[Strobe]

Anyone know how to delete the catalogue in PSE 5 or at least how to rebuild it?
I have done lots or rejigging, deleting, renaming of my photos to give my collection a bit of a Spring clean but it was easier to do this from within Windows, and not via PSE5.
The catalogue now has hundreds of unattached and missing files as would be expected.
Anyone know what file holds the catalogue data and where it is usually located?
Any help much appreciated.

[cedmondson]

The catalogue has file extension .psa and unless you renamed yours, it will have a default name of 'my catalog'. In Vista it will be in \program data\adobe\catalogs - maybe slightly different if you use XP?

I guess if you rename or move it, Elements will create a new one and you can use 'Get Photos' / From files & folders to rebuild a new one.

[EDIT] - The main caveat with the above option is that (I think) you'll lose your tags etc. Not much of a problem if you haven't set any but could be a big deal if you have. If you do a search on 'reconnect' in the Help File you'll see that it may be possible to get the existing catalog to search for files that have been moved.

[GaryK26]

Strobe,

I have the exact same problem - I deleted a load of images from the hard disk rather than via the catalog and now I have a number of disconnected images in organizer.
Take a look at this - http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com...ad.php?t=20120
it suggests a solution which is not exactly what I am looking for, but could be a workable solution.

[Strobe]

Sorted. I have basically done what cedmondson suggested and it has worked; although for some reasons there were approx. 900 files out of 9,000 that it didn't want to import! Strange but not a big issue for me.

I think the lesson learnt is to use the organsier for everything (ie. sorting, renaming, deleting, etc) or not at all.

@ GaryK26 : if you have odd disconnected files then you can reconnect them but browse for the files yourself rather than letting PSE search. This is what I had started to do but as I had deleted some 400 images ( ) all in windows it was somewhat of a tedious task; hence my need to 'rebuild' the catalogue.

Thanks for input, think I'm just about there now.