Use Media view to manage photos and videos

There are four views in Elements Organizer. The Views tab helps you organize and view your media based on the people present in the photos, places they were taken, and the events that are associated with the photos.

Initially, when you import media, the files are displayed in the Media view. You can then mark faces in the photos, identify places the photograph was taken at, and create event stacks in the following views:

The various media files are displayed in this view. You can view the files in this view, fix photos using Instant fix option, view information about specific files using Tags/info option, and perform other operations. See the rest of this page for more information on Media view.

The people appearing on your photos can be marked. People’s view helps you arrange stacks based on the people identified in the photos. For more information, see Marking faces in photos and organizing People view.

Photographs have special association with the places they are taken at. You can tag locations to your photos in the Places view. For more information, see Adding and managing place (location) data.

You can create stacks of events containing pictures of that event. For example, you can create an event Dan’s birthday and tag photos of that event. For more information, see Adding and managing event data.

When you open Elements Organizer, by default, all the media open in the Media view.

The Media view shows thumbnails of the media files in the central area (grid) of the Elements Organizer. You can view media (thumbnails of photos, video files, and audio files) present in your albums, folders, and catalogs. You can select items in the Media view to attach tags to them, add them to projects, or edit them.

Set viewing preferences for Media view

Media view icons

Some of the following icons appear only when you select the Details option, and others appear at all times. Select View > Details to view the file details.

Stack icon 

Indicates that the thumbnail represents a stack of photos.

Version Set icon 

Indicates that the thumbnail represents a stack of edited versions of a photo.

Video icon 

Indicates that the thumbnail represents a video clip.

Audio icon 

Indicates that the thumbnail includes an audio caption.

Multiple Keyword Tag icon  

Indicates that more than five keyword tags are attached to the media file. Place the pointer over the tag icon to see the keyword tags attached.

Keyword Tag icons 

Indicate the specific keyword tags that are attached to the media file.

Album icon  

Indicates this is an album.

Hidden Photo icon 

Indicates that the thumbnail is a hidden file.

Project icon 

Indicates that the thumbnail is used in a project.

Photo Project icon 

Indicates that the photo is part of a multiple page project.

Rating stars 

Shows the rating of the photo, on a scale of five stars.

People tag 

Shows that the people tag has been added to the photo.

Smart tag 

Shows that a smart tag is applied to the media file.

Sort files in Media view

You can sort your media files in various ways:

Displays the most recently taken or imported media files first. (Within a given day, the media files are shown in the order they were taken, oldest first, unless otherwise specified in the Preferences dialog box.) Newest-first order is convenient when you attach tags to the media files that you imported.

Displays media files in the order of the date stamp, the oldest imported files based on date are displayed first.

Displays media files in alphabetical order of name.

Displays media files in the batches in which they were imported and shows how the media files were imported.

Hide and show media files in the Media view

You can mark media files to hide them from view in the Media view without deleting them from your hard disk. Alternatively, you can make hidden files reappear temporarily, or unmark them so that the files always remain visible.

Hide media files by marking them

Show media files marked as hidden

Remove the Hidden icon from the media files

View and manage files by folders

The My Folders panel displays folders from which media can be organized further into Albums. My Folders panel appears in the left pane below Albums. From this panel, you can manage folders, add files to your catalog, and add or remove folders from Watch Folders status.

There are two views in which the folder structure is displayed.

In the Folders panel, switch between the Tree and List views. The Tree view helps determine the physical location of the media present in that folder. Sub-folders of a folder are not displayed by deafult in tree view. Select a folder, right-click (Windows)/Control+click (Mac OS) and select Show All SubFolders to view the Sub-folders of a folder.

This view is displayed by default in the Folders panel. This view is a basic folder structure and you can click on any of the folder to view the media available in that folder.

By default, the folder panel displays all of the folders on your hard disk from which media has been imported into Elements Organizer.

Folders containing managed files have a Managed folder icon . Managed files are files that are imported into a catalog, either manually or automatically. Watched folders have a Watched folder icon 

Elements Organizer automatically imports compatible files saved in watched folders. Folders that are both managed and watched have a Watched And Managed folder icon.

You can view files in a folder and perform different operations using the options available in the My Folders panel.

Resize, refresh, or hide media thumbnails using Zoom bar

You can change the size of thumbnails of media files, or refresh them after editing the media files in another application. In addition, you can quickly rotate the thumbnails so they appear correctly in the window.

• To incrementally change the size of the thumbnail, drag the thumbnail slider in the Zoom bar.
• To display the smallest thumbnails possible, move the zoom bar to extreme left(start) of the slider.
• To display a single media file, move the zoom bar to the right of extreme right (end) of the slider.
• To refresh the thumbnail view, choose View > Refresh.
• To rotate an image counterclockwise, click Rotate Left from the task pane; to rotate an image clockwise, click Rotate Right .

Select files in the Media view

Select a media file in the Media view to work with it. A selected thumbnail is highlighted with a dark blue outline.

• To select a single item, click its thumbnail.

• To select multiple adjacent items, hold down Shift and click the first and last items you want to select.

• To select multiple nonadjacent items, hold down Ctrl+click (Windows)/Command+click (Mac OS) the items you want.

• To select or deselect all items in the Media view, choose Edit > Select All, or Edit > Deselect.

Display and edit media file details

You can choose to display details for each thumbnail, and also how certain details are displayed in the Media view. Also, you can add and edit captions including audio captions, and add and edit date and time information.

Edit media file details

You can edit information related to a media file. For example, you can edit date, attached tags, filename, caption, and audio caption.

Common questions

How do I view RAW, DCIM, or NEF format files?

You can import RAW, DCIM, or NEF format files saved on your computer (Import > From Files and Folders), or directly from your camera (Import > From Camera or Card Reader).

Once imported, these files can be seen in your Elements Organizer view.

Click View > File Names to view the file name extensions of all your files.

How do I search for a specific file or files?

In Elements Organizer, you can find photos and media files by: date, visual similarity, star rating, album, folder location, filename, media type, keyword tag, text, or other criteria. You can also sort files in any grouping in chronological, reverse-chronological, or album order.

For more information on searching for specific media, see Searching for media files.

How do I view only a specific type of file?

In the Media view, choose View > Media Types > [type of file].

How do I find (and delete) duplicates of photos?

Click Find > By Visual Searches > Duplicate Photos.

Elements Organizer quickly scans through your photos, and displays photos that are identical, or very similar. You can then select unwanted photos and remove them from the catalog.

How do I stack or unstack photos? How do I view individual photos in a stack? How do I remove a specific photo from a stack of photos?

Stack photos

To stack photos, select a set of photos, right-click (Windows)/Control+click (Mac OS) choose Stack > Stack Selected Photos. You can also right-click (Windows)/Control+click (Mac OS) a set of photos and let Elements Organizer automatically stack similar looking photos by clicking Stack > Automatically Suggest Photo Stacks.

Unstack photos

To unstack photos, right-click (Windows)/Control+click (Mac OS) a stack of photos and select Stack > Unstack Photos.

View stacked photos

To view photos in a stack without actually unstacking the set, right-click (Windows)/Control+click (Mac OS) the photo stack, and select Stack > Expand Photos in Stack. All the photos in the stack are visible in the Media view.

To collapse expanded photos back into the stack, right-click the original photo in the stack (the one with the Stack icon), and select Stack > Collapse Photos in Stack.

Remove a photo from a stack

To remove a photo from an expanded stack of photos, right-click (Windows)/Control+click (Mac OS) the photo in the stack, and select Stack > Remove Photo from Stack.

How do I view details such as the date and time when a photo was taken?

To view information such as the date and time a photo or video was taken, select View > Details. You can view this information appear below the media. You can also select an image and select the Information panel on the right to get more details about a particular image.