Photoshop Elements 3 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Using the Undo History

Palette

The Undo History palette lets you move

backward and forward through a work ses-

sion, allowing you to make multiple undos

to any editing changes you’ve made to your

image. Photoshop Elements records every

change and then lists it as a separate entry,

or state, on the palette. With one click, you

can navigate to any state and then choose to

work forward from there, return again to the

previous state, or select a different state from

which to work forward.

To navigate through the

Undo History palette:

1.

To open the Undo History palette, do one

of the following:

▲

From the Window menu, choose

Undo History.

▲

From the palette well, click the arrow

on the Undo History palette tab.

2.

To move to a different state in the Undo

History palette, do one of the following:

▲

Click the name of any state.

▲

Drag the palette slider up or down to a

different state (Figure 5.66).

✔ Tips

■

The default number of states that the

Undo History palette saves is 20. After 20,

the first state is cleared from the list,

and the palette continues to list just the

20 most recent states. The good news is

that, at any time, you can bump the num-

ber of saved states up to 100, provided

that your computer has enough memory.

From the Edit menu, choose Preferences >

General, then in the Preferences dialog

box enter a larger number in the Undo

History States field.

Figure 5.66 Use the palette slider to move to virtually

any point in time in the creation of your project.

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Chapter 5

Using the Undo History Palette

■

If, on the other hand, memory is at a

premium (and you’d rather Photoshop

Elements wasn’t clogging up your pre-

cious RAM by remembering your last

20 selections and brush strokes and filter

effects), set the number in the Undo

History States field to 1. You can still

undo and redo your last action as you

work along, but for all practical purposes,

the Undo History palette is turned off.

Figure 5.68 If system memory is a concern, you can

periodically clear the palette of all states.

Figure 5.67 Delete any state by selecting it and

choosing Delete from the palette menu.

To delete a state:

◆

Click the name of any state; then

choose Delete from the palette menu

(Figure 5.67) or click the Trash button.

The selected state and all states following

it are deleted.

✔ Tips

■

Deletion of a state can be undone, but

only if no changes are applied to the

image in the interim. If you make a

change to the image that creates a new

state on the palette, then all deleted

states are permanently lost.

■

Sometimes—when you’re working on an

especially complex piece, for instance—

the Undo History palette may become

filled with states that you no longer need

to manage or return to or that begin to

take their toll on your system’s memory.

At any time, you can clear the palette’s

list of states, without changing the image.

To clear the Undo History palette:

Do one of the following:

◆

From the palette menu, choose Clear

Undo History (Figure 5.68).

This action can be undone, but it doesn’t

reduce the amount of memory used by

Photoshop Elements.

◆

Hold down Alt/Option; then choose Clear

History from the palette menu.

This action cannot be undone, but it does

purge the list of states from the memory

buffer. This can come in handy if a mes-

sage appears telling you that Photoshop

Elements is low on memory.

157

Working with Layers

Using the Undo History Palette