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’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 photos from cameras, memory card readers, and scanners. You’ll also find out how to import individual frames from videos, create new files from scratch, and open files already on your computer. Then you’ll be ready for a quick tour of the Organizer, where you can sort and find pictures once they’re in Elements. Finally, you’ll learn about saving and backing up your precious files.
Note
If you bought Elements 10 from the Mac App Store, you got a special version that doesn’t include the Organizer, so the parts of this chapter about using the Organizer don’t apply.
Elements gives you lots of different ways to get photos from camera to computer, but if you use the Organizer, the simplest way is using Adobe’s Photo Downloader. Later in this section, you’ll learn about other ways to import photos.
Note
Take a moment to carefully read the instructions from your camera’s manufacturer. If those directions conflict with anything you read here, follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
What happens when you plug a camera or memory card reader into your computer depends on your operating system. If you have Windows 7 or Vista, you get a standard Windows dialog box (shown on Photo Downloader) asking what you want to do. To use the Photo Downloader to get your photos into Elements, just click “Organize and Edit using Adobe Photoshop Elements Organizer 10.0.” (If you’re using Windows XP, choose Elements Organizer 10.0 from the dialog box that appears.) On a Mac, you won’t see the Downloader at all unless you specifically tell your Mac to use it, which you do in the Organizer: Go to File→Get Photos and Videos→From Camera or Card Reader, or press ⌘-G. You can’t set the Mac Downloader to run automatically whenever you plug in a camera or card reader—you have to launch it from the Organizer.
Note
Although much of this chapter talks about importing pictures from a camera, most memory card readers work the same way. Use a card reader if you have one, since that will spare the camera’s batteries and subject your camera to less wear and tear.
The Downloader’s job is pretty straightforward: to shepherd your photos as they make the trip from camera to PC, and to make sure Elements knows where your images are stored. Your job is to help it along by adjusting the following settings (on display in Figure 2-1):
Get Photos from. Your first step in downloading is to choose your camera or card reader from the list of available devices. (You may see a more generic “Camera or Card Reader” choice rather than the name of your camera; if that’s all you see, pick that option.) Just below this menu, the Downloader lists how many photos it found and how many duplicates (of images already in the Organizer) it plans to skip.
Location. Your photos usually get stored in a folder named for the date you shot them. In Windows 7 or Vista, this folder lives in C:\Users\<your username>\Pictures; in XP, it’s C:\<your user name>\My Documents\My Pictures\Adobe\Digital Camera Photos. On a Mac, it’s your hard drive→Users→<your username>→Pictures. If you want to change where your photos are headed, click the Browse button and choose another location. You can permanently change the standard save location by opening the Organizer and going to Edit→Preferences→“Camera or Card Reader” and changing the Save Files In setting. From then on, the Downloader will put your photos in the folder you chose.
Figure 2-1. When the Photo Downloader first launches, you see this dialog box, which lets you choose where Elements puts your photos and what it names them (say goodbye to names like IMG_0327.JPG). To start, choose your camera or card reader from the “Get Photos from” list at the top of the dialog box. If you want to import only specific images, click the Advanced Dialog button (circled) so you can choose which photos to grab and fine-tune other settings.
Create Subfolder(s). If you want to have more levels of organization, you can put your files into a subfolder inside the folder you chose for the Location. This subfolder can be labeled with today’s date, the shot date (in your choice of several different formats), or a custom name.
Tip
When you name the subfolder, you can create an album (The Media Browser) of all the photos in the subfolder with just one click once you’re in the Media Browser window (Using the Organizer).
Rename Files. Here, you can choose to give all the files you’re importing a custom name. If you type in obedience_school_graduation, for example, then you get photos named obedience_school_graduation001, obedience_school_graduation002, and so on. Or you can use a combination of a custom name and the date you shot the photo. You can also use just the shot date or today’s date, or the name of the subfolder. No matter which naming scheme you choose, Elements adds a three-digit number to the end of each file’s name (as in the obedience-school example) to help you distinguish between them. You can also choose Advanced Rename to bring up a window where you can set a very complex group of parameters for naming your photos. If you leave the Rename Files field set to “Do not rename files,” then Elements keeps the camera’s filenames and numbers.
Preserve Current Filename in XMP. Turn this checkbox on if you want the photos’ current filenames to be stored in the photo’s metadata (Visual Searches).
Open Organizer when Finished (Windows only). If you’re going to put your files in the Organizer, leave this checkbox turned on. Turn it off if you don’t use the Organizer, or if you’d rather wait till later to get organized. (You won’t see this checkbox if the Organizer is already running when you import your photos.)
Delete Options. You can have the Downloader delete your files off your camera’s memory card when it’s done importing them. Figure 2-2 explains more about this option.
Figure 2-2. The Photo Downloader can delete the files from your camera or memory card reader once it’s done importing them. This feature seems handy, but think twice about using it. The Downloader is pretty reliable, but it’s always good to wait until you’ve reviewed all your photos in Elements before deleting the originals. If you really want the Downloader to delete your files, at least choose “After Copying, Verify and Delete Originals” from the Delete Options Menu to make Elements check that it has copied your files correctly before vaporizing the originals.
Automatic Download (Windows only). If you like to live dangerously, you can turn on this checkbox and Elements will download any new photos it detects without showing you the Downloader dialog box. It’s almost always best to leave Automatic Download off so that you have some control over what’s going on. (This checkbox appears only after you’ve selected a device in the “Get Photos from” menu.) If you decide to take this risky route, you can tell Elements where to put your photos and whether it should delete the originals by going to the Organizer and choosing Edit→Preferences→“Camera or Card Reader.”
The Downloader is smart enough to recognize any photos that it’s already imported, and it doesn’t reimport those. If you want to see your duplicates and for some reason download them again, or if you want to pick and choose which photos to import, then click the Advanced Dialog button at the bottom of the Downloader window to bring up the dialog box shown in Figure 2-3. (If you change your mind and want to switch back to the standard dialog box, click the Standard Dialog button.)
Figure 2-3. When you want to select which photos to import, summon the advanced Photo Downloader, shown here. To get back to the standard dialog box, click the Standard Dialog button (circled) near the bottom-left corner.
The advanced dialog box gives you all the options found in the standard Downloader window, plus a few more. The advanced dialog box is divided into two main parts. On the left side are the thumbnails of your photos. The little checkmarks next to each image indicate which photos Elements plans to import; just turn off the checkboxes for the ones you don’t want to bring into the Organizer. If you plan to import only a few images, save yourself some time by clicking Uncheck All below the preview area and then turn on the checkboxes for the ones you want. (If you’ve already imported some of the images, the Organizer tells you so and doesn’t import them again.) You can also import video and sound files.
The four buttons above the preview area (next to the word “Show”) let you choose which files you see. From left to right, the buttons are:
Show/Hide Images. If you want to temporarily hide your photos (so you can look at just your video files, for instance), click this button or press Ctrl+M/⌘-M.
Video files. This button is grayed out unless Elements finds any movie or video files on your memory card. If it does, you can hide them by clicking this button. You might do that if, say, you’re only interested in importing still photos right now. To see the video files again, just click this button.
Audio files. This button works just like the video button, but it becomes active when Elements finds audio files you may want to import.
Show Duplicates. If Elements has already imported some of the photos on your memory card and you want to see those files again, click this button and you can reimport them (or just see them for comparison’s sake). In the preview area, the thumbnails of the files you’ve already imported display an icon that looks just like this button in their upper-right corners to indicate that they’re duplicates.
Note
If you want to search for duplicates among the images already on your computer, you may think you’ve lucked out with Elements 10. Going to Find→By Visual Searches→“Search for Duplicate photos” in the Organizer sounds like just the ticket, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, this is just a visually based search and, while Elements may find some duplicates this way (as well as a lot of photos you probably don’t consider duplicates), there’s no easy way to cull through the photos it finds, since you can’t see any file information here to help you decide which of two visually identical images is the one you want to keep. All you can really do in the search results window is stack them.
The right side of the dialog box is where you can adjust the settings for where your pictures are stored on your computer and how their folders are named. Most of these choices are the same ones you get in the Photo Downloader’s standard dialog box, but you also get a few extras:
Automatically Fix Red Eyes. If you turn this checkbox on, Elements searches through all your newly imported photos looking for people with red eyes (caused by camera flash) and fixes them automatically. It sounds great, but it’s not 100 percent reliable and tends to “fix” things like bright white teeth, as well. Fortunately, these changes aren’t permanent because Elements makes a version set (File Formats Elements Understands) with your original, so you can ditch the new version if you don’t like what Elements did. But the extra time it takes for Elements to analyze all your photos and the time you’ll waste looking for mistakes mean you’re better off leaving this option turned off and using another method to fix red eyes later. See Fixing Red Eye for more about Elements’ Red Eye Removal tool. (You may find you also need to turn off Automatically Fix Red Eyes in the Organizer by going to Edit→Preferences→“Camera or Card Reader” to keep this setting from turning itself back on again.)
Automatically Suggest Photo Stacks. The Organizer lets you group related photos together into stacks (Appendix B). Turn this checkbox on to use the auto-stack feature, where Elements automatically finds photos that should be grouped together. This feature works best for photos taken in your camera’s burst (rapid advance) mode—in other words, photos of the same subject taken very close together in time.
Make ‘Group Custom Name’ a Tag. If you chose a custom name for your images, you can assign that name as a tag here. (Tags are explained on Creating Categories and Tags.)
Import into Album. Turn this checkbox on and Elements automatically adds the files you’re currently downloading to the album you choose. Click the Settings button to select an existing album or create a new one. This feature is especially useful if you’ve set up albums to automatically sync to Photoshop.com (Online Syncing and Backups).
Apply Metadata. If you want to write your name or copyright info right into the files’ metadata (Visual Searches) so that anyone who views your files will know they’re yours, you can do that here.
Once you’re done adjusting the Downloader’s settings, click Get Media. The Downloader slurps down the photos and launches the Organizer so you can review your pictures.
Tip
In Windows, you can tell the Organizer to “watch” folders that you often bring graphics—or even sound files or videos—into. (Sorry, folder watching isn’t available on Macs.) Elements automatically starts out by watching your Pictures folder, which means the program will find all the new photos that you put there. But you can have it watch other folders, too. When you set a watched folder, Elements keeps an eye on it and, when new photos appear there, either imports the new files or tells you they’re waiting for you, depending on which option you choose. In the Organizer, go to File→Watch Folders and click the Add button, and then browse to the folder you want Elements to watch. And if you don’t want Elements to watch any folders, this is where you turn this feature off.