Chapter 1

Examining the Elements Environment

In This Chapter

Working with the Organizer

Setting up your workspaces

Moving through the Menu bar and context menus

Picking settings in the Options panel

Playing around with panels and bins

Shortening your steps with shortcuts

Getting a helping hand

Photoshop Elements 13 continues to evolve with new tools and features. Both Windows and Macintosh users also have continued support for the Organizer and its file management, creation, and file-sharing opportunities.

In this release, there is greater consistency between Macintosh and Windows version. For example, the Slide Show creation that was previsously limited to Windows users is now available on the Mac. Photo Mail, which was also a Windows-only feature, has been eliminated from the Share panel, making the Create and Share panels identical on both operating systems.

This chapter starts with some essential tasks to make your photo management and editing experiences an easy process. This chapter's content may not be the most fun part of this book, but it's a critical first step for anyone new to Elements. Stay with us while we break down all the areas in the Photoshop Elements workspace, where you can turn that photo of Aunt Gina into something that Whistler's mom would envy.

Launching Elements

After running the installer from the Photoshop Elements DVD-ROM or downloading the program from the Adobe Store (or Apple App Store for Mac users), double-click the program icon to launch Elements. When the program launches, you see the Adobe Photoshop Elements Welcome screen, as shown in Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1: The Photoshop Elements Welcome screen for Windows.

On the Welcome screen, you find two buttons for opening the Organizer and the Photo Editor. Click one of these buttons, and you open the respective Elements application:

• Organizer: Click the Organizer button, and Elements opens the Organizer, the window where you take care of a plethora of file-management and organization tasks. Among your other options, you can choose to load pictures in the Organizer window so that they're ready to use for all your projects. The Organizer is available to Macintosh users in Photoshop Elements 9 and above as well as to Windows users.
• Photo Editor: Click the Photo Editor button to open the Photoshop Elements Photo Editor, where you perform all the editing for your photos.
• Settings: Click Settings (the sprocket icon) to open the Adobe Photoshop Elements 13 preferences for the startup window. Here, you can choose to show the window on startup, open only the Organizer, or open only the Photo Editor. By default, the Welcome screen is set to always open when Elements is launched.
• Close: Click the X on the Welcome screen to close it. Closing the Welcome screen has no effect on the Editors or the Organizer. If either or all are open, they remain open when you close the Welcome screen.

First glance at eLive

Whether you launch the Organizer or Photo Editor for the first time, you may see the eLive tab selected by default. The next time you launch Elements, the last tab you selected from your last session opens the respective tab.

eLive is a new feature in Elements that offers you help, tutorial assistance, and information related to updates. When you first begin to explore Elements, take a look at the various options you have for learning more about the program.

eLive has three separate categories and a View All category (called Everything) where all options are shown in the eLive window. You select a category by opening the drop-down menu from the left side of the window. Here you find:

• Learn: Click this item to learn various techniques in editing photos.
• Inspire: Click this item to view some inspirational creations.
• News: Click this tab to view updated Elements news items such as updates and announcements.

The "Live" reference in the name of the eLive tab is because the tab shows updated information as Adobe posts it. The interface is web based, and new updates to the individual items occur routinely. Be sure to explore eLive to keep updated with new ideas and announcements.

Getting familiar with your hardware

Wait! Stop! Hold on! Before you launch Elements, be advised that there are certain minimum hardware requirements necessary to run the programs. The minimum requirements recommended by Adobe include the following:

• Common requirements for all systems: 1GB of RAM (2GB for HD video functions), 4GB of available hard-disk space (additional space is needed for installation), DVD drive (optional for installing from a DVD drive), and an Internet connection for product activation.
• Windows requirements: Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 3, Windows Vista with Service Pack 2, Windows 7, or Windows 8. Note that Windows XP offers only limited functionality for Camera Raw files. See Book III, Chapter 4, for an introduction to Camera Raw.

  You also need the following on a Windows computer: 1.6 GHz or faster processor (including single core support), color monitor with 16-bit color video card, 1024 x 768 monitor resolution, and Microsoft DirectX 9 compatible display driver.

  New in Elements 13 is support for 64-bit Windows operating systems. You can use eaither 32-bit or 64-bit computers.

• Macintosh requirements: 64-bit Multi-core Intel processor, Mac OS X v10.7, 1024 x 768 display resolution, QuickTime 7 software required for multimedia features.

Note that the preceding specifications are what Adobe recommends for problem-free operation. You may be able to run Elements with older operating systems and less hardware power, but Adobe does not recommend it.

Every time you launch Photoshop Elements, the Welcome screen is the first item you see on your monitor, unless you change the default to Organizer or Photo Editor. From the Welcome screen, you choose the kind of tasks you want to accomplish in a session. If you want to change from one window to another, for example, or change from the Organizer to the Photo Editor, you can easily navigate workspaces after you open one editing environment, as we explain in the section "Navigating the Different Modes," later in this chapter.

The window you see in Figure 1-1, along with any of the help information displayed there, may be slightly different from what you see on your monitor when you launch Elements. The Welcome screen displays dynamic content, and Adobe changes the content routinely.

Opening the Organizer

The Organizer is one of several workspaces available to you with Photoshop Elements. Unless you have an immediate task at hand for editing a photo in the Photo Editor workspace, the Organizer is often going to be your first workspace to visit. In the Organizer, you can manage photos and navigate to every other editing workspace that Elements provides you.

The Organizer is almost identical on both Windows and Macintosh computers. Many screenshots showing the Organizer in this book equally apply to both Windows and Macintosh users.

To open the Organizer, click the Organize button on the Welcome screen. When you install Elements and first open the Organizer, you see an empty screen, as shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2: Upon your first launch of the Organizer, you see an empty workspace.

You can add photos to the Organizer window by using a variety of options that we cover in Book II, Chapter 1. For now, we focus on looking at the Organizer tools and understanding how they work. Some of the more important tools in the Organizer include

1. Elements Organizer button: On a Windows machine, clicking this button opens a menu where you can choose to close, minimize, and maximize the Organizer workspace. The icon represents the Organizer. In other workspaces, such as the Photo Editor, clicking the icon returns you to the Organizer window. On the Mac, no such icon exists.
2. Menu bar: The menus contain all the commands you use in the Organizer workspace. On the Macintosh, the menu bar is positioned above the Organizer workspace and a menu item titled Elements Organizer appears in the menu bar. Throughout this book, we talk about using menu commands.
3. eLive. In Elements 13, you find five tabs at the top of the Organizer window above the Media Browser (see Y). The first tab, called eLive, is a new addition to Elements 13. When you click this tab you find a number of help articles, tutorials, and examples to assist you in learning more about Elements.
4. Media: When you click Media, thumbnail images of your media appear in the Media Browser.
5. People: Click this tab, and all images with people tags are shown in the Media Browser.
6. Places: Click the Places tab, and you see images in the Media Browser that have been tagged as locations. When you click this tab and click the Tags/Info button (item GG), the Map button appears at the bottom of the Panel Bin (item S). Click the Map...