Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Backing Up Your Files

With computers, you just never know what's going to happen, so "Be prepared" is a good motto. If your computer crashes, it won't be nearly so painful if all your photos are safely backed up someplace else. Thanks to Elements' new Photoshop.com service, you can make that happen automatically. In the event of a problem with your home computer, you can restore your photos—or at least the ones you've chosen to sync to Photoshop.com.

The Photoshop.com-as-backup system has two main downsides: First, it only comes with 2 GB of space; if you want more than that, you have to pony up for more storage, as explained on Editing Your Photos. You can back up your whole catalog (Using the Organizer) in Elements 8, but for most people that means a paid account. If you have a small catalog or a paid account, go to Organizer → Edit → Preferences → Backup/Synchronization, and click the "Backup/Sync Entire Catalog" button.

Note

As of this writing, the Photoshop.com service is restricted to U.S. residents.

If those limitations turn you off, you'll be glad to know that Elements also makes it easy to save your files to any add-on storage device—like an external hard drive—or to a CD or DVD. All these options are covered in the pages ahead.

Tip

Elements offers one frequently requested feature for making backups: You can create multisession discs. That means you can tell Elements to leave your CD or DVD "open," so that you can come back later and use the disc again to add more files to it, ...