Kelby S. The Photoshop Elements 4 Book for Digital Photographers / Finding Photos

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The Photoshop Elements 4 Book for Digital Photographers
Authors: Kelby S.
Published year: 2003
Pages: 40-41/201

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Finding Photos

Finding a group of photos is fairly easy using the Organizer, especially if you've tagged your images, but finding an individual photo takes a bit of work. It's not hard; it just takes some effort because you essentially have to narrow the amount of photos down to a small group (like the month or day you shot the photos). Then you scroll through the photos in that group until you find the individual photo you want. It sounds complicated, but it's really quite easy. Here are the most popular searching methods :

From the Timeline

The Timeline, which is a horizontal bar across the top of the Photo Browser, shows you all the photos in your catalog. Months and years are represented along the Timeline. The years are visible below the Timeline; the small light blue bars above the Timeline are individual months. If there is no bar visible, there are no photos stored in that month. A short blue bar means just a few photos were taken that montha tall bar means lots of photos. If you hover your cursor over a blue bar, the month it represents will appear. To see the photos taken in that month, click on the bar and only those photos will be displayed in the Photo Browser window. Once you've clicked on a month, you can click-and-drag the locator bar to the right or left to display different months.

Using Tags

If there's a particular shot you're looking for, and you've tagged all your shots with a particular tag, then just click on the Tags tab and click on the empty box in the column to the left of that tag. Now only shots with that tag will appear in the Photo Browser window.

By Date Ranges

Let's say you're looking to find a particular photo you shot on vacation. If you can remember approximately when you went on vacation, you can display photos taken within a certain date range (for example, all the photos taken between June 1 and June 30, 2005). Here's how: Go under the Organizer's Find menu and choose Set Date Range. This brings up a dialog where you can enter start and end dates. Click OK and only photos taken within that time frame will be visible. Scroll through those images to see if you can find your photo.

By Caption or Note

If you've added personal notes within tags or you've added captions to individual photos, you can search those fields to help you narrow your search. Just go under the Organizer's Find menu and choose By Caption or Note. Then in the resulting dialog, enter the word that you think may appear in the photo's caption or note, and click OK. Only photos that have that word in a caption or note will appear in the Photo Browser window.

By History

The Organizer keeps track of when you imported each photo and when you last shared it (via email, print, webpage, etc.); so if you can remember any of those dates, you're in luck. Just go under the Organizer's Find menu, under By History, and choose which attribute you want to search under in the submenu. A dialog with a list of names and dates will appear. Click on a date and name , click OK, and only photos that fit that criterion will appear in the Photo Browser window.

Finding Photos Using the Date View

Okay, I have to admit, this particular feature is probably going to be your least-used Organizer feature because it seems so…I dunno …cheesy (for lack of a better word). When you use it, you see a huge calendar, and if photos were created on a particular day in the currently visible month, you'll see a small thumbnail of one of those images on that date. Personally, when I see this view, I feel like I've just left a professional-looking application and entered a "consumer" application, so I avoid it like the plague, but just in case you dig it (hey, it's possible), here's how it works:

Step One

To enter the Date View in the Organizer, click the Date View button at the top-right side of the Organizer window.

Step Two

SCOTT KELBY

This brings up the Date View calendar window with the Month view showing by default (if you're not in Month view, click the Month button along the bottom center of the window). If you see a photo on a date, it means there are photos that were taken (or you scanned or imported) on that day. To see a photo, click on it within the calendar and a larger version will appear at the top right of the Date View window. To see the rest of the photos on this day, click the Next Item on Selected Day button found directly under this preview window. Each time you click this button, the window displays a preview of the next photo taken on that day.

Step Three

If you find the photo you're looking for (I'm assuming that if you're searching around in the Date View, you're looking for a particular photo) and you want to edit that photo, Right-click on the photo's preview and choose Go to Standard Edit (or just press Control-I). The Elements Editor will launch with your photo open and ready to edit.

Step Four

SCOTT KELBY

Return to the Organizer and click the Date View button again. While we're here, I want to show you a couple of the other features. Although the Month view is shown by default, there are buttons at the bottom center of the Date View window for viewing the entire year (where days that have photos appear as solid- color blocks) or an individual day (where all the photos from that day appear in a slide-show -like window as shown here).

Step Five

While in the Date View, you can add a Daily Note, which is a note that doesn't apply to the current photoit applies to every photo taken on that calendar day. If you change to the Day view (by clicking the Day button at the bottom of the Date View window), fields for adding a Caption and a Daily Note to the currently displayed photo will appear along the right side of the window. Now when you're in Day view, you can not only see your caption for your photo, but you can also see the Daily Note for each photo taken on that calendar day.