Chapter 4: Using Advanced Organizing Tools
Photoshop Elements gives you a number of advanced tools for managing the images in a collection. For example, you can create Smart Albums that automatically group photos that meet certain criteria. You can associate special terms, known as keyword tags, with photos to help you identify their content.
Apply Photo Fixes in Full Screen
Create a Smart Album
A Smart Album has special criteria that determine what Photoshop Elements adds to the album. You can create Smart Albums for particular dates, tags, camera models, file sizes, and more. When you add a photo to the Organizer that meets the criteria for a Smart Album, Photoshop Elements automatically places that photo in the Smart Album.
If you regularly add keyword tags to family members in your photos, you can create a Smart Album for your family by setting rules that recognize those tags. You can create a date-based Smart Album to collect all the photos taken on your birthday or a holiday. The Organizer starts with a default Smart Album that contains all photos taken in the past six months.
Create a Smart Album
Open the Albums panel in the Organizer bin.
Click the plus sign (
) and then click New Smart Album.
The New Smart Album dialog box opens.
Type a name for your Smart Album.
Click the down arrow (
) to choose a photo attribute.
Click the to choose the criterion for the attribute.
A You can click the plus sign (
) to add additional criteria.
B If your Smart Album includes more than one criterion, you can specify whether the album requires any or all of the criteria to be met.
Click OK.
Photoshop Elements automatically adds photos that meet the criteria to the Smart Album and then displays the album in the Photo Browser.
As you add more photos to your catalog, photos that meet the criteria are automatically added to the Smart Album.
C You can click Options and then Modify Search Criteria to change the Smart Album settings.
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How can I create an album category?
You can organize similar albums in your Organizer into album categories.
Click the plus sign () and then click New Album Category.
The Create Album Category dialog box opens.
Type a name for the album category.
Click OK.
Photoshop Elements creates a new album category in the Albums panel. You can add albums to the category when you create them.
Work with Keyword Tags
Keyword tags help you categorize and filter your digital photos. For example, you can create a tag called car and apply it to all your photos of cars. You can assign the Organizer’s preset tags or use tags that you have created. You can also assign more than one tag to a photo. For example, a photo of an automobile could have a car tag as well as a convertible tag.
Preset tags include those for people, family, friends, places, and events. You can assign tags to categories and subcategories.
Work with Keyword Tags
Create a Keyword Tag
In the Organizer, open the Keyword Tags panel in the Organizer bin.
Click the and then click New Keyword Tag.
The Create Keyword Tag dialog box opens.
Click the and choose a category for the new tag.
Type a name for the keyword tag.
A You can add a note about the keyword tag here.
Click OK.
Assign Tags
Click and drag the tag from the Keyword Tags panel and then drop it on the photo you want to tag.
B The Organizer assigns the keyword tag. A keyword tag icon indicates that the photo has a tag assigned to it.
You can also drag a thumbnail image from the Media Browser to a keyword tag to assign a tag.
The tag displays a thumbnail image of the first photo it was assigned to.
Type text for a tag in the Keyword Tags search box.
Photoshop Elements suggests tags with that text.
Click a tag in the list that appears.
+click (
+click on a Mac) to select photos you want to tag.
Click Apply.
C Photoshop Elements applies the tag to the selected photos.
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How do I edit a keyword tag?
Right-click the keyword tag and then choose Edit name keyword tag.
The Edit Keyword Tag dialog box opens.
Type a new keyword tag name or make other edits to the tag.
Click OK.
Photoshop Elements applies the changes. Any images that have the keyword tag applied are updated.
After you assign keyword tags, you can filter your catalog to show only those photos that have certain tags. For example, you can filter your photos to show only photos of people or events. You can also simultaneously filter multiple keyword tags.
To learn about how to quickly add tags to people in your photos by recognizing their faces, see “Tag Faces.” Another way to filter photos in your Organizer catalog is to place them into albums. See “Create a Smart Album” for more about albums.
Filter by Tags
Open the Keyword Tags panel if it is not already displayed.
Click the check box next to the keyword tag on which you want to filter (
changes to 
).
A You can click 
to expand a tag category.
B You can click 
to collapse a tag category.
To filter by more than one keyword tag, you can click additional tags.
C The Organizer displays the photos that share the keyword tag.
If you selected multiple tags, only photos that have all the tags appear.
Remove a Tag from a Photo
Right-click the photo containing the tag you want to remove.
Click Remove Keyword Tag.
Click the keyword tag you want to remove.
The Organizer removes the keyword tag from the photo.
D If the Media Browser was being filtered by the tag, the photo disappears.
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How can I use keyword tags when I use the regular search box?
The regular search box suggests keyword tags as you type search terms.
Type text in the search box.
A Photoshop Elements displays any keywords that match the text.
Click the keyword tag to display tagged photos with that keyword.
Tag Faces
You can use the Organizer’s face-recognition feature to pinpoint the faces in your photos for easy tagging. Photoshop Elements automatically scans photos in the Organizer for the colors and structures characteristic of human faces. It then presents just the faces from the photos for you to classify.
As you label the faces, Photoshop Elements creates custom keyword tags in the People category for the friends and family members whose faces appear often in your photos. You can select the face tags to quickly display photos of specific people from your collection.
Tag Faces
In the Organizer, open the Keyword Tags panel if it is not already displayed.
+click (+click on a Mac) to select the photos in which you want to recognize faces.
If you do not select any photos, Photoshop Elements searches all the photos.
Click the Start People Recognition button (
).
Photoshop Elements searches for faces and displays the results in a People Recognition dialog box.
A Recognized faces are highlighted in boxes.
Click a box.
Type a descriptive tag, such as a name for the face.
Press 
.
Photoshop Elements tags the face.
Repeat steps 4 to 6 for the other faces.
B You can right-click a box to open a menu that enables you to ignore a face or mark the selection as not a face.
When you finish adding tags, click Save.
C Photoshop Elements creates tags for the labeled faces under the People tag category.
You can double-click a tag to display only images with that tag.
D Images with labeled faces are marked with tag icons.
Note: For more on using tags to filter photos, see the section “Work with Keyword Tags.”
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How do I tag my friends on Facebook in my photos?
Share photos from Elements on Facebook.
Elements downloads your Facebook friend information.
Note: For details, see Chapter 17.
Complete steps 1 to 4 above to tag faces with names.
A As you type a name, Elements suggests similar Facebook friends, prefixed with 
.
Click a name.
Elements creates a keyword tag for that Facebook friend.
Apply Photo Fixes in Full Screen
You can optimize color, lighting, and other aspects of your photos in the Organizer’s Full Screen view. This can be convenient when you want to make simple changes to your photos in the Organizer but do not want to switch to the Editor. You apply commands by using the Quick Edit panel.
Most of the fixes available in the Full Screen view are automatic fixes requiring a single click of a button. You can also add photos to albums and apply keyword tags in Full Screen view. For more on Full Screen view, see Chapter 3. For more on opening the Editor, see Chapter 1.
Apply Photo Fixes in Full Screen
In the Organizer, click the photo you want to fix.
Click the Full Screen button (
).
Photoshop Elements opens the photo in Full Screen.
A A Quick Edit panel appears.
B If the panel is hidden, you can click Toggle Quick Edit Panel (
) to open it.
Position the mouse cursor over a button.
C A description of the edit command appears.
Click the button.
Photoshop Elements applies the edit.
Click 
or press 
.
Photoshop Elements exits Full Screen view.
D The edited version of the photo is saved in a photo stack with the original version of the photo.
Note: For more on stacks, see the section “Stack Photos.”
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How do I add photos to albums or apply keyword tags while in Full Screen?
If the Quick Organize panel is hidden, click Toggle Quick Organize Panel (
) to open it.
Click an album name.
Photoshop Elements adds the current photo to the album.
Click a keyword tag.
Photoshop Elements assigns the keyword tag to the current photo.
Stack Photos
In the Organizer, you can group similar photos into stacks. This can help you conserve space in the Organizer interface because stacks can be collapsed so that only the top photo on the stack appears.
Stacks can be based on any measure of similarity that you choose. For example, you can stack photos of the same scene or group of people, or photos that have similar lighting, exposure, or colors. In addition to manually stacking your photos, you can have Photoshop Elements suggest stacks based on photographic similarity.
Stack Photos
Create a Stack
In the Organizer, +click (+click on a Mac) to select the photos you want to stack.
Right-click one of the selected photos.
Click Stack.
Click Stack Selected Photos.
A You can click Automatically Suggest Photo Stacks to have Photoshop Elements suggest stacks based on photographic similarity.
B Photoshop Elements creates a stack for the selected photos. The photo that you right-clicked is placed on top of the stack and is shown here.
Click the stack button (
) to expand.
The stack expands to show its contents.
C You can click here to collapse the stack (
).
Unstack Photos
Right-click a photo in a stack. If the stack is collapsed, right-click the top photo.
Click Stack.
Click Unstack Photos.
Photoshop Elements removes the stack and places photos in the Organizer separately.
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How do I automatically stack photos as I import them?
Click File, click Get Photos and Videos, and click From Files and Folders.
In the dialog box that opens, click the Automatically Suggest Photo Stacks check box (
changes to 
).
When you import the photos, Photoshop Elements suggests groups of photos to be stacked based on their photographic similarity.
Find by Visual Similarity
You can search for photos that contain similar colors and shapes. This can be useful for tracking down specific images in a large catalog or collecting similar images for a collage or other art project.
Photos can be considered alike if they have a common appearance, even if they contain very different subject matter. For example, a photo of a yellow flower might be matched with a photo of a yellow hat. You can fine tune results by specifying whether to favor the colors or shapes in the images. You can also search based on multiple images.
Find by Visual Similarity
Click a photo to search by.
You can +click (+click on a Mac) to select multiple photos.
A If a dialog box appears asking if you want to index your photos, click OK, Start Indexing. Indexing improves the tool’s accuracy.
Click Find.
Click By Visual Searches.
Click Search for Visually similar photo(s) and video(s).
Photoshop Elements displays photos ordered by visual similarity to the selected photo. More similar photos are at the top.
Click 
.
To adjust the search, click and drag the 
to the left to favor color or to the right to favor shape.
Photoshop Elements refreshes the results based on the adjustment.
Click 
.
B An empty box appears.
Click and drag a different photo to the box to search by it as well.
Photoshop Elements refreshes the results based on similarity to both selected photos.
C You can click Show All to clear the search.
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How do I save a visual search as a Smart Album?
Photoshop Elements can automatically add similar photos to a Smart Album as you import new photos into your catalog.
Click Options.
Click Save Search Criteria as Smart Album.
In the dialog box that appears, type a name for the Smart Album.
Click OK.
For more about Smart Albums, see “Create a Smart Album.”
Find Objects
You can select an object in your photo and then search for photos from your catalog that have similar objects. You can search for the similar objects based on color, shape, or some combination of color and shape.
An object search enables you to zero in on a part of an image that interests you, such as a particular flower in a garden photo. To search for photos that have an overall likeness, see “Find by Visual Similarity.”
Find Objects
Click a photo with an object.
Click Find.
Click By Visual Searches.
Click Search for Objects within photos.
Photoshop Elements enlarges the photo and displays a selection tool.
Click and drag the selection handles (
) to surround the object.
Click Search Object.
Photoshop Elements displays photos that contain similar objects. Photos with objects the most similar are at the top.
Click .
To adjust the search, click and drag the to the left to favor color or to the right to favor shape.
Photoshop Elements refreshes the results based on the adjustment.
A You can click Show All to clear the search.
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How do I organize photos with the same content?
You can search for similar photos in your catalog and organize them into stacks.
Click Find.
Click By Visual Searches.
Click Search for Duplicate photos.
A Photoshop Elements groups photos with similar content.
Click Stack to merge a group into a stack.
For more about stacks, see “Stack Photos.”