Resetting preferences comes up a lot as a way of banishing the Photoshop demons and curing any technical glitch that challenges you - and to be fair, most of the time it works. If you've tried everything else, if you're pulling out your hair and spitting blood; then this video tutorial may just be the answer to your problems. Maybe even a cure to bad health? Even more than that though, this is the first of nine videos looking at preferences in Photoshop Elements - and what better way to start out than with a gentle introduction.
Understanding Preferences in Photoshop Elements
If you’ve recently installed or upgraded Photoshop Elements you can make the most sense out of the software by setting up custom preferences, and understanding them so they don’t catch you out in the future. In this series of 9 videos I’ll show you how to do just that.
Preferences control the default behaviour of many Photoshop options, tools, commands and dialogue boxes. They are the higher powers that in many instances hold the answers to many of the programmes quirks, peculiarities and whims. Sometimes the difference between a happy Photoshop user and one banging their keyboard in frustration is the art of befriending preferences, building a long lasting relationship, and just knowing that they’ll always be there.
And they’re ubiquitous in Photoshop Elements, from the docking of individual windows to the pattern of transparency and many places in between. You can change the way tools are activated, the amount of memory Elements has access to, the units of measurement that are used by rulers and text, and variations in cursor appearance. We’ll also look at resetting preferences using a top-secret keyboard shortcut to rid the programme of bugs and start afresh. If you use Photoshop Elements on a regular basis I assure you that trick alone will save you some head scratching one day.
So join me on the most detailed series of videos focusing on Photoshop Elements preferences ever recorded. See you there.
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In the second part of our nine part video series on preferences in Photoshop Elements we'll explore the General panel and get to grips with the kind of controls that don't fit under any other heading. These functions include exporting the clipboard, allowing floating documents in the full edit mode, saving panel locations, zooming options and brightness of the interface. |
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In the third part of our nine part video series on preferences in Photoshop Elements we'll explore the Saving Files screen, home to options that allow you to take control of how Elements saves files and makes them compatible to other applications and versions of Photoshop. One of the most common mistakes made by beginners is accidentally saving over original files with the modified version, here we can make that a thing of the past and safeguard unedited files forever. |
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In the fourth video of our nine part series on preferences in Photoshop Elements we'll explore the performance tab. Home to numerous settings that affect the technical abilities of Elements, we'll dive into the details of how they work and the various ways you can ensure Photoshop Elements is working to its optimum by ensuring things such as scratch disks and RAM allocation are set up properly; and that history states and cache levels are working for you rather than against you. |
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In the fifth video of our nine part series on preferences in Photoshop Elements we'll explore the display and cursors tab. Home to options that relate to the crop tool, the eyedropper and the painting brushes, this panel can deliver ways to make the various cursors display larger, smaller, brighter, darker and improve the overall visual and practical experience users have with the software. |
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In our sixth video out of nine looking at preferences in Photoshop Elements we tackle transparency. Home to one of Photoshop's trademark appearances we explore how to change the colour and size of the transparency grid - in other words, we'll change the way Photoshop represents the regions in a composition that are invisible. Sounds weird? Watch the video and you'll know all their is to. |
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In our seventh video out of nine looking at preferences in Photoshop Elements we tackle units and rulers. Although another one of those technical subjects, the advice given in this video will make sure you are always thinking one step ahead of the game in terms of creating and working with the right sized graphics. The thing is though; it's easy to understand, especially with the right guidance. |
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In part eight of our nine part series on preferences in Photoshop Elements we'll look at the guides and grid options. Guides are non-printing lines that can aid tasks such as lining up layers and spacing out text. A grid provides the same variation of assistance but is more uniformed to look like the grids available on graph paper, and are ultimately another way to align objects within your document. Watch the video to see how to get the most out of these features. |
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The ninth and final part of our look at preferences in Photoshop Elements deals with the last two panels, namely plug-ins and type. The former gives us the ability to add an additional plug-ins folder to better manage custom third party applications that work inside Elements, and the latter changes options relating to the type tool. |
Comments
Tutorials on Elements Preferences
Thanks for the tutorials Matt. I'm basically a new user to Elements, having purchased my first version, 8, about 6 months ago. I'm familiar with Photoshop having owned CS, and now CS5, on my Windows based PC. I have Elements 8 installed on my MacBook Pro and interestingly enough there are some minor differences in the Preferences dialog boxes. One thing that I had trouble with until I did an internet search to find an answer, was trying to follow you in the first tutorial on resetting preferences back to factory default. On a Mac, at least with Elements 8, you hold down the "command-option-shift" keys before launching Elements to get to the "Delete preferences file" dialog box.
Anyways…thanks again. I look forward to the next continuing tutorial.
Mac Elements
Hi MackV
You're very welcome, I'm glad you're enjoying them.
Thanks for the tips regarding the Mac version of Elements, it's very helpful to have you update us as I'm sure other Mac users will ponder on the same question.
Regards
Matt