Page #18 (1. About the Organizer)


2. Perform an Initial Scan for Media

See Also

3 Import Media from a Folder

4 Import Media from a CD-ROM or DVD

5 Import Images from a Digital Camera

6 Import a Scanned Image

7 Import and Separate Multiple Scanned Images

8 About Importing Images from a Cell Phone

11 Import New Media Automatically


Before you can use Organizer, you must import some media files into its catalog. You begin by telling Organizer to search the hard disk for media filesimages, music, and movies. Organizer provides two methods you can use to perform this initial scan. This first method is presented to you when you start Organizer for the first time. Here, you select a single folder and import all the media files in that folder (and its subfolders too, if you like). This method, although simple and straightforward, does not allow you to import media in several different folders at the same time or to place limits on the files that are imported.

Whether or not you import media when you first start Organizer, you can perform a different type of scan to import the bulk of your media files. This method is useful for locating all the applicable files on your computer, regardless of where they are located. It enables you to exercise more control over the files that are imported. You usually begin this method by performing a scan of all hard disks or just drive C. As it scans, the Organizer makes a note of each media file's name, file type, and location. After this initial scan, you select the folders containing the media files you want to add to the catalog, ignoring any folders with media files you don't often use. For example, Microsoft Office comes with lots of clip art files; although these are media files, you probably don't want to add them to the Organizer catalog because you typically will not use these clip art files outside of Microsoft Office. The media files contained in the folders you select are then added to the catalog listing.

Regardless of how you import this initial set of media files, you use tags and collection markers to organize the imported media files into whatever categories you choose. If you create more images, sound files, or movies after this initial scan, you can perform similar steps to add these new media files to the catalog. See 3 Import Media from a Folder, 4 Import Media from a CD-ROM or DVD, 5 Import Images from a Digital Camera, 6 Import a Scanned Image, 7 Import and Separate Multiple Scanned Images, 8 About Importing Images from a Cell Phone, 9 Capture Images from a Video File, and 10 Import Images from a PDF Document for help in adding any new images you acquire after performing an initial scan as described in this task.

TIP

You can tell Organizer to scan particular locations for new media files periodically, and add any new files it finds to the catalog automatically. The Organizer can even import images automatically from your camera phone's folder. See 11 Import New Media Automatically.


This task assumes that you have media files on your computer ready to import. If you haven't copied images from your digital camera to your computer yet, you can import them into the Organizer directly from the camera or card reader. See 5 Import Images from a Digital Camera.

1.

Click Yes

When you start Organizer for the first time, you'll see a dialog box asking you if you want to add images to the catalog. If you're not sure where your media files are located, or if they are simply scattered over several hard disks and folders, skip to step 3 for a different method you can use to import your initial files. Otherwise, click Yes to continue.

TIP

You can start the Organizer from the Welcome Window by clicking the View and Organize Photos button. From the Editor, you can start the Organizer by clicking Photo Browser.

2.

Select Folder and Click Get Photos

By default, Organizer wants to search the My Pictures folder for images, videos, and audio files to add to the catalog. If you'd rather search a different folder, click that folder to select it.

To search subfolders of the main folder you've selected, enable the Get Photos from Subfolders option. When you're ready, click Get Photos to begin. Skip to step 6.

3.

Or Choose Get Photos, By Searching

Whether or not you imported files into the catalog the first time you started Organizer, you can still perform a massive search for images, videos, and audio files, and then import all the ones you find, or just selected folders.

In the Organizer, choose File, Get Photos, By Searching from the menu bar. The Get Photos by Searching for Folders dialog box appears.

4.

Select Location

From the Look In drop-down list, select the location you want to search. To search your entire computer, select All Hard Disks. To search only the main drive, select Drive C.

NOTE

It's recommended that you select either All Hard Disks or Drive C from the Look In list so that you can locate all your media files. You can still limit what's imported by selecting folders in step 6. However, if you know that your media files are stored in a particular folder, you can choose My Documents or Browse from the Look In list (so that you then can choose a specific folder).

5.

Set Options and Click Search

By default, the Organizer does not search the computer's system folders or any folders for programs you've installed, but you can disable the Exclude System and Program Folders check box and search there anyway if you like.

Also, by default, the Organizer does not look for files smaller than 100KB, under the assumption that smaller files are unlikely to be of high quality. You can disable the Exclude Files Smaller Than 100k check box, or modify the value as desired to include smaller files in the search. You might want to do this, for example, if you take a lot of low-quality photos that you want to store in the catalog.

After changing any options, click the Search button to begin the initial scan. Depending on the location you selected to search, the scan might take a while.

NOTE

The Organizer does not include GIF or PNG files in its Search Results list because you'll probably not want to import and organize Web graphics unless you've created them yourself. To import GIF and PNG files manually, see 3 Import Media from a Folder.

6.

Select Folders to Import

After the scan is complete, a list of folders that contain media files is displayed in the Search Results pane. Select the folders whose contents you want to list in the catalog by either pressing the Ctrl key and clicking each folder or pressing Shift and clicking the first and last folder in a group. Selected folders are highlighted in blue. If you want to import all the media files from the folders listed, click Select All.

7.

Click Import Folders

After selecting the folders you want to import, click the Import Folders button.

8.

Review Non-Imported Files

TIP

If you're not sure why a specific folder was included in the list, you can click it to display its contents in the column to the right of the Search Results frame. You can't select specific files within a folder, but you can at least preview what you're importing by choosing a particular folder from the Search Results list.

The Getting Photos dialog box appears, displaying each photo as it's added to the catalog. You can click Stop if you want to interrupt the importing process for some reason; only photos already imported at that point will appear in the catalog.

After the import process is complete, the Items Not Imported dialog box appears; it lists any files that were not imported. For example, a file might be smaller than the limit specified, be in an unsupported format, or already exist in the catalog. (This dialog box does not appear if all the files were imported correctly.) After reviewing the list, click OK.

The Organizer might display a reminder telling you that the only images being displayed right now are those you have just imported; click OK to dismiss this warning box.

NOTE

If the imported images contain metadata keywords (tags), the Import Attached Tags dialog box appears. You can add new tags to the Organize Bin to match the attached photo tags, or associate the attached tags with existing tags in the Organize Bin.

9.

Click Back to All Photos

After the importing process is complete, the Organizer displays only the "just imported" media files in the photo well. To redisplay all the images in the catalog, click the Back to All Photos button on the Find bar.



Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 in a Snap
Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 in a Snap
ISBN: 067232668X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 263

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