Adding files from folders and removable media

Most people have photos on their computer’s hard drive, as well as on removable media, such as CDs or maybe even a USB flash drive. Adding images from your hard drive to the Organizer is easy. If you have a source, such as a USB flash drive or a CD, you copy files from the source to the drive where you store photos. Or you can copy files into the Organizer directly from the removable media.

The following steps explain how to import images from your hard drive into the Organizer Media Browser:

1. Click the Import button in the top-left corner of the Organizer to open the drop-down list and choose From Files and Folders.

   Alternatively, you can choose File ⇒ Get Photos and Videos ⇒ From Files and Folders.

   The Get Photos and Videos from Files and Folders dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 4-2.

   When you first click the Import button or choose File ⇒ Get Photos and Videos ⇒ From Files and Folders, the dialog box appears, showing you some information regarding importing photos. Click the Start Importing button or the Skip button to continue importing photos. After you click the Start Importing button, another dialog box appears, prompting you to use the Auto Tagging feature. For more on creating tags, see Chapter 5.

2. Browse your hard drive for the photos you want to add.

   You can navigate your computer and any connected external drives or media devices in the left-hand pane. (For example, if you’ve connected a USB drive of photos or loaded a CD of images into your CD drive, you can navigate to those photos here.) The contents of the selected drive or folder appear in the middle pane of the dialog box.

   If you’re importing photos directly from the external device, by default, the Get Photos and Videos from Files and Folders dialog box copies your media to your hard drive when you click the Get Media button. You can deselect the Copy Files on Import check box so that only thumbnail images will appear in the Media Browser. To edit a photo, you have to reconnect the CD or DVD to your computer. If you elect to copy the images, the photos are available for editing each time you start a new Elements session.

   You can keep photos and videos on external drives and don’t need to copy the images to your internal hard drive. Create a catalog specifically for a particular drive and open that catalog when you connect the drive. In this regard, you can have several external drives, each with its own catalog. For information on creating a new catalog, see Chapter 6.

3. Select the files or a folder that you want to import.

   You can import individual images, a single folder of photos, or a folder and all its subfolders.

4. Click the Get Media button.

When you add files to the Organizer, the image thumbnails are links to the files stored on your drive. They aren’t the complete image data.

If you want to import a single photo and you want to know the file attributes of the targeted photo, place the cursor over a photo and a tooltip displays file attribute information.

Downloading camera images with the Elements Downloader

Import photos from your camera to the Organizer as follows:

1. Insert a media card from a camera or attach a camera to your computer via a USB port.

   We recommend using a media card instead of attaching your camera, in case the battery is low on your camera. (If the battery runs out, the import stops.) If you have a media card for your camera, take it out and insert it into a card reader that you attach to your computer via a USB port or a built-in card reader in your computer.

2. If you see an Autoplay Wizard on Windows or a dialog box for importing photos into Photos on the Mac, cancel out of the dialog box and let Elements control your import. Otherwise, skip to Step 3.

3. In Elements, open the Organizer workspace and choose Import ⇒ From Files and Folders. Or choose File ⇒ Get Photos From Camera or Card Reader.

   The Elements Organizer – Photo Downloader opens, as shown in Figure 4-3.

4. From the Get Photos From drop-down list at the top of the dialog box, choose your media card.

5. Click the Browse button (Choose on Mac) and locate the folder on your drive to which you want to copy the photos.

   If you don’t click the Browse button and select a folder, all files copied to your hard drive are copied to the User Pictures folder. This is the default for Photoshop Elements. If you use an external hard drive to store your photos, you’ll want to copy photos to the external drive. When you select a folder, select the one that fits the overall folder organizational structure for your images so that your image files stay organized.

   You can also create a new folder and add files from your media to the new folder. Click Advanced Dialog in the lower-left corner. Another dialog box opens. Click Browse and create a new folder in the Browse dialog box.

   You can leave the rest of the settings at the defaults or rename the photos here. You can also take care of file renaming in the Organizer later. Don’t delete the photos from your card just in case you delete some photos in the Organizer and want to retrieve them. After you’re certain everything in Elements is to your liking, you can later delete photos by using your camera.

   When renaming images, try to use a system that you easily comprehend. Use descriptive names such as family2.20, Spain3.19, photoshootKelley, and so on, including dates or other descriptors such as the kind of event or the people photographed.

   The Downloader has an Advanced dialog box that you access by clicking the Advanced Dialog button. In the Advanced settings, you can make choices for things like correcting for red eye, creating photo stacks, and editing photo data that we call metadata. (We explain metadata in Chapter 6.) Because you can handle all these tasks in Elements, just leave the Advanced settings at their defaults.

6. Import photos by clicking the Get Media button in the Photo Downloader dialog box.

   Elements adds the photos to the Organizer, and you eventually see thumbnail images in the Organizer’s Media Browser after the upload completes. Give Elements some time to finish. If the Auto-Analyzer is on in your Preferences, Elements will run through facial recognition and add similar faces to different clusters. We address facial recognition in depth in Chapter 5.

When you import images in the Organizer, by default the images are auto analyzed for visual similarity in addition to the facial recognition analysis.

Importing additional photos from folders

Suppose you have your folders organized and photos copied to various folders. You take some more pictures of the same location and want to add these photos to a folder you already have labeled as a location name. To add pictures to a folder on your hard drive or external drive, follow these steps:

1. Copy photos from a CD or a media card, to your hard drive or external drive.

   In this example, we want to copy photos to a folder we have labeled Bernadette.

2. In the Organizer, choose File ⇒ Get Photos and Videos ⇒ From Files and Folders.

   The Get Photos and Videos from Files and Folders dialog box opens.

3. Select the folder on your hard drive where you copied the new photos.

   In this case, we select the folder labeled Family.

4. Click the Get Media button.

   The Getting Media dialog box appears, and the photos are added to the Organizer (see Figure 4-4).

5. Click OK in the Getting Media dialog box.

   Photoshop Elements is smart enough to import only new images into the Organizer. Any images you previously imported from a given folder are listed in the Getting Media dialog box, and you’re informed that the old images will not be imported.

Understanding image requirements

All scanning software provides you with options for determining resolution and color mode before you start a new scan. Chapter 2 introduces you to choosing a resolution and color mode.

You should decide what output you intend to use and choose your resolution based on that output. Some considerations include the following:

• Scan the artwork or photo at the size and resolution for the final output. If you have a 3-x-5 photo (216 x 360 pixels) that needs to be half the size (108 x 180 pixels) on a web page, scan the original with a 50-percent reduction in size at 72 ppi (the desired resolution for images on the web).
• Size images with the scanner software. If you have a 4-x-6 photo that needs to be output for prepress and commercial printing at 8 x 12 inches, scan the photo at 4 x 6 inches at 600 ppi (a resolution that’s large enough to increase the image size to 200 percent and still have a 300 dpi [dots per inch] image, which is the desired resolution for a print).
• Scan properly for line art. Line art is 8-bit black and white only and should be used for scanning not only black-and-white artwork but also text. When you print line art on a laser printer or prepare files for commercial printing, the line-art resolution should match the device resolution. For example, printing to a 600 dpi laser printer requires 600 ppi for an 8-bit line-art image.
• Scan grayscale images in color. In some cases, it doesn’t matter, but with some images and scanners, you can get better results by scanning grayscale images in RGB (red, green, and blue) color and converting to grayscale, as we explain in Chapter 11.
• Scan in high-bit depths. If your scanner is capable of scanning in 16- or 32-bit, by all means scan at the higher bit depths to capture the most data. A higher bit depth gives you more latitude when editing photos.

Using scanner plug-ins (Windows)

Generally, when you install your scanner software, a stand-alone application and a plug-in are installed to control the scanning process. Plug-ins work inside other software programs, such as Photoshop Elements. When you’re using the plug-in, you can stay right in Elements to do all your scanning. Here’s how it works:

1. After installing a new scanner and the accompanying software, open the Organizer.

2. Press Ctrl+K to open the Preferences dialog box.

   The Preferences dialog box opens.

3. Click Scanner in the left column and adjust the Scanner preferences, such as by choosing your scanner, setting the quality, and choosing a target destination for your scans.

When the Preferences dialog box displays your scanner, you know that the connection is properly set up and you’re ready to scan. Here’s how to complete your scan:

1. In the Organizer, choose File ⇒ Get Photos ⇒ From Scanner (Windows).

2. In the Get Photos from Scanner dialog box that appears (as shown in Figure 4-6), make your choices and then click OK.

   Here you can choose your scanner in the Scanner drop-down list, a location on your hard drive for saving the scanned images, a quality setting, and an option to automatically correct red eye.

   Elements may churn a bit, but eventually your scanner software window appears atop the Organizer, as you can see in Figure 4-7. The window is the scanner software provided by your scanner manufacturer. (Your window will look different from Figure 4-7 unless you use the same scanner we use.)

3. Preview the scan.

   Regardless of which software you use, you have similar options for creating a preview; selecting resolution, color mode, and image size; scaling; and other options. If you click the Preview button, you see a preview before scanning the photo(s).

4. Adjust the options according to your output requirements and the recommendations made by your scanner manufacturer.

5. When everything is ready to go, click the Scan button.

   The final image drops into an Elements image window.

Scanning on the Mac

Photoshop Elements doesn’t support scanning on the Mac as it does for Windows. On the Mac, you have a few options:

• Scanner software: You can use your scanner software and open the resulting scan in the Elements Photo Editor.
• Image Capture: With Image Capture (found in your Applications folder), you can complete a scan and open the file directly in Elements. Image Capture provides options for saving scans as JPEG, TIFF, PNG, or PDF. Quite often, you’ll find best results when saving as PNG.

Scanning many photos at a time

If you have several photos to scan, you can lay them out on the scanner bed and perform a single scan to acquire all images in one pass. Arrange the photos to scan on the glass and set up all the options in the scanner window for your intended output. When you scan multiple images, they form a single scan, similar to what you see in Figure 4-7.

After you scan multiple images, Elements makes it easy for you to separate each image into its own image window, where you can save the images as separate files. In the Photo Editor, choose Image ⇒ Divide Scanned Photos to make Elements magically open each image in a separate window while your original scan remains intact. The images are neatly tucked away in the Photo Bin, where you can select them for editing, as shown in Figure 4-8. (For more information on using the Photo Editor and working with the Photo Bin, see Chapter 3.)

When scanning multiple images and using the Divide Scanned Photos command, be sure to keep your photos on the scanner bed aligned vertically, horizontally, and parallel to each other the best you can. Doing so enables Elements to do a better job of dividing and straightening your photos.

If you close one of the images that were divided, Elements prompts you to save the image. Only the scan was saved when you started the process. You still need to save the divided scans.

After dividing the images, choose File ⇒ Close All. Elements closes all files that have been saved and individually prompts you to save all unsaved images.