lost work

Tenpin24442218

Newbie Joined: Aug 21, 2016 18:32 Messages: 2 Offline

Solved by

Aug 22, 2016 05:20

complicted this and i hope there is a simple answer. Have been using director for about 3 years and have stored all photos in albums in library. this weekend was working on some shots for my work and so decided to export these shots as a new project to my desktop. when i went back into director I found to my horror that all the photos in my library were gone and i just had the new project photos left . Worse still because I found the photos in my pictures on the computer I decided to delete the photos from the new project and then to see how easy it was to re import I re-imported a different file back into director now those photos are in the project on director and the original photos that I had wanted to export are not even in my pictures.

So

Is there a way of restoring my library as it was with albums intact ? ( i have done some back ups though have noticed recently that I have not been asked to do so ) or do I have to reinstall manually album by album? (about 3000 pics)

Have I lost the work photos for ever ?

What did I do wrong ?

How do you switch from projects as my library shows just one project and I expected that if i right clicked there would be a menu to make another project but there isn't

Any help would be appreciated using director 5 on windows 10 if that is any help

thx in advance

Bill

PIX

Senior Contributor Joined: Sep 21, 2011 00:02 Messages: 2910 Offline

Aug 23, 2016 18:01

Hello Bill,

Welcome to the PhotoDirector forum

I'm sorry to hear you've had some workflow issues. In my view, from what you've said, it's unlikely that you've lost your work. To be honest, I'm having a little difficulty understanding exactly what you've done & found.

when i went back into director I found to my horror that all the photos in my library were gone and i just had the
new project photos left

PhD, as you would be aware, will (by default) open the most recent project used... unless you go to your projects folders and open a specific project. When you exported those photos to a new project, I assume you named the project. That would be the most recent one that would open, which would explain your statement above.

Do you know where your project folders are stored? Do you keep them together or are they filed differently? Had you named the previously opened project (the one with your 3000 photos neatly arranged in albums)?

Unless you've deliberated deleted any project folders, the project containing your "albumed" photos will be on your PC. You have not lost your photos. PhotoDirector is non-destructive. Nor do I think you've lost your 3000 photo project.

I have found the most fool-proof workflow to be:

Having a folder structure on my PC that makes navigation simple. Photos are filed by "shoot" (even if that's over a period of days/weeks)

Importing folders into PhD that reflect my PC filing system. In the import dialogue, I select "Keep in current location" and "Organise by original folder structure"

From those folders, I may combine photos from different sources into albums, but not typically)

If you can provide some further information (questions above), I'm sure we can restore order

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