Are you running out of hard drive space? Worried that Photoshop Elements is taking up all your free space?

I have PSE on my desktop. I follow you and read your column, but I have not yet tried to do anything. But what I have noticed is how big the PSE application is. I do not have much hard drive left with that application and my photos.

These are questions that are in my head and preventing me from moving forward with digital scrapbooking. I have no grandchildren yet. I would like to have digital scrapbooking down before I have any, as I wont have a lot of time then. I will be too busy making memories. Thanks in advance.

- Debra

The Facts of Life: Photo Editors Take Space

• Photoshop Elements 14 takes up 2.9 gigabytes (Gb)
• Photoshop CC 2015 1.9 Gb
• Picasa takes just 0.2 Gb

The Organizer Doesn't Make Copies of Your Photos

When you import photos into Photoshop Elements Organizer is won't copy your photos, it will generate thumbnails, which take a up a little space, but you don't have to stress that you'll be doubling the space required.

Your Photos Take Up More Space

Why You Should Keep Your Photos on Your Desktop Computer

If you have a desktop computer (eg, not a laptop or tablet) that's the best place to keep your working copy of your photos.

A desktop computer has:

• better cooling
• less risk of phsyical damage (laptops can be dropped, left in the sun, bumped and knocked)
• more stable power supplies and
• bigger hard drives

If you are running low on disk space, I would recommend you look at adding another internal hard drive for your computer first. Your local computer shop will be able to install one for about $100-200 and they will also be able to look at what is taking up all your hard drive space.

What If You Use a Laptop?

All is not lost, you can go ahead and use your laptop drive as long as you have space. Many laptops have expandable hard drives, so again, I'd recommend you try this before moving to an external hard drive.

Whatever You Do - Back Up!

I guess I wasn't quite right about external drives being the number one cause of photo loss. Not having a backup, or having an out of date backup is.

There's really no reason not to use an online backup service these days. For less than $100 a year, you can have a fully automated, highly secure backup that you don't have to think about (Well, ok best to check it's still running every month or two!). Please, don't wait till it's too late. Just do it!

You can see more details and options for backups here.