How do I back-up Organizer?

[ianjulian@supanet.com]

I am trying to back-up my PSE4 Organizer, with all the tags and captions (& if possible Collections)

Can this be done to an external hard-drive? It seems to only copy the picture files.

I have just tried the first of 7 DVDs required. When I tried to get the pictures on my other computer from the first DVD, it did not have captions or tags.

Having lost all my Organizer details twice before, I need full back-up.

Thank you,

Ian Julian
www.natureandpictures.com

[troush]

Ian,

I do NOT use the Organizer backup feature to backup - too many people have reported having problems. You need to find your catalog file to save your tags, and then backup your photos. Your catalog file should be here (assuming Windows XP):

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

It will be named with a .psa extension. That file contains the tags of your pictures. I would use some other software (Acronis or Retrospect) to backup. Make sure you do a File->Catalog->Recover before you do a backup.

You will also see

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Catalogs\Catalog Folders\[your catalog name]

In that directory is the thumbnail cache for your catalog. I would make sure you get that file too, otherwise you will have to rebuild the thumbnails, which can take a long time if you have lots of pictures.

-Trish

[ianjulian@supanet.com]

Thank you for that. Do you happen to know if this will save captions as well as tags? I need these captions for my work, updating all the time. I live in terror of losing them again.

Ian Julian
www.natureandpictures.com

[troush]

I'm not 100% sure if the Organizer puts the captions into the jpg file or if it stores them in the .psa file. One test: find a picture and attach a caption in the Organizer. Then, use something like exifer or Ifranview (or even Windows Explorer? - I think it can show the properties) to see if it was written immediately. An undocumented "feature" (or bug, depending on your point of view) of the Organizer is that it will write tags to files when you open them in the Editor.

-Trish