articles

It's Time To Spring Clean Those Photos

How I went from over 3500 photos to 1200 with Adobe Photoshop Elements

By (Sponsored Review) March 26, 2015
Yep.  That was me.  I had over 3500 photos bogging down my computer.  It was a mess!  Completely my fault, I admit it.  But I had a few good excuses...
  1. I was afraid to delete ANY of the irreplaceable photos from our trip to China when we adopted our daughter.
  2. I have SO MANY photos (and now duplicates, upon duplicates...upon duplicates of the same photos) that I didn't know what to do with them.
  3. I've been so busy raising this precious baby girl, I have not had time to do what I want with these pictures.
I'm sure I'm not alone here. 

Well, NO MORE EXCUSES!

Thank you, THANK YOU Adobe Photoshop Elements for choosing me as one of the Macaroni Kid Publishers to review your products.  This has really changed my life.  (I know, crazy...but it has.)  I was asked to review and write one article, but I have so much to say, that I can't fit it all in one article.  That's how excited I truly am. 

But really, I did have over 5000 photographs from my trip to China alone.  This was because every time I did anything to them...looked at them, printed some of them, sent them to someone, anything...I saved them a new way, in a new file.  (EEK.  Can you say paranoid!?!) 

Adobe Photoshop Elements has saved my precious photos and my sanity! 

Here's how...

Anytime you open either the Photoshop Elements or Adobe Premier Elements programs you have the option to go straight into the program you desire, or into Adobe Elements Organizer.

After a bit of hesitation (I was a bit gun shy, I'll admit. But do you blame me?? Do you see the mess I had already made?!?!) I decided to upload my photos from China. 

Once they were all uploaded, it was time to clean house.  This was much easier than I thought it was going to be!

http://api.ning.com/files/HQSy6kXC6MpPRkZVgKLHt*Xt61s3fuJqWf0jkg8E9UCyEczvx7W2rn4gFRB4ErL9Xn*EHIE*rN02Ul7Kc059-FBLVhsTYG1o/FindDuplicatePhotos.jpg

First you need to locate the duplicate photos.  Choose the Find menu on the top panel.  Select By Visual Searches, then Duplicate photos.

http://api.ning.com/files/UQSvRDwuxJIU83NDtlWXDRInWGt5nNpaEw5aMimms4LBu04stYqNUzXsVRCLJnb8jwy9ua7mF5yyo1f01mdVVhV-62xDS0j4/searchingfordups.jpg

Adobe Photoshop Elements will search your photo catalog for all the photos that are the same, or similar.

http://api.ning.com/files/UQSvRDwuxJIiFdCJPsCYJMCHgp*xYEOZ2Yg-uYeK7szDp2f5qidx8JU1ro-4Evo4QCZBOe7Zffy5Iq6JHbZ7u9vbgf8aYtr6/CreateStacks.jpg

You can then choose to delete any duplicates you find, or stack any that are similar.  Stacking is just that...just think of a stack of photographs on your desk.  When you are looking at your screen you are just looking at the top one on the stack.  You can still get to the photos on the bottom of the stack by clicking on the icon that looks like a little pile of photos. 

I stacked a few, but mostly...I deleted, and deleted and deleted. 

Now that they are at a more manageable quantity, I was able to place them in easy to locate albums.

http://api.ning.com/files/UQSvRDwuxJInHPjvZplTkzAMsEq9NgSQ1dJjWlMZEMJnXTAYnymPJlEEZQNUAU2*MTWOifHgEHZRliBWfPyUCqVyInAat9ZZ/greenplus.jpg

You can do this by going back to your photo catalog in Adobe Elements Organizer.  Click on the photos that you would like to group together.  (You can hold the shift button down to gather a group of photos together, makes the process a bit faster.)  Then click the green + at the top left to add an album. 

http://api.ning.com/files/UQSvRDwuxJKctYCi2RpnvcRRSSiudj-jB8Sar6CpknVkEcn5fW4*EMkcX5f8dudeIiZCQ-3Xbak9G58gXxJ9u2hIVjS5zyuD/Nameit.jpg

The photos will come up in a folder on the right side of the screen.  Name the album and click OK.  Complete for the remainder of your photographs and you will be as organized as I am now.  (Ok, as my China Photos are now...if only it could be that simple for the rest of my life!)

But wait, it get's better!

Check out these articles to read how silly excited I am about these Photoshop Elements products.  Honest, I really love them!


And the Grande Finale (This is what got me started in this whole thing) - The Video Story!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk2AcRQ3Abk


Learn more about Adobe Photoshop Elements and their video editing software, Adobe Premier Elements, by clicking HERE. For a limited time Adobe Photoshop Elements is available for $69.99 (regular price $99.99)!  You can find Adobe Photoshop Elements on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest too.

Disclosure: I was provided Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements software for the purpose of this review. No additional compensation was received. As always, all opinions are my own.