Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows: The Missing Manual

Opening Stored Images

If you've got photos already stored on your computer, you have several options for opening them with Elements. If the file format is set to open in Elements, then double-click the file's icon to launch Elements and open the image. (If you want to change which files open automatically in Elements, see the box on Working with PDF Files.) You've also got a few ways to open files from within Elements:

• From the Organizer, for files not yet in the Organizer: Go to File → Get Photos and Videos → "From Files and Folders" or press Ctrl+Shift+G, navigate to your photo, and then select your file and click Get Media. The other options in the Get Photos menu (like fixing red eye and automatically suggesting photo stacks) are covered on The Photo Downloader. Then follow the steps in the next bullet point for opening your photos in the Editor.

• From the Organizer, for files already in the Organizer: You can select an image that's stored in the Organizer and open it directly in the Editor. To do so, in the Organizer, click the file's thumbnail, and then press Ctrl+I; right-click and choose Edit with Photoshop Elements; or click the Fix button at the upper right of the screen, and select Full Photo Edit (if you'd rather go to Quick Fix [Adding Canvas] or Guided Edit [Getting Help], then select Quick Photo Edit or Guided Photo Edit instead). You can also Shift-click or Ctrl-click to select multiple photos before using any of these commands, and all those photos go to the Editor. ...