ADOBE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 9

USING PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 9
Photoshop Elements workspace
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Change scratch disks
Photoshop Elements needs contiguous hard drive space to create a scratch disk. For this reason you should frequently
defragment your hard drive. Adobe recommends that you use a disk tool utility, such as Windows Disk Defragmenter,
to defragment your hard drive on a regular basis. See your Windows documentation for information on
defragmentation utilities.
1 In Windows, choose Edit > Preferences > Performance. In Mac, choose, Photoshop Elements > Preferences >
Performance.
2 Select the desired disks from the Scratch Disks menu (you can assign up to four scratch disks), and click OK.
3 Restart Photoshop Elements for the change to take effect.
About plug-in modules
Plug-in modules are software programs developed by Adobe Systems and other software developers to add
functionality to Photoshop Elements. A number of importing, exporting, and special-effects plug-ins come with your
program; they are inside the Photoshop Elements Plug-Ins and Optional Plug-Ins folders.
Once installed, plug-in modules appear as options added to the Import or Export menu, as filters added to the Filter
menu, or as file formats in the Open and Save As dialog boxes. If you install a large number of plug-ins,
Photoshop Elements may not be able to list them all in their appropriate menus. If so, newly installed plug-ins appear
in the Filter > Other submenu. To prevent a plug-in or folder of plug-ins from loading, add a tilde character (~) at the
beginning of the plug-in name, folder, or directory. That file (or all files in the folder) is ignored by the application
when you restart it. To view information about installed plug-ins, choose Help > About Plug-In and select a plug-in
from the submenu.
Note: To use an optional plug-in module, copy the plug-in module from the Optional Plug-Ins folder to the relevant
subfolder in the Plug-Ins folder, install the plug-in module, and then relaunch Photoshop Elements.
You can select an additional plug-ins folder in which to load compatible plug-ins stored with another application. You
can also create a shortcut for a plug-in stored in another folder on your system. You can then add the shortcut or alias
to the Plug-ins folder to use that plug-in with Photoshop Elements.
More Help topics
“Plug-in filters” on page 217
Install plug-in modules
❖ Do one of the following:
• Use the plug-in installer, if provided.
• Follow the installation instructions that came with the plug-in module.
• Make sure the plug-in files are uncompressed, and then copy them to the appropriate Plug-ins folder in the
Photoshop Elements folder.
Select an additional plug-ins folder
You can select an additional plug-ins folder in which to load compatible plug-ins stored with another application.
1 In Windows, choose Edit > Preferences > Plug-Ins. In Mac, choose Photoshop Elements > Preferences > Plug-Ins.
Last updated 1/27/2011