Brian

Welp, full disclosure... I had to upgrade to Catalina yesterday to fix my iPhone 6s, which got corrupted during the latest update. So now I'm stuck with Catalina as well. The good news is, the world did not end. The latest version of PS CC seems to have the majority of bugs worked out, so if you do take the plunge and get PS CC, things should work out for you.

Here is a 14TB Thunderbolt G-Drive: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1480233-REG The cool part with G-Drives, is they include cables...which they should for that amount of money.

Yep! You are good! You did purchase a good drive! I did the same thing! When I got my new fancy iMac, I just used my older 4TB USB G-Drive for a “TM Only Drive” and bought a larger 12TB Thunderbolt 3 Drive for use as a Data EHD for my new Mac. Keep in mind, some of the larger TB3 G-Drives are quite expensive, like around $600-$700, so budget for that. Yes, it is worth it.

As for the Thunderbolt 3, you don't have that option for your EHD, so please disregard what I mentioned above. You will know when you have a Thunderbolt Version because you will have a Thunderbolt Logo on the front of the Drive: In the future, if you do purchase another G-Drive, be sure to get a Thunderbolt 3 version. Once you experience the speed of TB3, it will be tough to go back to USB3.0.

If you are using this drive as a Data Drive, TELL IT NO...AS IN NO I DO NOT WANT TO USE THIS DRIVE FOR TIME MACHINE. Keep your Time Machine separate from your Data Drive. What happens is if you do use the drive for Time Machine, it will attempt to backup to itself, and that is very bad. We want this drive excluded from Time Machine. For that, head into Time Machine's preferences and put the new G-Drive on the exclude list. Time Machine's Preferences are pretty straightforward, and I'm sur you can find the exclude list if you poke around.

One more important thing! If your Mac has a Thunderbolt 2 or Thunderbolt 3 port, make sure you use that cable and not the USB Cable. I know everyone is so used to using a USB Cable, but if you have a newer Mac, and a Thunderbolt 3 port, plus a G-Drive that contains a Thunderbolt 3 connector, it is so much faster than using a USB Cable. So much that I work directly off my EHD, which Damien disagrees with. My reasoning, is that Thunderbolt 3 is so fast, that it's almost the same speeds as working with my internal HD. Now if all I had was a USB drive to work with, I would be importing my current gigs to the Main HD, while keeping a similar file / folder tree. This way I can drag and drop each file / folder from the Main HD to the EHD, the only difference is physically they are stored. I can find them using the same searching methods, regardless of drive. Most importantly, when it's all said and done, create a File Hierarchy AND STICK WITH IT. It is so easy to get sloppy and I'm guilty as charged. I have a bunch of crap in my personal folder that is all over the place. The business & client stuff though, is where its supposed to be.

You have to treat your new EHD as a File Cabinet. Some File Cabinets have 4 drawers, some have 2 and others are bigger, like 6 or even 8. Most people have 2 - 4 drawers. Each one of these "drawers" is a main folder that is at the top level. For example, here is how my 12TB G-Drive looks: Here is another shot, with a few levels down: As you can see, the more detailed you are, the easier it is to keep things organized. If you have multiple camera bodies, it might be a good idea to have your bodies listed separately, each with their own folder system, that are duplicated in terms of hierarchy. So my D4s has a Raw folder, under that is the type of Cards that were used, and are numbered separately. So if I use several XQD cards during a Wedding, When I download them, I put them in chronological order. D4s >> Raw Files >> XQD1...XQD2...XQD3, etc. If I use my D850 during the gig, those images are put in the D850 >> Raw Files >> XQD1 >> SD1 folders. This way if I ever had two files that were named the same, at least I would know that DSC_0425.nef in the D4s folder came from that camera body. Of course, you usually can change the way your file names are created, it's just a setting in your camera body that you need to tweak. For example, I have 4 "Banks" in each of my camera bodies. Each "Bank" has its own unique three letter code. "WED" is for Weddings, "LND" is for Landscapes, "TVL" is for "Travel & PS," and so forth. I could also change this ID to "D4S" or "850" If I wanted to. Again, this is a personal thing. There is no "correct" way, just a way that makes sense to you.That being said, create a folder structure that would make sense to others. In the event is something terrible happens to you, someone could figure out where those Life Insurance Forms are stored, as well as other important files. KWIM? Really think things out, even if you have to write them down on paper first, THEN go diving into your files.

I’m not going to sugar-coat this... You are fucked. Upgrading to Catalina is a one-way proposition. The only way to downgrade is if you either have a Time Machine Backup with the older OS and format your HD / perform a restore or have created a Thumbdrive with a older OS and then format the HD and reinstall everything. Either way, you will need to format your HD and then deal with the issues that process creates. Other option: Photoshop CC is in your immediate future. There are absolutely no work-arounds to get CS5/CS6 working with Catalina. The programming language that was used to code CS5 flat out will not work with Catalina. Heck, even PS CC 2015 & 2017 don’t work. Only PS CC 2019 and 2020 work with Catalina.

I’m going to have to completely redo the above comment. Talk about messy. There is only so much I can do from my phone. Before jumping in, why not get a piece of paper and plan out your directory tree? Then create folders on the G-Drive? LR is going to BITCH about you moving stuff, so the better your folder structure and easier it is to find things, the easier everything will be for you.

When you put a card into the reader, it will appear on the desktop just like your G-Drive. Then all you have to do is double click on the reader and navigate to where your Raw files are. Do a select all and then right click copy. Then navigate to where they are to be located on the G-Drive EHD and then create a folder with the project name and then you right click and then paste. You simply treat the card reader as another “Hard Drive,” for lack of a better term. For how to organize, I answered that above. That is a very personal thing. You tell me how you want it organized. Here is a sample, and I will tweak this on my computer later. Doing this from my phone is tough: — G-Drive EHD — Client –Weddings —2020 —May —-> 5-23 ———> Smith-Jones Wedding (Bride’s Last name first) ————-> Raw Files ——————> CF1 ——————> CF2 ——————> CF3 ——————> SD1 ————-> Raw Edits ————-> To the Client ————-> To Social Media ——————-> Facebook ——————> IG ——————-> Pinterest -June -Headshots -Commercial -Family Portraits -Headshots -2019 Personal Business iPhone Website

Alright, so that was successful, but the problem still remains. Bummer. Unfortunately, this problem is a Pain in the Ass to solve. There is no one particular method that fixes it. Try downloading a fresh set of drivers from the manufacturer and see if that works.

Since you have a Mac and G-Drives come Mac formatted AND it’s appearing on your desktop... Guess what? You are done. No need to do anything hardware-wise. At this point, double-click I’m the new G-Drive and start creating a file / folder hierarchy. Create main folders, e.g., “Personal” “Business” “Website” “Uploads” (whatever you choose.) Then under the main folders create years, then months, then project names. Find a way to make things logical and methodical so that things are easy to find down the road. Take a hard look at your naming structure. Where are your photos stored now? What kind of folder? If it’s just a “Photos” folder, which is a dumping ground, that’s a issue. If you are a LR user and leave it up to LR to organize stuff, that is also very bad. Most people find out just how badly they are disorganized and have shit all over the place. Time to change habits. One more thing, are you using a card reader or your stupid camera to transfer images to your computer?

Did you run CMD.exe as an Administrator? You MUST right click on CMD and Run as Administrator, or else it won't work. Error 87 is most caused by not opening an Elevated Command Prompt. There are few things we could do, but honestly, it's way more involved. You might want to try and see if the manufacturer has a driver download available and all we have to do is re-install the video drivers. The other more involved way is to download a new version of Windows, create a .iso file and then tell Windows to use contents of that file to help fix Windows. Unfortunately, it isn't bullet-proof and doesn't always work. We might have to boot your laptop in Safe Mode and do a restore (keeping your files and data.) If that doesn't work, it might need a complete wipe and restore. Unfortunately, that is really beyond the scope of this Forum. I could log-in and do these things, but it would require a fast Internet Connection, and I wouldn't be doing it for free. I charge a flat $150 to do service work over the Internet, whether it works or not. With this Corona-19 going around, your local computer shop might be closed, but I'd try calling around. You might get lucky. Oh, stupid video driver problems like the one you are having are common with Windows 10. Often as the result from a Windows Update screwing things up. I've run into this type of thing more than once, and I'm sorry to say, there is no "one" fix; basically...you dork around with it until it works. Sometimes I'm at it for 3 hours or more because Windows is just being stupid and stubborn.

After the DISM commands complete, reboot your laptop. Then run the SFC /Scannow command again. You might have to run this multiple times for it to get everything.

OK, it's what I suspected. You Windows is botched up. It seems to have repaired some files, no telling which ones. What we are going to need to do is open up another Command Prompt box with it in an "elevated" status, which you right click and "Run as Administrator." This is very important as the following commands won't work unless you run CMD.exe as an Administrator, even though you might be logged in as one. Once you get the elevated command prompt box open, type the following: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth {press enter & let it do its thing.) Hopefully it will come back with saying there is a problem and it can repair it. Then type the next command: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth {press enter & let it do its thing.) This will take awhile, so be sure to have your laptop plugged in.

Sorry, I can't read that screen shot. Can you use the Snip-It tool so I can get a closer look at what it says? Have you rebooted since running SFC?

Windows Update LIES. Unless you click on "Check for Updates" and it comes back with saying "You are up to date..." (or something similar) do not trust it. So after checking for Windows updates, I want you to click on the Start Button and just start typing the letters CMD. Command Prompt should appear in the Start Menu at the top and I want you to RIGHT-CLICK IT AND SELECT "RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR." When the Command Box pops up, type the following: sfc /scannow Let Windows do its "System File Check." This will take awhile. Hopefully it will fix things, if not I have a few more commands to run.

Yeah, your video driver is really screwed up. Can you right click on the very top item in the device manager list, where it says laptop-blah blah blah and do a “Scan for new devices.” We will start there. Also, have you rebooted? What is the status of Windows Updates? Have you done a Windows Update recently?

Yeesh!! Yeah, that's a problem. Even if we moved everything over to your D Drive, PS would still complain and you really wouldn't get much of a performance boost, since more than likely you'll be working off a USB port of some kind. Hopefully a 3.0 or 3.1 Port. I'm thinking you have a 128GB SSD Drive in your laptop and by today's standards, you want 16GB of RAM at a minimum and a much larger HD. So yeah...right now your laptop is way under-powered for PS CC 21.1.1. Even if we had a 256GB HD to work with, we could make things work...but not with a 128GB Drive. That laptop is only meant for general computing, not Photoshop. Let's start with the Make/Model and let's see if we can get it upgraded. In reality, we want a 1TB SSD HD and as much RAM as your laptop can handle. Hopefully that's at least 16GB. If it isn't able to be upgraded, unfortunately, you are in the market for a new computer.

Now for Part 2.... OK, first, purchase one of the card readers that I linked to above. For the majority of today's modern computers, it will be the Sandisk Reader or the Sony XQD Reader. One of those two readers should cover just about everyone reading this article. If a computer needs a Traditional Card Reader with a USB 3.0 port, the Lexar model should work fine. Second, there are a few simple steps that need to be enabled so that the Card Reader appears on the Mac Desktop when Flash Media is installed. The added benefit is that this will also turn on the ability to see External Hard Drives as well as DVDs on the Mac Desktop. This process should take no more than a few Minutes and I'm surprised it isn't on by default already. Well, I know the reason why, I just won't bore you with the details and Apple's (Steve Jobs') way of thinking. Without further ado... Open the Finder. The easiest way is to click the Smiley Face on your DockBar: Then head to the Finder Menu (Next to the Apple Menu) and select Preferences: Once there put check-marks next to these items and change the bottom to "Macintosh HD" if you want: Finally, Click the Red Circle in the Upper Left Corner to save the new changes and close the Preferences box. Now when you insert an External HD or Camera Memory Card into a Card Reader, they will appear on the Mac Desktop. For example: To access my images, I simply double-click on the Nikon D850 Icon and navigate to where the camera stores the images: Then it's a simple matter of creating a folder on my Hard Drive of choice and then performing a COPY AND PASTE on my image files. It is IMPERATIVE THAT YOU ALWAYS Copy-and-Paste and never-ever perform a Move / Cut-and-Paste. Why? If something were to go wrong during the Data Transfer, with a Copy-and-Paste Method, you can simply either click Cancel or try Copying again. Unfortunately, you will not have that option with a Move or Cut-and-Paste! Your images could go "Poof!" Without you realizing and then we are thinking about performing data-recovery to get those images back; with a Cut-and-Paste Method, you are not only copying but deleting the source-file as it does the Data Transfer. Save yourself the potential stress and frustration and always "Copy & Paste." Life is too short as it is.

This is another common topic that comes up from time to time and seems to get more push-back than other topics. My guess is this stems from a person's habit and when they are told that it isn't the best way to do things, they will often question it or downright start a flame-war in threads. I feel that this push-back boils down to the fact that most people do not like change or to be told they are doing things wrong. "GASP!?!?!?!!" How dare we suggest changing your Workflow for the better?!?!!! When either Damien, myself or one of the Admins suggest using a card reader, we are often met with the response of, "Why?!? I've always hooked up my camera to my computer to transfer images for the last ____ years with no problems!?!" This is turn is usually followed by, "OK, what brand of Card Reader do you recommend?" Well, this article should hopefully answer all of these questions. I plan on having two parts, one, to answer the question of why you should use a card reader and what brand do I recommend. Part Two, will cover on what Macintosh Users should do. Speed. This is the easiest benefit to mention, time is money, and this is the fastest way to transfer images to your computer is to use a Card Reader. Period. Even though your camera might have a USB 3.0 port, the CPU in the camera or the chips responsible for transferring data may not be the fastest option. This is especially true with today's modern cameras, which are usually 24MP or more. Raw files are typically larger now than ever before; to give you an example, my Nikon D850 produces Raw files that are around 100MB...each. So my reality is 64GB and 128GB cards, instead of an 8GB / 16GB card setup. In addition, today's modern cards are FAST, in both terms of write-speeds but often read-speeds, even on the lower-end models. Your camera may not take full advantage of these modern read/write times (especially read-times) which means you'll wait around longer to transfer your images to your computer. A Card Reader on the other-hand, doesn't suffer the usual fate of Manufacture's cutting corners to save money, they just work at the speeds they should; they only have to worry about themselves and not the .30 cent saving for each body produced. Why worry about savings? That's because the majority of the time, a certain type of interface is Patented and Copyrighted, which causes licensing fees and royalties paid to the owner of the Patents and Copyrights. That's why often you will see a certain thing being used across multiple brands, it's usually Royalty-Free. Just think, if an Airline can save $480,000 by eliminating 2 olives from each jar annually in fuel savings, just think what a .30 cent saving can do multiplied by millions of camera bodies! (or whatever.) Power Issues. Let's face it, your camera is powered by a battery, and with Lithium-Ion Batteries, which are the most common-type of batteries used, from Cameras to Cars, are known to lose power abruptly, without warning, and this in turn will shut your device off. Anyone with a Smartphone that had a battery at 18% suddenly drop to 0% can vouch for this. What happens when you are in the middle of a data transfer and this were to happen? The chances of something corrupting have dramatically increased. Of course, this wouldn't happen all the time, but let's take Murphy's Law into consideration: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong..." When you hook your camera up to your computer, it usually uses MORE power to maintain connectivity than if you just used the camera out-right as a camera. So your batteries just drain faster, it's inevitable for this to happen. Imagine you are transferring images from some important event, like a Wedding? Or images from a Photo-shoot with "Nana at the Nursing Home" who won't be around much longer? What happens to you and your business, along with your reputation, if they go "Poof" just because your camera died all of a sudden during a data-dump? I'm sure someone reading this article, "But that's NEVER happened to me in five years!!!" (or whatever.) My response: I was also in this "Camp," I NEVER had a battery die on me unexpectedly, I've ALWAYS used fully charged batteries at the start of a gig..." Well guess what? It happened to me. I had a fully charged battery, was about to photograph something extremely important and my camera died within 30 seconds of turning it on. Fortunately, I had about 2 min to spare and was able to swap batteries and keep going, but that always taught me to NEVER assume anything. To put it another way, saying you've never had a camera die on you unexpectedly is like saying you have never gotten a speeding ticket or have been in a car accident, even though you routinely speed and blow through intersections as the traffic lights are changing. I say it's only a matter of time, a WHEN instead of an IF... Connectivity Issues. Frankly, it is a Royal Pain in the ASS to get your camera talking to your computer correctly. ESPECIALLY IF YOU OWN A MACINTOSH COMPUTER. The MacOS is based on an old operating system from the 1970's, called UNIX. (Pronounced You-Knicks). This OS is very stable and just flat-out works. The downside, is that newer devices, like external hard drives, CD-ROMS, (Now DVD/Blue-Ray Drives) and cameras did not exist when this OS was first written. Over the years they have made work-arounds possible, but they aren't fool-proof. Just ask any Mac user who hooks up a camera to their Mac and wonder why it doesn't appear in the list of devices. This is often caused by a camera setting that isn't turned on, or even a camera driver issue that just doesn't play well with the MacOS. With a card reader being used on a Mac, it treats the CF / SD / XQD / CFExpress Card / Reader as an external hard drive. All you need to do is turn something on in the MacOS (more on this below) and navigate to where your images are stored on the card. It's really quite simple. Windows on the other hand, seems to have an easier time, but I feel that this is due to Microsoft's Operating System being more modern and its "Open Environment" Policy, as opposed to Apples "Closed Environment." There are just more drivers, and experience with a Windows OS and hooking a camera up to it. That being said, Windows isn't immune to the same pitfalls as the MacOS is when hooking up a camera, there is just a less of a chance of things not working. Wear-and-Tear. As with anything being man-made, things wear out or degrade over time. Plugging and unplugging a USB Cable introduces a whole other set of potential problems developing with your camera. Often today's electronics usually have Eco-Friendly Solder, which means it doesn't contain Lead, which is a good thing for the Earth, but not a great thing for electronics. Plugging and Unplugging a cable into a port that is mounted to a small motherboard, which Eco-Friendly Solder can cause the port to develop something called "Cold Solder Joints." This creates a faulty connection which can only be resolved by sending your camera into the Manufacture (or Authorized Repair Facility) to have the motherboard replaced. This in turn causes shipping, labor, parts, and possible tax charges, which usually result in a few hundred dollars for a repair. From my perspective, it's much easier to buy a new Card Reader for $30 and replace the bad one, instead of blowing $400+ to have my camera repaired. The other wear-and-tear component, is the card slot itself. Now, this affects CF cards more-so than SD / XQD / CFExpress style as CF card slots have physical tiny pins, that over time, can bend out of position. Often this results in creating damage to the CF Card and can cause damage to other cameras as well. For example, I knew of a Wedding Photographer who shot with two Canon 5D Mark II bodies. He had a bad CF Slot in Camera 1 and didn't know it. The camera wouldn't take pictures so he popped out the CF Card from Camera 1 and inserted it into Camera 2, his backup. Well it turns out that Camera 1 had a bent pin and shorted out the CF Card. When he put the damaged CF Card from Camera 1 into Camera 2...it fried the electronics on Camera 2. Imagine being a Wedding Photographer, who was about to start photographing the Ceremony with the Bride walking down the aisle and have TWO camera bodies die on you in a matter of seconds?!?!! Fortunately, he had a 2nd shooter and used their backup body to finish the Gig with a different CF Card. Of course, technology is improving and I'm very excited to see the XQD Format and CFExpress Type B format take foot-hold in the industry. Not only are these cards A LOT more durable and faster, they don't have physical pins in the slots to bend, which could cause catastrophic failure along the way. That said, there are still many cameras in use today that still have CF Slots. Cross-Compatibility & Reliability. When you use a Card Reader, it doesn't matter what camera you use, which makes things more universal, it just works. Now I'm sure many people that will come across this article and say that they only shoot with one camera body, and that's fine. I'm talking about the other side who have multiple bodies or shoot with someone that uses a completely different brand. Even if you use the same brand, Camera A may not be able to read Camera B's cards, or vice-versa. Again, the Card Reader does not care, it's all "Data" as far as it's concerned all that matters is that the Card Reader is designed to use the Card that is being inserted. Data / Image Recovery. If you ever accidentally format a card or worse yet, have some sort of error message appear when shooting, you will more than likely want to try some form of data recovery to get those images back. This is SO MUCH EASIER TO ACCOMPLISH when using a Card Reader; because in a sense, your Card Reader & Card become a pseudo HD, well...at least as your computer is concerned. Trying to recover images while your card is in your camera, makes things unnecessarily difficult. If you are put in this very stressful situation of lost images for clients, why bother adding to the stress? Just use a card reader to eliminate some of that stress. When we use a Card Reader, camera's USB Port wear-and-tear, battery life, speed and compatibility issues all go away. From my perspective, EVERYONE SHOULD BE USING A CARD-READER. They aren't that expensive and are useful. Here are a few Card Readers that I recommend: (Prices as of March 15, 2020) CF / SD / MiniSD / MMC Media - Lexar Multi-Card 25-in-1 USB 3.0 Memory Card Reader - $34.99 CF / SD / MicroSD Media - SanDisk ImageMate Pro USB Type-C Reader - $35.95 XQD / SD Card Media (Reads XQD / SD only) - Rocketek USB3.0 XQD/SD Card Reader - $24.99 XQD / CFExpress Type B (Reads both, more future-proof, highly recommended) - Sony MRW-G1 - $99.99

Only way I know of is copy and paste outside of Bridge. This is more of a Damien / Bridge question.

Open your Time Machine Preferences and look for a section to exclude a HD, such as your other EHD and add it to the list. This way TM will ignore your 2nd EHD (Data Drive) and only backup the internal. That’s how mine is setup. I’d give you screenshots, but since your OS is a few versions old your screen will look different. Feel free to post a screenshot if you need help.