after I import, then what?

[pasknucklehead]

Hi again, okay, I've decided to go back to the beginning. I've taken out all my photos and wanted to really start from scratch and take it even more slowly than before. Is there a tutorial out there that will take me from importing an image, tagging it, then starting to work on it. Once I do an edit on it, will it remain, and have I then lost my original..? I'm just not sure how to start now that I;m ready to begin with an image..Please advise. Darlene

[dj_paige]

I don't know where the tutorials are, I'm sure someone can point you to them, but I would like to make some suggestions about the global process.


Tag your photos and add captions religiously. Do this as soon as possible after you import the photos, and before you edit the photos. Although this can be a lot of work initially, the benefits are great. Do a good job of tagging and captioning and then finding photos will be a snap. There's nothing more frustrating than taking a great picture and then being unable to find it. There's nothing more frustrating that seeing a photo of some people, and because you didn't create a caption, three years go by and now you can't remember the name of the person between Sally and Jane.
Your tags need to be words/names that are meaningful to you. Pick good ones (maybe even do this before you import the photos). Sometimes, you will tag say 500 photos, and then decide you don't like your tag hierarchy (it happens to all of us), so be open to the idea that at some point in the future, you will improve your tags by re-doing a portion of them.
Never use Windows to move or rename or delete your folders and photos. Always use PSE commands. Also, resist the urge to rename your photos, as tags and captions provide much more powerful ways to organize and find your photos.
Make sure your photos are regularly backed up to a different physical hard drive or CD/DVDs. Use the command File->Backup Catalog.

Regarding the edits that you make, you should never save the edited file under the same name as the original. By choosing a different name, this preserves the original, should you ever need to go back to it. If you open a photo for editing by selecting it in the PSE Organizer and the Ctrl-I to edit it, PSE makes it very difficult for you to overwrite the original (you would have to override two different defaults to overwrite your original), and I usually accept the default new name that PSE provides for this photo. This is good protection! Do it this way and you will never experience the dreadful feeling that your original is gone. (Alternatively, if you open straight into the Editor, bypassing the Organizer, it is much easier to overwrite the original, so please be careful if you open straight into the Editor)

[Joe_Kostoss]

In the latest versions of Adobe products, they do not provide a users manual; however Adobe has provided a great support site at:

http://www.adobe.com/support/ (http://www.adobe.com/support/)

Once here, click on the application that you are using. This will take you to a support page for that application. In the upper right corner is a PDF download file of several hundred pages that is searchable. There is also a web based version of that file if you have good connectivity, which is also searchable.

If you are using PS Elements, clicking on the PSE link will get you to the PSE7 support, but there you can also see a link that says 'Not Your Version?". Clicking here will take you to PSE6.

I use the PSE7 help and the PS CS4 help. They also have many video and text tutorials which provide lots of information.

With several hundred pages, it may seem overpowering; but, being searchable, you can lookup exactly what you need.

This site is good for both beginners and advanced uses.