Speeding up use of the PSE V7 Organizer with large catalogs
Robert Eckerlin Mar 12, 2009 1:20 AMMy PSE catalog is relatively large (a little more than 33'000 items/photo Files) and I am using PSE 7 on Windows XP Professional.
Sometimes the PSE 7 Organizer seems to be reasonably fast; some other times it is desesperately slow. I tried to find out in which circumstances I am happy; and in which other circumstances I am unhappy with its performance .....after making some tests, i found out that the answer is quite simple /obvious; but I had nevertheless the impression that despite the obviousness, it might be useful to a couple of my PSE-user fellows that i describe what I found out.
On my PC, with my large catalog and in my use-scenarios,
- the PSE 7 Organizer is most of the time reasonably fast, when I display an Album (i.e. by clicking in the "Album Palette" on an Album) or display the result of a Tag search.
- And with my large PSE 7 Catalog the PSE Organizer is often much too slow, when displaying (e.g. in Thumbnail view, Import Batch view, or Folder location View) all Photos (without performing a Tag or Album Search).
Some actions that are fast when displaying the result of an Album or Tag search and slow when displaying all photos of my large catalog include:
- switching back and forth between Thumbnail View and full screen View
- expanding and collapsing Version sets
- removing an item from a Versionset
- "Mark as Hidden" of an item
- ....
I guess (without really knowing) that the explanation for the large difference in speed, is that when displaying all Photos of a large Catalog, PSE rebuilds over and over again the whole Photo-Bin (even though it can only display a limited number of photos on the current screen).
Therefore, when performing a substantial amount of work on a subset of my photos that are not already part of an Album (and that are not all associated with one Tag or with a couple of tags), i create temporarily an Album, include all my photos in that album and then perform an album search.
Processing my Photos as part of an Album has for me also an other advantage: I can (when this makes sense for me) order the Photos within that album in the sequence of my choice (e.g. similar photos adjacent to each other).
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Notes:
- I do not know if what I described applies also to PSE V6. But i believe to remember that with large catalog PSE V6 and PSE V7 are often substantially faster than previous versions of PSE. This considerable difference in speed justified for me the migration to PSE V6.
- I know, that my descriptions are not comprehensive and welcome the feedback of other PSE users who also have experience in this area.
Sometimes the PSE 7 Organizer seems to be reasonably fast; some other times it is desesperately slow. I tried to find out in which circumstances I am happy; and in which other circumstances I am unhappy with its performance .....after making some tests, i found out that the answer is quite simple /obvious; but I had nevertheless the impression that despite the obviousness, it might be useful to a couple of my PSE-user fellows that i describe what I found out.
On my PC, with my large catalog and in my use-scenarios,
- the PSE 7 Organizer is most of the time reasonably fast, when I display an Album (i.e. by clicking in the "Album Palette" on an Album) or display the result of a Tag search.
- And with my large PSE 7 Catalog the PSE Organizer is often much too slow, when displaying (e.g. in Thumbnail view, Import Batch view, or Folder location View) all Photos (without performing a Tag or Album Search).
Some actions that are fast when displaying the result of an Album or Tag search and slow when displaying all photos of my large catalog include:
- switching back and forth between Thumbnail View and full screen View
- expanding and collapsing Version sets
- removing an item from a Versionset
- "Mark as Hidden" of an item
- ....
I guess (without really knowing) that the explanation for the large difference in speed, is that when displaying all Photos of a large Catalog, PSE rebuilds over and over again the whole Photo-Bin (even though it can only display a limited number of photos on the current screen).
Therefore, when performing a substantial amount of work on a subset of my photos that are not already part of an Album (and that are not all associated with one Tag or with a couple of tags), i create temporarily an Album, include all my photos in that album and then perform an album search.
Processing my Photos as part of an Album has for me also an other advantage: I can (when this makes sense for me) order the Photos within that album in the sequence of my choice (e.g. similar photos adjacent to each other).
---
Notes:
- I do not know if what I described applies also to PSE V6. But i believe to remember that with large catalog PSE V6 and PSE V7 are often substantially faster than previous versions of PSE. This considerable difference in speed justified for me the migration to PSE V6.
- I know, that my descriptions are not comprehensive and welcome the feedback of other PSE users who also have experience in this area.



