Loading Elements produces a welcome screen as shown below. If you select View and Organize Photos (item 1), you can download images from your camera, card reader, or from folders on your hard disk and organize your images. (The other circled item (2) is to go into an editing mode. It is discussed below.)
If you select View and Organize Photos (1 above) you'll see a "slide sorter" view like:
You can do many things in this mode including importing from a camera or from existing files, and/or you can organize images into collections, order prints, or create slide shows, etc.. You can also shift into one of several editing modes (in Elements or Photoshop), by clicking on the pop-up next to Edit (shown in red above).
Importing Photos from a Camera or Card Reader
In this section we explore moving your photos from your camera to your computer. To do this, you can either connect the cable that came with your camera, or remove the camera's memory card and insert it in a device called a card reader that you attach to the computer. We recommend using a card reader. They are readily available from many retail outlets. This way, you can avoid the disaster that can happen if your camera battery dies in the middle of downloading all the images from its memory card. Card readers are also normally much faster at transferring data than the camera itself.
In Windows XP or on a Mac, if you attach a card reader or camera with a card inserted, the system will automatically recognize the card and will assume you want to download the pictures. In Windows XP, a menu appears asking what program to use. Choose Adobe Elements. (On a Mac, you should use iPhoto or Aperture. We'll assume, in the rest of this section that you're using Windows XP.)
Once you've selected Elements, the computer will launch Elements and show you a screen similar to that shown below. Generally, leave the settings the way the program suggests. It will create the proper folder according to the date of import and name the files for you. Just click the Get Photos Button.
After the import is done, the computer will ask if you wish to delete the images in the card. Usually say yes. We generally do this, but also format the card in the camera every other time you use it. Once this is done an Organizer screen appears and you should create one or several Collections to put the new images into. For example, the images in this document are from a trip to Sicily, so we clicked the button named New (circled in red below) and used the name Sicily for the collection. Then drag all the images onto the collection icon. You can do this one at a time. This can be tedious. You can also do a Select All (Ctrl-A) and drag them all. Or, you can use a Clik-Shift Click technique to select a group to drag. Once you have done this step, click the Back to All Photos button to return to normal Elements work.
Viewing Photos
You can view photos in different ways in the organizer. There is a slider in the lower right section of the window to adjust the scale of what you see. Try it. If you hit F11, the computer will go into "Full Screen" viewing. This gives an enlarged view of whatever image you've selected (clicked on). A dialog will appear when you hit this. This is about entering a slide show if you'd like. If you select the button Start Playing Automatically (in red below) a slide show will begin. If you don't, just the selected image will be displayed. When viewing an image, if you move your cursor near the top of the screen a menu will appear. You have a zoom slider on the right side. You can also select an icon near the middle that allows you to view two images side-by-side. You can click on either and use the right or left arrow keys to move to other images. To get out of this mode, hit the Escape key (Esc).
To get into the editing mode, either start at the welcome screen (top one) and click Edit and Enhance Photos (item 2) or select a photo from your albums and click Edit and pick Standard Edit.
In Edit mode, you'll get a tool bar on the left and information and control windows on the right. To open a file, pull down under File to Open. Below we show what you'd get after opening a couple of files. Actually, if you just open two files, one after the other, it will look at first like you can only work on one at a time. To fix this, click on the "Tile" button (circled in red below) and then adjust the placement and view. Return to the page with an introduction to Photoshop and Elements for a discussion of why you should do this.
Note that the editing tools are quite similar to those in Photoshop. They are arranged a bit differently in Elements. There are some added tools here. For example, Elements has a red-eye removal tool that's very effective.
Red Eye Removal Tool
On import of images, Elements can check and remove red-eye. Don't use the feature there. Its harder to undo if you don't like what it does. To remove red eye follow the steps used in the following example. In the organizer (Photo Browser), click on an image that has a red-eye problem and click on Edit and choose Standard Edit. Magnify to have a clear view. Choose the red-eye tool (circled below in red). In the tool menu (above the image), click Auto. If you don't like the result, Edit -> Undo and adjust pupil size and Darken Amount. and drag a box around an eye and see the effect. Experiment.
More about editing in Elements or Photoshop.
Page author: Bob Fry
Created 11 July 2006