Hello gmoochie,

Welcome to the PhotoDirector forum

There's a bit of a lesson in that. Don't delete photos that have been imported into a project while you're trying to work on it!

All editing information, such as adjustments, face tags, text tags etc, is stored in the .phd (project) file, which can be opened & viewed with Notepad if you're interested. The default location for .phd files/folders is C\Pictures, but that up to your own preference.

If you were to:

1. Locate the .phd file of your previous project


2. Open it


3. Find the missing photos when prompted...

... you'd have restored your previous work. That's going to be difficult, given you've deleted some photos.

Tags are not written into the photos metadata until they're exported from PhD, so (in your case) you & PhD will have to redo what you've both done.

I'm sorry it's not a terribly helpful post. You most probably realise most of that now.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

Thank you for your reply. Redoing the tags helped me learn the face recognition better.

To understand the file system better, my goal is to:

Take advantage of the speed of the SSD (1TB C drive) by having my system and apps there.
Take advantage of the space of my HD (2TB D drive) by having all my photos there and edits there.
Does this make sense?

Knowing this, is it best to leave the .phd file on my C drive or would performance not degrade if moved to the D drive with the photos. If the latter, what is the best way to move the .phd file to the D drive from the C without messing anything up?

After I (clumsily) deleted all my 8000 photo files from C, knowing they were all on D, sometime between last night and today the photos repopulated on the C drive - like they were never deleted. Do you know why that would happen? I do have several other photo organizers on the C drive, so I don't know if the Cyberlink app would have done that or one of my other programs did it.

Does Photo Director (PD) revert to looking at the photo files on the C drive if they are on both the D and C drive?

How do I direct PD to:

• Have edit files on drive D and not on C? I guess that is the .phd file. How do I move that to my D drive. Will than mess anything up?


• Set default location for new dowloads from my camera to drive D?


• Keep the app from repopulating my C drive with photos (if indeed that is the app that did it).

Right now my edits are going to different folders from the location of the originals, I think, because when I select "Show photos in same folder" the edited result is in a different folder.

That's it for now. More questions sure to follow...

PS: I'm coming from Photoshop Elements 9 (10 years old) and a 7 year old version of Lightroom. I tried PSE 2021 but found it to be buggy. I've trialed ACDSee, (but don't like the comparatively confusing interface) and Digikam (worse than ACDSee). So far Photo Director has been both solid and has a user interface that is easy to learn/intuitive. I'm mainly trying to get my mind around the filing structure, which is just as much a Windows 10 thing as it is PD. I'm suspecting every photo organizer known to humanity insists that files and photos be changed ONLY from within the program, not through Windows File Explorer.

Hello again,

Take advantage of the speed of the SSD (1TB C drive) by having my system and apps there.
Take advantage of the space of my HD (2TB D drive) by having all my photos there and edits there.
Does this make sense?

► That would be what meny users do, & it makes perfect sense. On my main PC, I have 2 SSDs & 2 HHDs. The SSDs store system & software & HHDs store photos, videos, music, documents etc.

sometime between last night and today the photos repopulated on the C drive - like they were never deleted. Do you know why that would happen?

► I've used PhD, Lr and a variety of other photo organisers/editors, but have never witnessed any such behaviour. I doubt that PhD would have automatically done that & I'm quite sure the presence of other photo apps would have had no impact. A puzzlement.

Does Photo Director (PD) revert to looking at the photo files on the C drive if they are on both the D and C drive?

► No. PhD "looks", initially, in the most recent folder you accessed via PhD, then it "looks" where you tell it to!

Have edit files on drive D and not on C? I guess that is the .phd file. How do I move that to my D drive. Will than mess anything up?
Set default location for new dowloads from my camera to drive D?
Keep the app from repopulating my C drive with photos (if indeed that is the app that did it).

► Edited photos can be stored where you wish, using the options in the Export dialogue.
► Are you transferring files directly from your SD card to your D drive, or "making extra copies" (shown in the import dialogue)? Either way, you choose where the photos/copies are stored.
► Since PhD did not automatically repoulate your C drive, I'm unable to suggest a way to stop it! Perhaps this may be related to the point directly above (?).

PIX PIX YouTube channel

Quote Hello again,

Take advantage of the speed of the SSD (1TB C drive) by having my system and apps there.
Take advantage of the space of my HD (2TB D drive) by having all my photos there and edits there.
Does this make sense?

► That would be what meny users do, & it makes perfect sense. On my main PC, I have 2 SSDs & 2 HHDs. The SSDs store system & software & HHDs store photos, videos, music, documents etc.

sometime between last night and today the photos repopulated on the C drive - like they were never deleted. Do you know why that would happen?

► I've used PhD, Lr and a variety of other photo organisers/editors, but have never witnessed any such behaviour. I doubt that PhD would have automatically done that & I'm quite sure the presence of other photo apps would have had no impact. A puzzlement.

Does Photo Director (PD) revert to looking at the photo files on the C drive if they are on both the D and C drive?

► No. PhD "looks", initially, in the most recent folder you accessed via PhD, then it "looks" where you tell it to!

Have edit files on drive D and not on C? I guess that is the .phd file. How do I move that to my D drive. Will than mess anything up?
Set default location for new dowloads from my camera to drive D?
Keep the app from repopulating my C drive with photos (if indeed that is the app that did it).

► Edited photos can be stored where you wish, using the options in the Export dialogue.
► Are you transferring files directly from your SD card to your D drive, or "making extra copies" (shown in the import dialogue)? Either way, you choose where the photos/copies are stored.
► Since PhD did not automatically repoulate your C drive, I'm unable to suggest a way to stop it! Perhaps this may be related to the point directly above (?).

PIX

In my computer system, is it best to keep the .phd file on the faster C drive, or move it to the D drive with the photos? If the latter, where do I find the .phd file and what's the best way to move it?

It should make little-no difference whether the project file (.phd) is kept on your C drive (SSD) D drive (HDD).

Here, my software is installed on either of the SSDs but project files & all media is stored on the 2 HDDs. The same is true for PDR, ADR & CDR.

How do you find the project file? If you've named it, just use Windows search. If not, it's likely to be named "NewProject". When you relocate it, make sure you move the whole containing folder (not just the .phd file).

PIX PIX YouTube channel