I really tend to mess things up, seeing as I have the technical IQ of a squirrel, so I thought I would ask here for help. I uploaded all of my most recent RAW files directly from my camera into the Photoshop Elements 9 organizer. I edited a few, and then decided to stop and delete some of my older files from my 'Pictures' (not in Elements) that I had previously copied onto my terabyte. When I went back to Elements and tried to open some of my newest files to edit, it tells me it's Searching For The Missing Files, and a little question mark appears in the top left corner of the thumbnail. Oh, and all of the thumbnails still show the image; I just can't bring them up.
So, I still have the photos on my camera, thank goodness, but I am really curious about what I may have done, or what has happened. So, if anyone has an idea, I would love to hear it. Thank you, People. ~Lacey
p.s. i was going to try support, but it got really confusing, and then they were going to charge me.
I really wish i could answer your question...in fact, i don't know what your question is because i busted out with a big ol' belly laugh when i read "...seeing as I have the technical IQ of a squirrel..." :)
After you uploaded the files through elements did you move them to a different file on your computer or rename them? If you look on your computer, but not through the Elements organizer are the files still there? If they are, you can reconnect them. That is what it is trying to do when it browsing looking for the photos.
@karens68 See..this is where I get confused. Because when I upload into Elements, I never have a folder in my Pictures. The only photos there are ones that I've edited, and saved as jpeg into My Pictures. If they are any place other than in my Elements Organizer, I don't know where. Is that unusual?
sounds like you had an incomplete upload ... check your preferences for your uploader in pse and the name for the designated file for saving pix once you;ve uploaded. i have a different file names for my different cameras. so for instance my canon is: my pictures/canon/date pix shot-- hope this helps and thank goodness you didn't delete the shots from your camera.
Firstly, all files need to live somewhere on a hard drive. Importing them into Elements directly from your camera is perfectly fine, but it'll still have to stick them somewhere in your hard drive (somewhere inside My Documents, probably) for you to work with them.
I can see two possible scenarios; either you've simply not realised that a folder you deleted was the one where Elements stores its images, or when you did the Import from the camera somehow you told it to not save them to the hard drive so when you turned off/disconnected the camera, the files couldn't be found. I think most likely the former...
I'd start by hooking up your camera and firing up the Elements Organiser again, and check which folder it says it'll import them to by default. Then go and check that in windows explorer (as in, click My Documents from the Start Menu) and see if that folder's still there and what's inside it.
@eyebrows Thank you. I seem to have f***ed up royally, because it says it saves them under Pictures, but they are nowhere to be found. I have tried searching on my G drive (the terabyte), and everywhere else I can think of, but alas..they are escaping me. And, it's not just the photos that are still on my camera..it's older RAW files that I haven't gotten around to editing yet. :( Could you tell me: Is there a way a professional could recover them somehow? I mean, even if I deleted them from my recycle bin, or something, don't people say there is always a way to still recover things from the hard drive? Is that possible? I am so sad that my ongoing war with computers has defeated me again. Computers hate me.
It *can be* possible to recover deleted files, yes. You can get some free undelete software for windows, some of which I've had success with in the past. It's always better to try and find some of these first, before paying someone. The thing is...
You have to make sure that you don't write any more data to the disk the files were deleted from. So, if you have this G: drive where you've deleted them from, don't write any new data to it, because new files will probably overwrite the location where the old files are still living. So locate undelete software, and try that before saving anything else anywhere to that drive, regardless of folders. It works like this because...
Computer disks are enormous things, in terms of capacity, so to keep track of where files are on the disk (not what folder they're in, but physically where they are) Windows maintains a list of where they all are. An index. When you "delete" a file, for the sake of speed, all it does is remove the file's entry in the index; the file's contents are still there on the disk where they were, Windows just doesn't know it's a file - it thinks it's empty space. So, the next time you tell it to save a file onto that drive, if this new file is smaller than the gap left by that "deleted" file, it'll probably get saved into that slot, and have a new entry added for it in the index, thus physically replacing the old file's data that was just sitting there.
Now, it is *sometimes* still possible to recover data even if it's overwritten, but this definitely needs sending off to specialists (as far as I know), isn't guaranteed, and may cost a fair bit. I've never really looked into it that much, I'm afraid.
@eyebrows Thank you, thank you, thank you for your help! I tried to undelete, but was unsuccessful. After looking back through everything, though, I didn't lose anything that will kill me. It all just reminded me to be more careful. Just wanted to say thanks for the response. You know, you look a little intimidating, but I'm betting underneath you are a big ol' TEDDY BEAR! ;)
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Sorry Laceycakes :s
I can see two possible scenarios; either you've simply not realised that a folder you deleted was the one where Elements stores its images, or when you did the Import from the camera somehow you told it to not save them to the hard drive so when you turned off/disconnected the camera, the files couldn't be found. I think most likely the former...
I'd start by hooking up your camera and firing up the Elements Organiser again, and check which folder it says it'll import them to by default. Then go and check that in windows explorer (as in, click My Documents from the Start Menu) and see if that folder's still there and what's inside it.
You have to make sure that you don't write any more data to the disk the files were deleted from. So, if you have this G: drive where you've deleted them from, don't write any new data to it, because new files will probably overwrite the location where the old files are still living. So locate undelete software, and try that before saving anything else anywhere to that drive, regardless of folders. It works like this because...
Computer disks are enormous things, in terms of capacity, so to keep track of where files are on the disk (not what folder they're in, but physically where they are) Windows maintains a list of where they all are. An index. When you "delete" a file, for the sake of speed, all it does is remove the file's entry in the index; the file's contents are still there on the disk where they were, Windows just doesn't know it's a file - it thinks it's empty space. So, the next time you tell it to save a file onto that drive, if this new file is smaller than the gap left by that "deleted" file, it'll probably get saved into that slot, and have a new entry added for it in the index, thus physically replacing the old file's data that was just sitting there.
Now, it is *sometimes* still possible to recover data even if it's overwritten, but this definitely needs sending off to specialists (as far as I know), isn't guaranteed, and may cost a fair bit. I've never really looked into it that much, I'm afraid.