Photoshop Elements 11: The Missing Manual

Appendix A. Installation and Troubleshooting

Elements is easy to install and is pretty trouble-free once it’s up and running. This appendix describes some things you can do to ensure a smooth installation, and provides cures for most of the little glitches that can crop up once you’re using the program.

Like printing, installing Elements works quite a bit differently depending on whether you have a Windows computer or a Mac. This is partly due to the differing ways the two platforms install programs. But another big difference is that, on a Mac, you get asked to create an Adobe ID (see Installing Elements on a Mac) during the installation process; the installer then registers your copy of Elements. In Windows, on the other hand, you create an Adobe ID from the Welcome screen or from within Elements itself when you run the program for the first time (see Installing Elements on a Mac).

Regardless of what kind of computer you have, you need to install Elements when you’re logged into an administrator account on your machine. (If you’ve never done anything to change your account and there’s only one account on your computer, it’s almost certainly an administratior account.)

Note

If you have a previous version of Elements on your computer, you don’t need to remove it before installing Elements 11. All versions of Elements run completely separately, so you can keep older versions if you want.

Make sure you have your Elements serial number handy before you start the installation process. You ...