Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual

Chapter 2. Importing, Managing, and Saving Your Photos

Now that you've had a look around Elements, it's time to start learning how to get photos into the program, and also how to keep track of where these photos are stored. As a digital photographer, you may no longer be facing shoeboxes stuffed with prints, but you've still got to face the menace of photos piling up on your hard drive. Fortunately, Elements gives you some great tools for organizing your collection and quickly finding individual pictures.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to import your photos from cameras, memory card readers, and scanners. You'll also find out how to import individual frames from videos, how to open files that are already on your computer, and how to create a new file from scratch. After that, you'll learn how to use the Organizer to sort and find your pictures once they're in Elements. Finally, you'll learn how to save the work you create in Elements and how to make backups.

Importing from Cameras

Elements gives you lots of different ways to get photos from camera to computer, but the simplest tool is Adobe's Photo Downloader. Even if you don't like the Downloader, read on. Later in this section, you'll learn about other ways to import your photos.

Note

Take a moment to carefully read the instructions from your camera manufacturer. Those directions should always take precedence over anything you read here that suggests doing something differently.

The Photo Downloader

You may have already made the acquaintance ...