slow with more than about 6-8,000 mapped photos.
]When I tested PSE 7 by importing 12,000 photos (the size of my catalog) that had GPS locations, the red push-pins didnt blink uncontrollably as they did in PSE 6. But the Organizer crashed a number of times when I tried to zoom and pan the Map view until I was able to scroll the map to another country and then back again. The CPU continued to consume 80% of a single CPU (40% of two), even 10 minutes after I closed Map view. When I selected Limit Search to Map Area, PSE took over a minute to respond.
[NF] It takes 5 seconds to assign a keyword tag to a photo if there are 1,000 or more photos with map locations.
]In PSE 7, it takes 3 seconds with 1,000 photos, 12 seconds with 8,000 photos, and 18 seconds with 12,000 photos.
[NF] Giving a map location to a tag assigned to hundreds of photos makes both the Keywords pane and the Map view unusably slow.
]Giving a map location to a tag assigned to 2000 photos makes assigning any keyword tag to a photo very slow (see above). Searching on keyword tags takes 15 seconds, and a Show All takes 15 seconds.
[NF] Removing the map push-pin of a tag assigned to hundreds of photos mistakenly tries to update the metadata of each photo, which can take tens of minutes and fill up your recycle bin.
]The weird thing is that assigning a map location to the tag doesnt try to write the metadata of files with that tag.
[NF] Moving map locations always fails, silently (too bad if you want to record backcountry locations not namable via a place name).
[NF] If a photo with GPS coordinates is imported, it doesnt show as a red push-pin on the map.
]Scrolling the map or restarting the Organizer causes the pin to appear.

PSE 6 - problem with photos disappearing from Slideshow

Hello,
I worked on a slide show recently and then exported it to a .wma file. I returned to the slide show project in Elements a couple of days later to add another slide. Out of the 27 slides only three were intact. In 25 slides, there were no longer any pictures, but the captions were intact. The other one that was intact was a slide with just a caption. Also the timestamp on the slide show project was 2/12/2009 at 10.37 but I saved changes on 2/14 and those were saved (like the slide with just the caption I mentioned above) I don't know what happened or how I can get back to where it was before.
Thanks for the help!

> When I installed Adobe Lightroom, I was asked if I wanted to create a separate catalog for Lightroom or merge with the one from Photoshop elements. I chose the separate catalog for Lightroom and all the photos in the Photoshop elements organizer got wiped out (including a previous slideshow I had made)
I dont think that would normally occur, so something screwy was going on with your installation. Lightroom can import a PSE catalog, but it should never overwrite it. But Im not a Lightroom expert perhaps someone else more knowledgeable can help on that.
> I read other people having issues with catalog when upgrading to PSE7. So would that also be a case where you can lose the catalog(and the slideshow along with it)when you upgrade?
There are many potential problems that occur when you upgrade from PSE 6 to PSE 7. Of the ones that have been posted here, most people who have stuck it out get the problems fixed eventually, though I think many people give up in frustration before then.

Fixed Video CreationDate Sorting After Converting PSE Catalog

My experience with the problems of sorting videos properly by creating date nearly caused me to give up and go back to PSE Organizer...but I dug in, hacked out a solution, and now I'm sharing it in case it helps anyone else. This worked for me...but please realize that I could have destroyed my own catalogs if things weren't all as expected. My Python script below is a down & dirty, no frills way to convert and push all the "CORRECT" timestamps in my old PSE10 catalog to the horribly handled and mis-dated VIDEO files in LR4. Here's the script for all those who dare to take the life of their catalogs into their own hands.
# WARNING: Use at your own risk. This worked for me, but could completely    #
#           DESTROY your catalogs for both Lightroom (LR) and Photoshop        #
#           Express (PSE). Copy the {YourFilename}.lrcat from LR and the      #
#           catalog.pse??db from PSE to your local python directory and make   #
#           BACKUP copies of those files before you try to move the modified   #
#           ones back to their proper locations.                               #
# Auth...erm, Hacker: Sam Birch                                                #
# Purpose: Fix Adobe's repeated inability to apply proper dates to video      #
#           files when importing a PSE catalog. This script gets the list of #
#           all video files in a Lightroom 4.0 catalog (have not verified this #
#           for any other version), looks for the correct creation date/time   #
#           for those files in the PSE catalog, converts the PSE UTC stamp to #
#           MY LR local timezone (US/Central), properly formats the output for #
#           LR's captureTime, and saves them in the LR catalog.                #
#    Notes: 1) I moved from PSE 10 to LR 4. Those are all I wrote this for,   #
#              so do not expect this to work for anything else.                #
#           2) I am in the US/Central timezone, so anyone not in that timezone #
#              will need to edit the script to make it work properly for you. #
#           3) This is a Python script, and I used 2.7.2 on Windows. I also   #
#              needed to add the pytz package to handle the timezone           #
#              conversion properly.                                            #
#           4) I am not a Python expert. I wanted to learn Python, and it let #
#              me accomplish what I wanted. I would appreciate any construct- #
#              ive criticism with proposed improved code, but please don't ask #
#              for modifications or customizations from me. I don't have the #
#              time or knowledge to do so...sorry. As this was simply about   #
#              taking the least time to get LR functional for me, all config   #
#              items are hard-coded and require modification of the script... #
#           5) ALL my video files had unique names. If this is not the case   #
#              for you, THIS WILL NOT WORK RIGHT FOR YOU!!!!                   #
import sqlite3 as lite
import sys
import os, time
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from pytz import timezone
import pytz
# Your Lightroom catalog (COPIED to the local dir)
lrcon = lite.connect('./test-fresh.lrcat')
# Your Photoshop Express Organizer catalog (COPIED to the local dir)
psecon = lite.connect('./catalog.pse10db')
# Get all the video files in the LR catalog...
lrcur = lrcon.cursor()
lrcur.execute("SELECT Adobe_images.CaptureTime, AgLibraryRootFolder.absolutePath, AgLibraryFolder.pathFromRoot, AgLibraryFile.idx_filename, Adobe_images.id_local FROM Adobe_images, AgLibraryFile, AgLibraryFolder,AgLibraryRootFolder WHERE (Adobe_images.fileFormat=\"VIDEO\") AND (Adobe_images.rootFile=AgLibraryFile.id_local) AND (AgLibraryFile.folder=AgLibraryFolder.id_local) AND (AgLibraryFolder.rootFolder=AgLibraryRootFolder.id_local);")
psecur = psecon.cursor()
rows = lrcur.fetchall()
# Variable setup for stats and timezone conversion...
failcount = 0
successcount = 0
utc=pytz.utc
central=timezone('US/Central')
fmt = "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S" #LR captureTime format string
for row in rows:
    # Attempt to fix through local modified time...but useless since I used
    # PSE backup/restore a few years ago, and that wiped out all original
    # timestamp information. If you are in Windows and your modified timestamp
    # on the file is correct, this should work...since it worked (but didnt' fix
    # my problem due to PSE's terrible version of backup/restor), I thought I
    # would leave the code as inspiration for others it still may work for...
    #myroot = row[1].encode('utf8')
    #mypath = row[2].encode('utf8')
    #myfile = row[3].encode('utf8')
    #myidx = row[4]
    #photo = myroot+mypath+myfile
    #mytimeLR = time.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M",time.localtime(os.path.getmtime(photo)))
    #print photo," last modified: ",mytimeLR
    #updateTmp = (mytimeLR,myidx)
    #lrcur.execute('UPDATE Adobe_images SET captureTime=? WHERE id_local=?',updateTmp)
    #lrcon.commit()
    # Get the filename (ALL MY VIDEOS HAD UNIQUE FILENAMES, SO THIS LEVEL OF MATCHING SUFFICED FOR MY PURPOSES)
    myfile = row[3].encode('utf8')
    # Set up the parameter for the query to the PSE catalog
    matchParm = []
    matchParm.append(myfile)
    # Get the UTC timestamp and file name from the PSE catalog
    psecur.execute('SELECT search_date_begin, filepath_search_index FROM media_table WHERE lower(filename_search_index)=lower(?)',matchParm)
    pserow = psecur.fetchone() # I could do this because I KNOW all my video files have unique names
    if pserow != None:
        # Go through the hassle of decoding and converting the UTC time to US/Central...as well
        # as from the PSE format to LR format similar but different enought to be annoying...
        psedate = pserow[0].encode('utf8')
        pseUTC = datetime(int(psedate[0:4]),int(psedate[4:6]),int(psedate[6:8]),int(psedate[9:11]),int(pse date[11:13]),int(psedate[13:15]),0,tzinfo=utc)
        lrLocal = pseUTC.astimezone(central)
        lrDate = lrLocal.strftime(fmt)
        # I like seeing progress...
        print myfile, ": ", pserow[0]," -> ", lrDate
        # push the corrected time back into the LR catalog...the only WRITE activity so far...
        updateParm = (lrDate,myidx)
        lrcur.execute('UPDATE Adobe_images SET captureTime=? WHERE id_local=?',updateParm)
        lrcon.commit()
        successcount += 1
    else:
        # I got here because I added some video files to LR after I imported, but before
        # I hacked out this script...
        failcount += 1
print "SUMMARY: success count = ", successcount, " - fail count = ", failcount
if lrcon:
    lrcon.close()
if psecon:
    psecon.close()
Sam

Also, since my camera does not create sidecar files and the video format does not allow for metadata directly...I have problems with date sorting. LR likes the "Creation Date"; while I understand that Windows' NTFS is one of the few operating systems that actually store a "Modified Date", I cannot understand why Adobe would choose to use a data that changes with every copy (Creation Date), rather than the original capture date (Modified Date) when it is clearly available.
My solution is to move my videos to their final destination outside of LR, run the below PowerShell script to set Creation and Accessed dates both to the Modified date for the file, and then import with LR. This is a blatant waste of time, but it seems the least of evils I'm aware of (up to the LR 4.0 I'm currently running). If anyone knows of a better solution, please point me that direction. Otherwise, I'm hoping this may help others in my boat.
If you ask "Why PowerShell when your last script was Python?"...it boiled down to being able to do the most work with the least amount of coding since Powershell has all that's necessary.
Just create the below as FixDates.ps1, then use command.exe in the root of the directory (and sub directories, since this works recursively) you want to do this for. I use this on the directory for the batch I just imported.
OH, AND OF COURSE...USE FOR INSPIRATION/UTILITY AT YOUR OWN RISK. IT WORKS FOR ME, BUT I GUARANTEE NOTHING...
$Videos = Get-ChildItem . -Recurse | where{$_.Extension -match "avi|mov|3gs"}
foreach ($Video in $Videos) {
    Write-Host $Video.fullname
    $Video.CreationTime = $Video.LastWriteTime
    $Video.LastAccessTime = $Video.LastWriteTime
Sam

Moving my photos and PSE catalog to a new machine... and upgrading

H
I am seeking advice on the best way to do the following:
- move my photos from my current laptop to a new laptop
- recreate my current PSE catalog on the new machine
- do both of the above while also upgrading to PSE 11 on the new machine.
The last time I did this sort of action -- moved my photos to a new machine -- it was sheer bedlum. Hoping to avoid the pain this time.
Do I first need to move my photos to the new laptop -- recreating the exact smae file structure that I have today -- amd them export and import the PSE catalog? I want to repeserve the album structure and tagging that I have created.....
Any help/pointers appreciated.

The recommended way to move to another computer with a new OS or PSE version is to use the built-in backup and restore function in PSE.
- Start with a clean catalog : reconnect missing files, repair, optimize. That's good practice even if it is not strictly necessary.
- Do a full backup on an external media (external USB drives are safe and affordable). If you have several catalogs, do as many backups. Warning ! each separate backup must be in its own separate folder.
- Now, you have installed your PSE version (possibly a newer version) on the new computer, you can do a restore from each catalog backup. That will restore the catalog and the picture files ; if you have checked the option to keep the folder tree structure, it will be kept.
The smart thing about this process is that not only everything is restored, but if you have upgraded to a newer PSE version, the catalog will be automatically converted to the newer version ; furthermore, you have a backup!
http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshop-elements-faq.htm#_Move_your_photos_1
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/kb/common-catalog-issues-upgrade-elements.html
Edit:
This shows why a backup from the organizer is often a better solution than external backup solutions. Suppose your old computer crashes, you can restore to a new computer and newer PSE version easily. It's also a good way to update a secondary computer (a laptop for instance) to the same 'sync' than the master computer.

Searching for duplicates in PSE catalog?

I am experiencing numerous duplicate photo images in my PSE catalog. I woud like to do a search of the catalog and bulk remove the duplicates. Is there a way to do this?

See that faq by John R Ellis:
http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshop-elements-faq.htm#_Find_and_delete
That works with PSE6.
Once you have selected a number of files, you can either:
- right click, choose stack and automatically suggest photo stacks
- or the find menu, 'by visual similarity'

I can't stack photos (previously in version sets) imported via "Upgrade PSE Catalog". Why not?

I am currently using LR 3.6 on a Windows 7 OS/ HP laptop. Previously, I organized my photos using PSE 9 Organizer. When I switched to LR 3, I selected the option to upgrade my PSE Catalog to bring my photos into LR. LR imported all the photos and keywords/ratings but not my version sets or smart albums. I understand LR doesn't have version sets so I was willing to manually restack my photos but now LR is not giving me that option. Any pictures that were previously in a PSE version set are showing as unstackable (all the stack options are grayed out) even if they are located in the same folder on my hard drive. I'm having trouble finding anything on the web that addresses this issue. Any help/direction would be much appreciated as my catalog is rather cumbersome at the moment.
Thank you,
Sierra

If dj_paige's suggestions don't help, check to make sure that Lightroom thinks both photos are in the same folder. When I converted from PSE 8, I had some photos in version sets in the same actual folder that LR thought were in different folders whose name differed only by case (e.g. "MyFolder" and "myfolder"). Thus, LR refused to stack the photos upon catalog conversion.
You can check this by selecting each of the suspsect photos in turn, right-clicking, and selecting Go To Folder In Library.

Organizer/catalog problem

getting: "a problem accessing Organizer catalog. It may be in use by another process or a disk error occurred". Can you help? Sorry - I'm using Elements 5...

From: photodrawken
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 2:39 PM
To: Ermineglen
Subject: Organizer/catalog problem
Re: Organizer/catalog problem
created by photodrawken in Photoshop Elements - View the full discussion Much thanks to you - appreciate it. Glen...

Using PSE catalog/organizer with CS5

I have been using PSE 7 for a while and have just transitioned to Photoshop CS5.
I would like to use the catalog from PSE for organizing photos, and PS CS5 for editing.
In the PSE preferences I have tried to notify PSE that I want to use PS CS5 as the supplementary editor. All I get is a message that says I do not need to choose PS as the other editor as PSE already supports using PS from the edit menu and edit toolbar (which I can`t see how that would happen).
It is my guess that PSE catalog/organizer and PS CS5 do not interact, and that I can use both but independently.
Is my guess correct?

Thanks, MTSTUNER. I now see that option in PSE Edit menu. However, when I select it there is a message that Thumbnails are being updated, and a copy of the photo is made in the organizer. PS does not launch, and if I launch PS first, the photo still does does not appear in PS.

PSE 8 problems to start the program

Hello!
Just download the PSE8 today and I can´t get it launched? The edit-program start but the organixer doesn´t. Either I can´t launched the share-programs or the program to make albums.
Someone out there who can help me?
SE-MJA

Hello!
I got the same result.
The program can´t launch the "read in workspace for Elements Oganizer". It´s try to launch but be freeze and then nothing happens.
It´s bad because I think the program was good. Now I think I will reclaime the produvt and get my money back.
Regards!
Micke
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2010 04:22:09 -0600
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: PSE 8 problems to start the program
Have you located the program file to ensure it is properly installed?.
If not, click on the start button and type PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe (note caps and no spaces) into the search box.
The program, if available, should appear with a blue PSE icon in the search results.
Right click on it and select send to desktop.
Then try to open the editor from the desktop by clicking on the icon.
>

Lightroom won't upgrade second PSE catalog

I have successfully upgraded my main Photoshop Elements 11 catalog into Lightroom 5.6.
I have a second PSE catalog I'd also like to upgrade, but not import into the main Lightroom catalog (keeping it as a standalone catalog). According to the user manual, there should be a dropdown available from File > Upgrade Photoshop Elements Catalog that will allow me to select this second PSE catalog. However, the dropdown only expands the Catalog info without giving me access to any other catalog. Is there a workaround (or am I doing this wrong)?
For what it's worth, the PSE catalogs are on a separate drive from Lightroom, are in different folder from each other, and the location is not the default location the PSE 11 would have put them. Nevertheless, Lightroom found the first PSE catalog without difficulty.

Per the user's guide, from the Library Module I: File > Upgrade Photoshop Elements Catalog
This brings up a dialog box that shows the most recently upgraded PSE catalog. Then, to quote the user's guide, "To choose a different PSE catalog, click the Elements drop-down menu."
There is no "Elements drop-down menu" within the dialog box to click on. The closest thing is an expand triangle opposite "Catalog info," but when clicked, that only displays more detail about the source PSE catalog I have already upgraded. There doesn't seem to be any way to browse to or select a second PSE catalog — which is what I'm trying to do.

How to transfer PSE catalog to Bridge

I recently switched from a pc to a mac. How do I transfer my extensive PSE catalog to Bridge, which is included with the new PSE 6 for the mac?
Carol

This might be a question for one of the Elements forums, Carol.

Lightroom Corrupt Catalog problems- Help!

Lightroom Corrupt Catalog problems reading/writing from disk when attempting to repair - Help! I have my LR box in hand and my product keys and license info but can't find the disk. I'm assuming this is the only way to repair. Suggestions, Comments are welcome and appreciated.
Thanks in advance!!!

Corrupt catalog will not be fixed by re-installing the Lightroom software (although if I were you, I'd still find that disk!)
If I were you, I would first check a recent backup of your catalog file, and see if that will open (double-click on it in your operating system). If that opens properly, I would just use that file.
If it doesn't open properly, then one trick that sometimes works is to open a blank catalog in Lightroom, then File->Import from Another Catalog and point to the catalog file.
And if that doesn't work, please write back with a lot more details, including operating system, version of Lightroom, and much more detail abou

PSE 8 Catalog Problem

Running Windows 7 Pro and PSE 8.
I had PSE4 and installed 8 on my machine but in new directory.
Tried to convert the catalog file from 4 to 8 with no luck.
So created a new catalog of my photographs that resides on
drive D. Everything went OK. I was able view edit etc
with no problems.
Closed the program (organizer and editor).
When I reopened the organizer everything seemed OK, until
I tried to edit a photo and organizer started searching for
the photo. Looked at the details of the photo and the directory
structure was correct but the drive showed the photos are
stored on the R drive not the D drive.
I also have a couple photos on the desk top and they showed they
are in the T drive.
So I built yet another new catalog using the drive D files again, exited the program,
restarted the program and ended up with the same result.
All photos information shows as being the R drive not the D drive.
A bit more information. I have 2 hard drives, drive one has C:, D; E: partitions,
drive 2 has T:, R:, S: partitions.
Any ideas what is going on and how to fix?
Marty

Here are the results from the tool.
psedbtool version 1.08
Opening catalog D:\Photographs\Catalogs\marty and marti 3\catalog.pse8db
Photoshop Elements version:      8
Total files               :      1
Warning: Two drives on this computer, R: and D:, have the same volume
serial number 3826-166A. PSE will behave unpredictably -- see the
documentation!
Warning: Two drives on this computer, S: and E:, have the same volume
serial number E89F-8061. PSE will behave unpredictably -- see the
documentation!
Warning: Two drives on this computer, T: and C:, have the same volume
serial number 601C-24F0. PSE will behave unpredictably -- see the
documentation!
Total files missing       :      1
Total files offline       :      0
Total files wrong volume :      0
****** Volumes with warnings: 1
PSE Volume Table
Path used by PSE        : T:
Type                    : builtin_drive
Status                  : online
Total files             : 1
Total files missing     : 1
Total files wrong volume: 0
Description             : Win 7
Serial                  : 601C-24F0
Drive_path_if_builtin   : C:
Id                      : 173
***** WARNING *****     : Wrong drive letter in catalog
Path used by PSE        : D:\Photographs\Catalogs\marty and marti 3
Type                    : database_relative_drive
Status                  : online
Total files             : 0
Total files missing     : 0
Total files wrong volume: 0
Description             : database relative
Serial                  : amoc:database_relative_volume
Drive_path_if_builtin   :
Id                      : 2
Windows Drives
Drive Type             Serial     Path
A:     removable_drive 0000-0000
C:     builtin_drive    601C-24F0
D:     builtin_drive    3826-166A
E:     builtin_drive    E89F-8061
I:     readonly_drive   0000-0000
J:     readonly_drive   0000-0000
K:     removable_drive 4C90-B3BC
L:     builtin_drive    482A-67F3
M:     network_drive    0000-0000 \\000000CFB78F\canon_memory\
R:     builtin_drive    3826-166A
S:     builtin_drive    E89F-8061
T:     builtin_drive    601C-24F0
X:     builtin_drive    DCCF-2DCB
Z:     builtin_drive    8CCF-03AB

PSE 7 Problems Fixed in PSE 8

Since PSE 6 was released, I’ve tracked all the reproducible bugs I’ve encountered and reported to Adobe. I’ve tested these problems in PSE 8 and listed the results below – problems that appear to have been fixed in PSE 8 are marked [F], and problems that remain unfixed are marked [U].
Overview
There’s good and bad news. Adobe has fixed a number of serious bugs in the Organizer, but it has left most unfixed, even though they’ve been present since at least version 6. Even worse, the two major features introduced in the PSE 8 Organizer, face tagging and the keyword-tags text box, have show-stopper problems. And even worse yet, Full Screen view is now painfully slow with large catalogs.
The most important fixes address serious problems with PSE’s handling of drives that were introduced in version 6. PSE now notices when a drive’s letter has changed, a problem that has bedeviled many users upgrading or rearranging their drives. Also, PSE now ignores the case of UNC pathnames (network drives), no longer creating duplicate volumes for the same network drive. Unfortunately, one serious bug remains: PSE still gets horribly confused when there are two drives with the same volume serial number, and it still doesn’t even issue a warning.
But many long-standing problem areas remain: The Map View is an unusable toy. The handling of metadata is riddled with bugs. Folder Location view shows the wrong contents of folders. Searching has numerous bugs making it clumsy and confusing.
Overall, of all the bugs I’ve reported, PSE 8 fixes 8 of 46 major ones and 8 of 28 minor ones:
Major
Minor
Fixed
Unfixed
Fixed
Unfixed
File Management and Tagging
4
6
2
Integration with Photoshop.com
2
5
Map View
6
Color Management
1
Metadata
10
2
3
Searching
8
5
User Interface
1
1
5
9
Slide Shows
1
1
Editor
1
1
Total
8
38
8
20
I’ve reported all of these problems to Adobe. Almost all of them are in the Organizer. Based on all the reports on the forums, it appears that the Editor has far fewer problems than the Organizer.   Perhaps that’s because the Editor shares the same code with the professional Photoshop, while the Organizer appears to be an orphaned consumer product whose development Adobe has moved offshore.
For reference, my computer is a midrange Vista laptop with a dual-core 1.9 GHz processor, 4 GB of memory, and a 7200 RPM disk (the same speed as desktop disks).
New Problems in PSE 8
[U] PSE 8 crashes or gets intolerably slow after using the new Keyword Tags text box a small number of times.
On my 4 GB Vista 32 system, PSE crashes after tagging 41 photos.
[U] If you use the new Keyword Tags text box to apply an existing tag name with a comma in it, PSE will silently create two new tags instead.
Apply the existing tag “San Francisco, CA” will create two new tags, “San Francisco” and “CA”.
[U] After applying a tag, the Keyword Tags text box loses keyboard focus and you need to mouse-click in the box again to enter another tag.
Forcing the use of the mouse defeats the purpose of the Keyword Tags text box, which is to make tagging much faster.
[U] The Find > Find People For Tagging command locks up the Organizer for about 30 seconds after you click Done (even if you haven’t made any changes), when using larger catalogs.
On a catalog with 10,000 thumbnails showing, the cursor spins for 30 seconds after clicking done. But you can work around this by doing a tag search or setting a date range to have only a small number of thumbnails showing before you invoke the command.
[U] In the Find > Find People For Tagging command, when you select Add Missing Person, you usually can’t resize the selection box by grabbing the lower-right or lower-center handles, which are the handles that most right-handed people are likely to use.
If you move the mouse very quickly so that it is over the photo before the selection box appears, you can usually resize the box with those handles. But you have to be very quick.
[U] The Find > Find People For Tagging command doesn’t do auto-complete on pre-existing People tags, making it very hard to use with existing catalogs.
I have over two hundred People tags in my catalog. Because the command doesn’t auto-complete on pre-exisiting People tags and will silently create new tags, and because I don’t remember exact spellings (that’s the point of auto-complete!), I found myself creating duplicate tags (e.g. “John Ellis” instead of “John R. Ellis”, “Bob Smith” instead of “Robert Smith”). It’s painful to clean up such a mess.
[U] Full Screen view (F11) is much slower than in PSE 7 on larger catalogs.
With a 14,000-file catalog and all thumbnails visible, PSE 7 takes 6 seconds to invoke F11, while PSE 8 takes 13 seconds.   With just 20 thumbnails visible (e.g. when working on the most recent import batch), PSE 7 takes 1 second, while PSE 8 takes 7 seconds. This makes selecting the good and weeding out the bad significantly slower.
[U] PSE doesn’t remember the settings if you toggle the Full-Screen Quick Edit Panel and Quick Organize Panel to disappear completely.
On 4:3 displays, it’s desirable to hide the panels completely in full-screen view, so you see the entire image without the panels overlapping them (that’s the point of full-screen view, no?). But PSE forgets the toggle settings, even in the same session.
[U] The keyword tagging in the Quick Organize Panel doesn’t auto-complete tags you type, making it useless with more than a dozen or so tags.
It’s worse than useless, since it will silently create a new tag if you mistype the name of an existing one. And the “tag cloud” is a silly toy that doesn’t help with hundreds of tags.
File Management and Tagging
Major Problems
[F] After reconnecting a file on a network drive, PSE will let you import the file a second time, failing to recognize it as a duplicate. The catalog is left in an inconsistent state, with two entries in the volume table for the network drive, one upper case and one lower case.
[F] The Reconnect command fails to reconnect when: you move your photos to a new drive, assign the drive the letter of the old drive to the new one, and leave both drives connected to your computer.
[F] If a hard drive containing photos in the catalog gets its drive letter reassigned by Windows, then the left-hand folder pane of Display > Folder Location view shows the old drive letter, not the new one, as containing the photos.
This sounds innocuous, but it led a user on the forums to select the wrong drive when dragging and dropping a folder, permanently deleting some files. This bug and the previous one with Reconnect had the same underlying cause – the Organizer didn’t update drive letters in its catalog. Fixed in PSE 8.
[F] The Restore Catalog command puts the wrong path into the restored catalog for folders whose name starts with the catalog name, and it will mark files in those folders as missing. For example if the catalog is named “houses”, and a folder containing photos in the catalog is named “houses photos”, files in the restored catalog will have the path “houses\ photos\” instead of “houses photos\”.
[U] Folder Location view shows incorrect folder contents when more than one keyword tag is selected in the Keyword Tags pane.
Based on reports on the forums, there appear to be other situations where Folder Location view shows incorrect folder contents, but they haven’t been easy to reproduce.
[U] The Organizer fails very ungracefully when two drives have the same volume serial number, e.g. because of the use of a disk-cloning utility.
I remain mystified that Adobe didn’t add the three lines of code that would have issued a warning when it discovered two drives with the same number. While most people will never encounter this, when it strikes someone, its symptoms are very mysterious (and a lot of people using cloning utilities).
[U] The conversion of a catalog from PSE 6 to PSE 8 doesn’t properly handle photos that are stored within the PSE 6 catalog folder (as occurs when PSE 6 was used to restore a catalog from a backup). As a result, it isn’t possible to save photos in version sets, and PSE 8 will create duplicate thumbnails in the Organizer for an edited file.
[U] File > Backup/Restore Catalog doesn’t backup and restore audio in slide shows.
[U] Using Folder Location view to move a folder containing hidden files imported in the catalog will silently fail to move the hidden files and will leave the unhidden files disconnected in the catalog.
[U] When converting a previous-version catalog whose photos are stored inside the catalog folder, as occurs when you’ve previously used File > Restore Catalog with New Location, PSE 8 needlessly copies all those photos. If you have a very large catalog, this will waste huge amounts of disk space; and if there isn’t enough disk space to do the copy, the conversion will fail instantly with a generic non-explanatory error message.
Minor Problems
[U] In File > Export, the Common Basename can no longer be empty, and a hyphen is added automatically, so you can no longer get files named 1.jpg, 2.jpg, etc.
You can get files named 1.jpg, 2.jpg, etc. but you can’t get files named p1.jpg, p2.jpg, etc. – a hyphen is still added in that case.
[U] Setting the Apply Metadata > Author or Copyright fields or the option Preserve Current Filename In XMP of the advanced options of the Photo Downloader causes duplicate files to be downloaded and imported.
Integration with Photoshop.com
Major problems
[F] Adding a photo to a second synced album will cause Photoshop.com to lose any changes you’ve made with PSE’s Edit > Adjust Date And Time.
[F] If you you rename a file that’s synced with Photoshop.com, Photoshop.com doesn’t pick up the new name (important if you’re using Photoshop.com as a backup service).
[U] Photoshop.com shows an incorrect date/time taken for photos with unknown month, day, or time.
The date/time shows as the the first month/day/minute/second in that time period in UTC that then gets converted to local time; e.g. “7/2/2005” gets shown as “7/1/2005 5:00 PM” for a user in PDT.
[U] Photoshop.com doesn’t obey the EXIF Orientation metadata field and can show photos rotated incorrectly, e.g. if they were rotated with the PSE option Edit > Preferences > Files > Rotate JPEGs/TIFFs Using Orientation Metadata.
[U] Changes to the order of photos in a PSE album aren’t synced to Photoshop.com, and vice versa.
[U] Only the top photo in a version set is synced with Photoshop.com (so you can’t rely on Photoshop.com to backup version sets).
[U] When a stack is synced with Photoshop.com, all the photos in the stack are synced, but the fact that they were in a stack is lost (so you can’t rely on Photoshop.com to backup stacks).
Map View
Major Problems
[U] It takes 4 seconds to assign a keyword tag to a photo if there are 2,000 or more photos with map locations.
It takes 2 seconds with 1,000 photos, 6 seconds with 4000 photos, and 11 seconds with 8,000 photos, and 21 seconds with 12,000 photos.
[U] Map view is unusably slow with more than 8 - 10,000 mapped photos.
When I imported 12,000 photos (the size of my catalog) that had GPS locations, the Organizer crashed a number of times when I tried to zoom and pan the Map view.   When I selected Limit Search to Map Area, PSE took over a minute to respond.
[U] Giving a map location to a tag assigned to hundreds of photos makes both the Keywords pane and the Map view unusably slow.
Giving a map location to a tag assigned to 1700 photos makes assigning any keyword tag to a photo very slow, 12 seconds.    Searching on keyword tags and Show All each take 13 seconds.
[U] Removing the map push-pin of a tag assigned to hundreds of photos mistakenly tries to update the metadata of each photo, which can take tens of minutes and fill up your recycle bin.
The weird thing is that assigning a map location to the tag doesn’t try to write the metadata of files with that tag.
[U] Moving map locations always fails, silently (too bad if you want to record backcountry locations not namable via a place name).
[U] If a photo with GPS coordinates is imported, it doesn’t show as a red push-pin on the map.
Scrolling the map or restarting the Organizer causes the pin to appear.
Color Management
Major Problems
[U] The Organizer considers photos produced by cameras set to the color space Adobe RGB as untagged with a color profile, showing their colors incorrectly.
Metadata
Major Problems
[U] The File > Write Keyword Tag command doesn’t create or update .XMP sidecars for Nikon D300 or D80 .NEF raw files (but it does for Canon CR2 raw files).
The PSE 8 Write Keyword Tag command now gives a warning when you try to invoke it on a D300 .NEF raw file. Why PSE can write sidecars for Canon but not Nikon raw files is a mystery – it’s no harder to handle one than the other.
[U] File > Write Keyword Tags and Properties fails to write the map location (GPS coordinates) of TIFFs (tested with TIFFs produced by the PSE Editor and the Nikon Coolscan V, Nikon Coolscan 5000, and Epson 4490 scanners).
[U] File > Write Keyword Tags doesn’t write the map location (GPS coordinates) into the .xmp sidecar files of Nikon D80 or Canon G9 raw photos.
[U] The Organizer ignores correctly formatted EXIF GPS locations in some files that many other programs can read without trouble; this may be because the EXIF is encoded in little-endian byte order.
[U] New dates set by Edit > Adjust Date and Time sometimes get silently lost.
See http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshopelements-6-7-faq.htm#_Date/times_of_files for details and workarounds.
[U] Edit > Adjust Date and Time > Shift To New Starting Date And Time and > Shift By Set Number Of Hours writes the time in UTC rather than local time, as required by the standard, causing other tools to show the wrong date/time.
[U] In Thumbnail View, the Organizer incorrectly orders files that have unknown time. For example, it will show a file dated 12/25/1976 8:00 PM PST after a file dated 12/26/1976 (unknown time) on a computer in time zone PST.
[U] If you set a file's date/time fields to all unknown with Edit > Adjust Date And Time, the value of EXIF:DateTimeOriginal isn't cleared by File > Write Keyword Tag.
[U] Edit > Adjust Date and Time doesn’t properly handle US Daylight Savings Time when setting date/times many decades ago, e.g. October 5, 1961 12:00 PM.
[U] When setting the Organizer’s date/time for imported photos containing EXIF:DateTimeOriginal but not XMP:DateTimeOriginal, PSE 7 doesn’t properly handle US Daylight Savings Time in years prior to 2007, e.g. October 31, 2006 12:00 PM.
Minor Problems
[F] The Properties – Metadata window shows the wrong value for Date Time Original when the month, day, or time is unknown.
[F] When you save an edited photo as a new file but not in a version set, the edited version picks up the date/time and caption of the original but not the keyword tags, star rating, or notes.
Now, the edited version picks up date/time, caption, notes, and keyword tags, but not the star rating, which could be charitably interpreted as a plausible design decision.
[U] Deselecting the option Use “Last Modified” Date If EXIF Date Is Not Found does not work – the last-modified date is always used for an imported file that doesn’t contain an EXIF date.
[U] Edit > Adjust Date and Time applied to a file with time “unknown” decrements the date by one day.
[U] With the Import EXIF Caption option turned off, captions pre-existing in a file’s EXIF:ImageDescription metadata field reappear in the Organizer after invoking the Full Editor.
Searching
Major Problems
[U] The timeline doesn’t correctly display date ranges spanning many years.
[U] Using the Keyword Tags pane, you can no longer exclude a parent category from a search, e.g. exclude all photos tagged with any tag in the People category.
The User Guide gives two examples of how to use category exclusion that just don’t work in PSE 6, 7, or 8. Interestingly, you can almost work around this by doing a text search of “not <category tag>”, e.g. “not People”.   But this will also exclude photos that happen to have the word “people” in their filenames, captions, or notes, probably not what you want. You can also use the text query “not tag:<category tag>”, .e.g. “not tag:places”, but this will exclude all tags containing “places” as part of their name – there is no way to get an exact match of a tag name.
[U] Find > By History > Imported On sorts the photo dates alphabetically, rather than by date/time.
When the results first display, they are now sorted by Imported From then (correctly) by Date/Time. However, if you click on the Date/Time column header to sort by that column, the dates are sorted alphabetically (incorrectly).
[U] Find > By History > Imported On takes a couple of minutes on a large catalog, making the command almost useless.
[U] Find > By History > Imported On shows a scary message “Deleting Keyword Tags” that is apparently harmless.
[U] Searching with the Find Bar for “1 star and lower” doesn’t show photos with 0 stars.
Find > By Details > Rating Is Lower Than 1 Star does work.
[U] Searching for “0 stars only” doesn’t work for photos in a catalog converted from PSE 5.
[U] Searching with date ranges doesn’t properly handle time “unknown”.
Minor Problems
[U] The Show All button sometimes doesn’t appear if you quickly type a query into the Search text box and hit Enter.
[U] Setting a date range and then excluding two tags from the search clears the date range.
[U] Show All doesn’t clear a date range set by Find > Set Date Range (can be very confusing).
[U] Save Search Criteria As Smart Album isn’t available if a date range has been set but no other search criteria have been.
[U] When searching, you can exclude a keyword tag and then include an album, but you can’t do it in the other order.
User Interface
Major Problems
[?] On 1024x768 displays, and sometimes at higher resolutions, the Editor Print window is positioned to perfectly obscure the scroll bar of the drop-down list of printer profiles, leading people to think their printer’s profiles aren’t available.
I can’t reproduce this in PSE 8. The Editor’s Print dialog is all rearranged. But this bug struck some people and not others, so it may be still lurking.
[U] The menu bars don’t display if you have changed the screen DPI to be larger than 96 (as many people do on today’s ubiquitous high-res displays).
Adobe should be embarrassed about this, given that more and more computers are shipping preconfigured with higher DPIs. See http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshopelements-6-7-faq.htm#The_Organizers_Menu_Bar_ doesnt_show for a workaround.
Minor Problems
[F] Copying a paragraph from Microsoft Word and pasting it into the Notes field of a keyword tag causes some of the spaces between words to be deleted.
[F] In the full Editor, if at least one open photo is minimized to the Project Bin, Ctrl-Tab no longer cycles through the open windows.
[F] The Editor window can’t be resized the standard Windows way by grabbing any edge, just the lower-right corner.
Well, almost – you can grab the left, right, and bottom edges but not the top.
[F] Alt doesn’t underline the shortcut letters of top-level menu items in the Full Editor (but it does in the Organizer).
Both the Editor and Organizer don’t show the underline until you let up on the Alt key, whereas other Windows program show the underline when you first press the Alt key.
[F] The width of the Editor's Palette Bin can't be adjusted by dragging the left edge, as you can with all the other similar panes (Project Bin, Organizer Bin, Map View).
[U] In the Properties window of Full Screen mode, if you click in the Notes field and do Ctrl-A to select all the text, then click in the Caption field and do Ctrl-A to select its text, the notes remain highlighted.
[U] In the Organizer, Help > System Info reports the wrong amount for “Built-in Memory” on computers with more than 2GB of installed memory. (The command reports the correct amount in the Editor.)
[U] The setting of View > Show Borders Around Thumbnails isn’t remembered after you restart PSE.
[U] Ctrl-A to select all text doesn’t work in the text fields of the Properties window.
Interestingly, you can use ctrl-A in the text fields of the full-screen mode Properties window.
[U] Dialogs in the Editor sometimes bounce back when you try to move them.
[U] Dates are shown by Display > Import Batch as 2\20\2008 rather than 2/20/2008.
[U] In Create > Slide Show > Slide Show Preferences dialog, you can't use backspace or delete to clear the text in the Static and Transition Duration fields -- you need to select the text and then type over the selection (non-standard Windows behavior).
[U] Escape doesn’t close the full-screen-mode Properties dialog.
[U] You can’t use the Windows Explorer Tile command to tile the PSE Organizer and Editor windows.
The Editor can now be tiled by Windows Explorer and other window managers, but the Organizer still can’t.
Slide Shows
Major Problems
[F] The duration of a video clip included in a Slide Show is set to the default duration, not the length of the video clip, and right-click Edit Duration doesn’t change the clip’s duration.
PSE now sets the duration to the length of the clip. You can’t edit the duration, though – you can invoke Edit Duration, but PSE ignores the new value.
[U] An audio caption attached to a photo isn’t imported into a slide show even though the option Include Audio Captions as Narration is selected.
For an individual slide, you can give the Use Existing Audio Caption command to import that photo’s existing audio caption.
Editor
Minor Problems
[F] The Editor crashes if you invoke Quick Fix and use just one Touch Up tool (e.g. Whiten Teeth) and then save the file (but your changes are correctly saved).
[U] The File > Save For Web command doesn’t remember the last settings (e.g. file format and quality) after your restart the Editor.
For a workaround, see http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshopelements-6-7-faq.htm#_Allow_Save_For.

John,
Firstly, my apologies for the length of this post – it has been fermenting a while. For those in a hurry I have split it into two sections – the first contains some general comments on the situation with PSE (v 7 in my case) and Adobe (as I see it) and the second contains a list of issues that I have encountered and some suggestions for improvement. As with you, my comments are largely directed at the Organiser module within PSE.
Part 1:
Before going any further I’d like to say what an excellent job you’ve done in cataloguing, understanding and in many cases providing solutions to a number of bugs. Adobe should be paying you a hefty sum for doing this work. It’s a welcome change from a large percentage of what you read in blogs and forums to see things dealt with systematically, objectively and in an informed way.
I’m less impressed with Adobe’s approach. In my opinion, if you choose not to provide program updates to your customers (i.e. you get what you bought in the box and that’s it) then you have a moral obligation to make sure that what you sell is as robust and free of bugs as possible.
I would be very surprised if they were not well aware of the comments you have made (if they aren’t then that would indicate an appalling failure of their ability to process feedback). The fact that they have not, in subsequent releases, dealt with all of the issues that have been highlighted is not good. I would go further and suggest that it is actually a breach of fair trading practice and disingenuous to sell the product as “fit for purpose” knowing these bugs are still in place.
It’s unreasonable to expect software to be absolutely faultless, and this is why the issuing of updates is a much “fairer” system. The problem, I think, with Adobe’s approach is that to entice new customers to each release they need to provide new features. A natural consequence of this is that there is a temptation to prioritise development of new features rather than providing solutions to existing issues. There is no incentive for Adobe to change this state of affairs for as long as customers are purchasing their products. In this respect one of the problems is that many of the reviewers to whom prospective customers go will rely on first impressions and will not uncover many of the issues. Adobe may be comfortable with this situation (and on relying on the reflected aura of Photoshop) but their product is not cheap and there is plenty of scope for competitors to provide a more robust, dependable product at cheaper price. With free applications like Picasa they will need to be very careful they don’t drop the ball.
Don’t get me wrong I think the concept of PSE organiser is excellent (I actually prefer it to my experience of Lightroom), it is the quality of execution that I have issues with.
My first experience of PSE was version 3 and this was positive enough for me to purchase PSE 7. However, my biggest disappointment with PSE 7, because to me it is fundamental, has been the quality of rendering images in full screen mode. Yours is the first comment I have seen that comments on the appearance of “jaggies” when displaying images in PSE. My understanding is that this relates to the anti-aliasing which is carried out when converting from image to display resolution and the level to which this smoothes out gradients in hue, saturation and luminance. I never observed this problem is PSE 3. Although the degree of anti-aliasing is a subjective preference, I was deeply disappointed and still find it hard to believe that free or bundled software (picture manager, windows picture viewer, etc) can manage this when PSE 7 can’t.
Anyway, I’m not sure how to illicit a change from Adobe. One way is to write the sort of rant I have above although I doubt this will make much difference. In any case keep up the good work and hopefully something will come of it.
Part 2:
Some issues I’ve encountered:
Migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 – change in directory structure means that the “documents and settings” part of the user directory path in XP (i.e. c:\documents and settings\<<username>>\etc.) is now a shortcut which redirects you to the new location for user files which is c:\users\<<username>> \etc. If you are migrating from an old XP machine to a new Windows 7 one, you’ve kept your username the same and you have tried to retain the same directory structure then PSE 7 will still find files in your catalogue with the old style path. However, it will not recognise duplicates if you accidentally re-import the same files now they are on your Windows 7 machine. My workaround for this is to use an external file manager (e.g. windows explorer) to change the name of the directory that contains all of your photos. This causes PSE 7 to fail to resolve the path locations. You can then can select the relevant files and reconnect using the reconnect facility (File-Reconnect-Missing Files);
Watched folders are lost for any drive other than C when PSE 7 is closed and then reopened;
Duplicate files are not recognised and can be imported if they are not on the C drive (i.e. on an external drive);
Selecting a category selects all of the keyword tags/subcategories beneath it but excluding it does not exclude all of the keyword tags/subcategories beneath it; however, both selecting and excluding a sub-category selects and excludes the tags/sub categories beneath it;
Searches bring back the entire version set or stack even if only one of the files within meets the search criteria;
The instant search facility will sometimes decide that a number typed in is a date and will not find some files you would expect it to e.g. those where the number typed in is part of the filename rather than a date;
Anti-aliasing is insufficient – jaggies appear on jpegs displayed at certain zoom level. Interestingly this does not seem to occur if a jpeg has been created from a raw file through PSE 7 rather than an external application (at least for the camera I have).
Some suggestions:
Find duplicates facility;
Sort by filename and other file data;
Hide directories in the folder directory pane of the folder view if they contain no imported files – in PSE3 this was the only option and was actually quite useful to confirm that there were no imported files in a certain location (e.g. if e:\...etc was not in the list then you knew that you had no imported files located on the e:\ drive). It would be good to have this a display option.
Allow filters to be applied only to selected files;
Allow files to be rotated in the organiser without actually resaving them as a rotated file.

PSE 8 Catalog Problems

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