Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac: 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 how to keep track of where these photos are stored. As a digital photographer, you don’t have to deal with shoeboxes stuffed with prints, but you still have 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, open files that are already on your computer, and create a new file from scratch. After that, you’ll learn how to use Adobe Bridge to sort and find your pictures once they’re on your Mac. Finally, you’ll find out how to save the work you create in Elements and how to make backups.

Note

In addition to the info about Bridge in this chapter, Appendix C (Adobe Bridge CS4 Menu) contains a complete list and descriptions of Bridge’s menu items.

Importing from Cameras

You have four ways to get photos from your camera or memory card reader onto your computer:

Note

Take a moment to read the instructions from your camera’s manufacturer. If those directions tell you to do something differently than anything you read here, follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

• iPhoto. Your Mac comes set up to launch iPhoto whenever it detects incoming ...