Photo deletion outside ACDC Ultimate

[sbhoward]

New User.....Please be gentle....

If I delete photos from a third party app outside of ACDsee does it upset the apple cart or can I rescan, etc? Need to run a duplicate remover from a new directory structure I just set up.

Thanks

[Greyfox]

New User.....Please be gentle....

If I delete photos from a third party app outside of ACDsee does it upset the apple cart or can I rescan, etc? Need to run a duplicate remover from a new directory structure I just set up.

If you rename, move or delete images using a 3rd party applications, and that includes Windows File Explorer, then ACDSee does not (and can't be expected) to know about it, and as a result entries in the database, along with the thumbnails become orphaned and eventually that will degrade the performance.

To some extent Optimization is be able to remove orphans, though not if they are on network drives.

ACDSee Ultimate does have a duplicate finder - Tools\Find Duplicates.

[AliGW]

Get into the habit of doing ALL of your housekeeping from within ACDSee. It's a simple mantra, and hard at first to force yourself to do it, but for the reasons stated by Greyfox above, it's an absolute must.

[sbhoward]

I agree with you, AliGW. However, I am migrating from another tool, trying to cleanup of the multiple backups I had made in the past. I am impressed with ACDsee and it is now my tool of choice. I am just trying to clean up the mess I have made over the years of traveling ans shooting landscapes, and scanning family photographs. The tool I have been using is very good, and can even look at histograms as part of the duplication detection.

Thanks for the tips and confirmation.

[Regor250]

Your best solution for this may be to embed metadata in all affected files first, then COPY them along with any sidecar XML files to new location, and then EXCLUDE the old location to remove their reference in the database, then CATALOG the files in the new location to bring back the embedded metadata. Backups no longer needed that are in the database, simply EXCLUDE their location before deleting them, this will delete all references in the database. Greyfox input here may be helpful to confirm if that would work, he has so much more experience in such matter.

[gdaumiller]

It isn't a huge deal if you just delete a file and you don't care about what happened to its metadata. ACDSee will think the file is still there, but you won't be able to view it. When you optimize the database, ACDSee will realize that the file is gone and delete the entry from the database. The huge problem can be if you move or rename a file outside of ACDSee but you still want ACDSee to know everything you told it about the file. If you did not embed the metadata, the only way to save the data you entered will be to find the file in your database (if you didn't optimize it since the file change) where it used to be or under the name it formerly had, and then copy the metadata from the database to the file in its new location or name. If you had embedded metadata in the file and then moved it outside of ACDSee, you can rescan the file and reoptimize the database to fix things up.

[Greyfox]

Your best solution for this may be to embed metadata in all affected files first, then COPY them along with any sidecar XML files to new location, and then EXCLUDE the old location to remove their reference in the database, then CATALOG the files in the new location to bring back the embedded metadata. Backups no longer needed that are in the database, simply EXCLUDE their location before deleting them, this will delete all references in the database. Greyfox input here may be helpful to confirm if that would work, he has so much more experience in such matter.

That works, but if the number of affected files is large it may be simpler to just start a new database and catalog all the images into that. Either way the metadata has to be embedded in the files (or in the xmp sidecar files).

But If you are going to copy the files to a new location, remember to copy the "hidden" [Originals] and [Developed] folders as well.

[Greyfox]

It isn't a huge deal if you just delete a file and you don't care about what happened to its metadata. ACDSee will think the file is still there, but you won't be able to view it. When you optimize the database, ACDSee will realize that the file is gone and delete the entry from the database. The huge problem can be if you move or rename a file outside of ACDSee but you still want ACDSee to know everything you told it about the file. If you did not embed the metadata, the only way to save the data you entered will be to find the file in your database (if you didn't optimize it since the file change) where it used to be or under the name it formerly had, and then copy the metadata from the database to the file in its new location or name. If you had embedded metadata in the file and then moved it outside of ACDSee, you can rescan the file and reoptimize the database to fix things up.

If you don't get into the habit of using ACDSee to do all your deletes, moves and renames, the amount of orphans can mount up fairly fast and degrade the performance. Optimize may or may not fix all the problems created, and I would certainly not be counting on it to do that if you have network drives in the mix. But as long as you have embedded the metadata in the images, you can always start a new database and Catalog the files back into it.