opening photos

[hadalian]

Hello I have all my photos in a iphoto library. I can open a picture for editing from iphoto but when I have elements open and try to brose the I photo database I get errors.

Is tere a way to open iphotos in elements 6?

[Wendy]

Hi ...

... and welcome to the Village :)

Its not a good idea to access the iPhoto database using Elements as doing this can cause corruption to the database.

This is my workflow:

I transfer all my images from my SD card into iPhoto, then scan through them and see which need adjusting.

Next I go into iPhoto and do File Export ... and export the relevant photographs to a folder on my desktop (Called "from iPhoto").

I then use Bridge to access the photographs and work on them in Elements. When I have finished working on one of them I save it to another desktop folder called "to iPhoto".

Once I have done all the photographs I open up iPhoto again and use File import to Library to take them back into iPhoto.

Hope that helps :)

Wendy

[DesertScrapper]

Wendy,

Being a newbie to MAC, I'm a little (okay, a LOT) lost. I see you spoke of Bridge. I see Bridge CS3 in my Applications folder. What the heck is Bridge? I see that you said to use Bridge to access your pics from Elements, but how do you access Bridge from Elements... or are we dragging and dropping from Bridge to Elements.. or? Oy! Ive been reading a book on the MAC but even so I am so lost. Maybe I should have stuck with my windows pc. LOL! :-)

[Wendy]

Hi ...

Bridge is a sort of filebroswer that the Mac version of Elements has ...

To access it ... when the welcome screen comes up as you open Elements click on Browse with Bridge.

Or look right at the top of the Elements Editor ... just under the Apple sign you will see a screen icon and next to that is a brown folder. Click on that and Bridge will open

This tutorial is the Photoshop Bridge but its very similar and should give you a better idea of what Bridge can do:

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-cs3/video-tutorials/all-about-adobe-bridge-cs3-video.html

Wendy

[gannel]

Wendy
I'm sure there is a good reason for your workflow but I cannot understand why. My intention was to configure iPhoto to auto open PSE when I double clicked to edit, do my editing and then save (presumably back to iPhoto). Will this not work?

[ljameso1]

If you just save back to iphoto even with a different name it will get hidden in the roll structure and be next to impossible to find. Easily found if save to desktop file and import to iphoto. I learned that the hard way before I figured out the work arounds.

[Wendy]

Hi gannel ..

... and welcome to the Village :)

I could double click from iPhoto then edit but as Linda said saving back directly into the iPhoto library can cause problems ... so I still would have to save back via a desktop folder.

Then I would have to go back to iPhoto find the next image, edit etc ... and as I am usually editing quite a few images at the same time I find it easier just to drop them all into a desktop folder and then edit from there :)

Wendy

[pacfam]

Hi Gannel, welcome to the Village. This is probably redundant. . . but it helps me to set Bridge to open automatically whenever I start Elements. I do this by going to the Preferences section under Photoshop Elements, then under General, check the Automatically Launch Bridge box. I upload all photos that I take into Bridge.
Hope all this is helping! Welcome, again!

[des_enzano]

For what it's worth. I never use iPhoto or Bridge. I do have a few images which I stored on iPhoto when I first got my Mac but I store all my images in Folders now and if I want to look at them I use preview. If I want to work on them I open them with Elements. I grant that opening the images with preview takes more time than browsing with Bridge or iPhoto but it suits me.

George

[lydia234]

Wendy, I'm not sure why you go through so many steps.

Here is my workflow:
In iPhoto select the photo to be worked on
Control click or double click (however you have it set) to open in PSE
After all adjustments are made you have to flatten the image
Go into file and click save, a menu will come up titled JPEG Options
After you have checked the options you want Click OK
Close the window of the photo in PSE
When you switch back to iPhoto the photo will change to the the updated version
iPhoto still has to be open for this to work. (I think)

This does not affect the original since iPhoto ALWAYS works with a copy when you make any changes to a photo. You can always "revert to original"

Lydia

[frank abramonte]

hadalian, unless you have many thousands of photos you don't have to use iPhoto.
I store my photos in folders named for the event, date, person, people etc (July 2009 picnic, Ella's Graduation 2008, Family Reunion 2005, Mary M's Wedding, etc).
When I wish to view or retrieve a photo I launch Bridge and select the folder I need. Bridge will display all the photos within that folder.
At that point I can double click to open, or move, or trash that particular photo. When done I close or save the photo back to the same folder or a new folder if I wish.

I save these in folders on my HD in category folder (Photo Archive, Holiday Photos, Special Events, etc).
Periodically I will move old non current files to my backup drive in a Long Time Archive folder.

I avoid the extra steps of going in and out of iPhoto.
If you wish you can actually click open any of these folders and see its content. You can also double click to open them directly without going thru Bridge.

[Wendy]

Hi Lydia ...

Ye I do know how to do it that way ... but I am quite cautious about saving things back into iPhoto using Elements. In the past some people have had problems with this this method causing corruption in the iPhoto Library ..

... Also seeing that I am often editing maybe 100 to 150 images at a time. I would have to open up iPhoto for each one then edit it in Photoshop, save it ... Open up iPhoto again etc.

I find it quicker to drop all the 100/150 images into one folder, use Bridge to access them ... then save them back into another folder before importing the whole folder (as one item) back into iPhoto.

As far as the Revert feature in iPhoto ... its a nice feature however it certainly does bloat the library as it keeps duplicates of all edited item. If you are edited almost every item the library size can be very large with all these duplicates ... as it is most of the time I don't actually want to keep all the unedited version.

Wendy :)

[lydia234]

Hi Wendy,

Now I understand your thinking. I don't usually have that many to "fix" since I don't take as many photos as I once did.

Thanks for the information.

Lydia

[Wendy]

Hi Lydia ...

I tend to take quite a lot of photographs mainly because I'm just not a great photographer :D ... if I take a lot then at least I get some I can use.

Wendy :o

[ljameso1]

Lydia, iphoto help warns against saving directly back to iphoto without using import citing potential corruption. I still use the work around even when not doing a lot of images. I just let them accumulate in the folder until I have enough to bother importing.

[victry1]

Hi Lydia ...

I tend to take quite a lot of photographs mainly because I'm just not a great photographer :D ... if I take a lot then at least I get some I can use.

Wendy :o
:)Haha-great minds think alike - I do exactly the same thing - love that continous mode.

[victry1]

I'm glad I dropped by. :) I forget some of these little tips that make using my computer easier - like control clicking on a picture in iPhoto. But, when I did control click and chose edit in external editor, the picture opened in Elements 4 and not 6. I didn't see a way to change that. I could remove PSE4 as I haven't been using it anyway, but it would be good to know how to change that.

I have a separate iPhoto library where I keep most of my photoshop edits. PSD files can be so large that I now just moved that iPhoto library to my external. Of course, now I have to figure out how to back that one up as it won't be included in my normal backups. :eek:

Thanks!

[Wendy]

Hi Eleanor ...

Go into the iPhoto library prefs iPhoto>Prefs>General ... and its "Edit Photo in" choose application and then select Elements 6 :)

Wendy

[victry1]

Hi Wendy,

It only gives the option to choose PSE4....other than the usual iPhoto choices. That's what I can't figure out. 6 should there - & it's not. Go figure. That's why I thought I might just remove it.

Thanks anyway.

[Wendy]

Hi Eleanor ...

If you choose "In Application" it should give you the finder box and you can go into the Applications folder and find PSE6 ... does it not do that ??

Wendy :)

[des_enzano]

In iPhoto select the photo to be worked on
Control click or double click (however you have it set) to open in PSENeither Control click or double click opened my image in PSE. Control click merely opened a menu and double click enlarged the image (still in iPhoto)

George

[ljameso1]

Neither Control click or double click opened my image in PSE. Control click merely opened a menu and double click enlarged the image (still in iPhoto)

George

For this to work will need to set the iphoto preferences to do so. Go to iphoto>preferences(keyboard shortcut command + ,) and under general, you will see a section towards the middle that says edit in. Click on the drop down and select PSE from the list. Save your change.

[des_enzano]

For this to work will need to set the iphoto preferences to do so.

I found this out in another thread just prior to opening this one :)
Thanks!

George