Expert: Glen Demers - 12/29/2009

Question
QUESTION: can i put the photoshop elements 7 software on the external harddrive and use it from there.  my computer harddrive is so small that I can't really use it effectively.  when I moved the files to the harddrive I lost all of photoshop's organizing abilities.

ANSWER: Hi Beverly,

I would install PS Elements on the computer hard drive, it'll work much faster that way using the computers internal bus instead of communicating through the hard drive cable. I would keep all the photos on the external hard drive. Additionally, in preferences, I would set the primary scratch disk to be the external hard drive, this will keep the program from using your system's memory for storing histories and undos, etc.

I don't know what organizing capabilities you're referring to but on the computers I work on, Photoshop is installed on the primary hard drive along with other apps and the system, and files are kept on other partitions, external hard drives or servers without any problems.

You can indeed install it on the external but I think you'll find that you'll be sacrificing to much performance operating that way.

Hope this helps,

Happy Holidays,
Glen Demers
Adobe Certified Expert, Photoshop 7
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more Photoshop tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/photoshop.htm

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: the organizing tool i'm talking about is the chronological (by date actually) method of storing the photos.  The minute I put them on the external drive they were numbered chronologically but what does that really tell me?  Nothing.  So I have to open each one and give it a title, folder, etc.  Is that the most efficient way to organize photos on the external hard drive?  Thank you,  Beverly

Answer
Hi Beverly,

On a mac you can have your windows display by creation date or modification date, I don't know if there is a similar feature on Windows. There are many free software solutions available for organizing images from Adobe's Bridge and Photo album apps to third party apps from freeware on up to full featured digital asset management software. Try going to Versiontracker.com and searching for photo albums.

Hope this helps,

Happy Holidays,
Glen Demers
Adobe Certified Expert, Photoshop 7
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more Photoshop tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/photoshop.htm