Move Thumbnail

[nordron]

I have been trying to move a thumbnail to change the order in the slide show in Photo Shop Express (trial version) but nothing works: not drag and drop, not cut and paste, media tray useless. There must be a way.

[Tim Morrison]

Could you be a bit more specific about both your problem and your software. This is a forum for Corel Paint Shop Pro (formerly sold by Jasc), but you refer to a version of Photoshop, which is made by Adobe and not in any way connected with this forum.

[LeviFiction]

Well as far as I'm aware Photoshop express is the online version of Photoshop elements...okay not even really that close but it's a web app.

EDIT: I take back that last part about Photoshop.com (they apparently no longer call it express) it does do Slideshows, apparently they added it after my last visit. So he could be talking about the application. But the (trial-version) part still has me guessing it's not photoshop.com that he's referring to.

So my guess is he called it Photo Shop by mistake and meant PaintShop Photo Express 2010. Which is a terrible piece of software, I'm sorry to say.

So...since I can't delete this now silly post. Yes please do clarify. If you got the first part of the name incorrect it's possible you got the second part incorrect as well. So I definitely can't be sure of anything.

[nordron]

Yes, it is Corel Paint Shop Express (trial version). I got a reply from them saying I could sort in the Media Tray which works but I can't get the sorted thumbnails back to the original folder (I'm waiting for their response). Is their Paint Shop Pro X3 any better? I have Paint Shop Pro 9 and it still works pretty well but it has no albums or file management. I also have JASC Image Expert (1994 from Dell) but it screws up the ordering of photos in the file so I was hoping to move up to something modern. Not being able to drag and drop thumbnails in Paint Shop is ridiculous, even Image Expert did that. Advice appreciated.

[Tim Morrison]

Sorting in the media tray is not the same as sorting files in a folder. The media tray is only a database to which you can add files from any number of folders and sort them any way you like, but that sort order isn't reflected in folders in the Windows file system.

[nordron]

Right, you can sort in the media tray but when you transfer them to a folder or album they go back to the original order. Corel tech help admitted this (on third try) and advised me to buy the program Thanks for help. Is there the same problem in Paint Shop X3? Other programs?

[nordron]

I have found a way to move a thumbnail and reorder the photos but it is not convenient:

1) On the thumbnails before and after the place to be moved to note the dates and times (Paint Shop sorts on these).
2) On the thumbnail to be moved the date and time must be changed to be intermediate to those of step 1. This is done by right click - "Locate on Compute", then right click - "Edit with Notepad", use "Find" to locate date/time in three places and change them, use "Save As" with same file name.
3) Close and reopen Paint Shop for the new order to take effect.

Why can't Corel automate this? It ain't rocket science or 3D animation

[LeviFiction]

I'm not understanding your problem. Corel doesn't reorganize the photos in the folder because there is no need to do so. If you're using the organizer/Media tray your database of arranged photos is in there. Dragging them from the media tray into the editor is simple from there if you choose to do any editing. This is true with any photo manager.

How they are arranged in the actual windows explorer, is based upon how Windows organizes the photos. So this doesn't seem like an issue with Paint Shop Pro. If you want to arrange them by date, tell Windows to do so.

And it may not be rocket science, but that doesn't mean that Corel sees any need to provide such a feature. It's not necessarily a question of how difficult it is but what value the company sees in adding certain features. I mean you're talking about renaming files to make Windows organize them the way you want. In a very round-about sort of way.

I mean you could just open all of those photos in Paint Shop Pro hit Shift+I and copy the creation date from there. No need for Notepad.

Or am I missing something? I do tend to do that. But I just really don't understand where you're coming from at all.

[nordron]

Sorry, guess I did not make my problem clear. You can move all your thumbnails to the media tray and sort them by drag and drop. However, when you use the media tray commands "Add all to New Album" or "Copy All to New Folder" the new folder or album goes back to the original order based on date/time. The same thing happens when you copy thumbnails from one folder to another; date/time determines the order. Also, you can display the date/time of a thmbnail but you can't change it in Paint Shop; thus the need for the Notepad edit (you can change the date in the Windows Explorer thumbnail directly but not the time). I have not found a way within Paint Shop to sort and preserve the new order in a new folder or album so it can be used as a slide show or burn to disc. I don't see why it would be difficult to preserve the media tray order in the new folder or album (bet I could even do it in FORTRAN or BASIC ).

[LeviFiction]

I apologize, I finally understand what you mean.

However, again, it's not a matter of how difficult it is but rather what Corel took into consideration when they made it. No body ever accused them of making the best organizers. Honestly if I had to I'd just use a different organizer and tell it to use Paint Shop Pro to open the images with. I will probably never trust an organizer made inside Paint Shop Pro. I don't know how PSPX3's organizer works but if Tim or Trev don't answer I'll be testing it out and have my own answers later.

[nordron]

I solved my problem - Picasa 3.6 (free from Google) for file management and basic editing. I will use Paint Shop Pro 9 (which I already own) for advanced editing.