Hi Christina,
I feel like we have hijacked Bud's thread and now I'm taking us even more off topic - after this post I'll see if I can snip out this stuff to a new thread.
It sounds like you are using Picasa for the file organising functions, as I used to - i.e. to be able to find pictures easily.Originally Posted by Christina S
I tried using "Elements 6" Organiser on a previous PC (about 5 years ago now), it kept losing its index on the folders and deleting the database file and having it re-index took all night - I only did that once or twice, it became unusable
The experience was so bad that to this day I haven't trusted an Adobe organiser - I don't use Bridge in CS5 or CS6, perhaps I am missing something(?)
When I moved to a new PC, I decided to use 'flat' folder structure and consistent naming convention for storing images, it is far from perfect as a system, but at least I don't lose indexing*.
I import all my Nikon images using ViewNX, each camera download goes into a new folder numbered and named for the event/location (with a duplicate written onto a completely separate HDD).
So from the root of my (external) HDD, I have a folder called Nikon_Downloads which contains these all in one flat layer, no messing with hierarchies of nested structure that make navigating painful using windows or ViewNX.
When I look for an image, I usually use ViewNX because it gives me the metadata, tags, ratings, RAW thumbnails, etc., but if that messes up its indexing (* occasionally it will display a certain thumbnail but opening the image shows a different picture!), I know I can always find stuff by folder name using windows if need be - and the problem appears to be fixed by just closing and re-opening ViewNX or at worst, by switching PC off and on again - since it is quite rare, it hasn't caused me too much inconvenience (yet).
Having found an image, I can right click Open With from either ViewNX or Windows and choose between Elements, CS5 or CS6 (you can add LR).
It then it opens in ACR, after editing there, it is opened with one button click in the main program of same name, save from there (back into original folder - keeps it all in one place) as psd (if part way through editing) or jpg at whatever size I need (and I suffix the file name appropriately; e.g." _H1000.jpg" for online images, or "_us.jpg" for unsharpened, fullsize images, or sometimes "_p.jpg" for print versions (which would be sharpened more aggressively).
The only problem is I have a RAW shooting Canon S100 camera and ViewNX does not want to import or display themand the Canon importer program is a 'pain in the proverbial' to import and view with compared to ViewNX.
This is one reason why I might give Bridge try soon, so I can do things consistently, regardless of camera.
No, I just had a look at the ACR book on CS5, which I believe uses same ACR version as Elements 9, the sharpening in that doesn't work the same way, there's no "Threshold" control to give you the precise control necessary to prevent sharpening of noise (neither the "Detail" nor "Masking" controls do what Threshold does)plus the minimum radius is 0.5, which is too wide
You're right; I don't think LR4 is any better in this respect either.
Cheers,