Bill: I've attended several of the workshops in Orlando and this last one you went over some of the photo organizers such as the Adobe Photoshop Elements Organizer, but if I remember correctly, this only gives a thumbnail of the image and does not actually say exactly where an image is located, such as on an external drive or CDs, etc. Which one(s) did you say will accomplish this more detailed organization of describing where the image is actually located? I want to use this kind consistently once I know which one to use. Thanks again.

Dee: Photoshop Elements 4.0 and 5.0 Organizer can work very effectively for a simple file management tool, but they don't have the depth of a true cataloging program like iView Media Pro (now owned by Microsoft and soon to be called Microsoft Expression Media http://www.iview-multimedia.com/) or Extensis' Portfolio. In these more sophisticated (and more expensive) programs the database information added to the image files is in a standard protocol format that can be recognized in many other applications. This database can be more thorough and provide many more search tools for finding specific images.

The normal sorting method for searching for specific images in Elements is tagging. The Tags created to describe photos (family, vacation, Christmas, etc.) are specific to Elements and do not transfer with the images to any other program. That simple system can work fine for many photographers, but the more extensive programs give you more extensive tools (and come with a steeper learning curve). You might try out iView's demo version just to see what you think.

As for having the directory path to the image files, Element 4.0 and 5.0 (I'm not sure about 3.0) do give you that information. If you load images into the Organizer from your internal hard drive or an attached external hard drive then Elements sees them as live images and can simply pull up the full file whenever you want it. If you add images from a CD or DVD, then when you go to File>Get Photos>From Files and Folders you will see a box at the bottom for Offline Media. Check that box and Elements will add just a thumbnail and not import the full file into your internal hard drive. You can also add disk description information as additional help in locating the right disk later.

After the image thumbnails are in the Organizer, if you click on any image and look at the History page in the Properties window you will see the name of the disk that file came from along with your additional search information.