What's Covered
- Version Set behavior when you fix photos in the Organizer in earlier versions of Photoshop Elements
- Version Set behavior when you fix photos in the Organizer in Photoshop Elements 6
This document describes the behavior that Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 uses when photos in a Version Set are edited using the Fix panel in the Organizer workspace. This behavior is different from earlier versions of Photoshop Elements: Photoshop Elements 6 features a number of new options that allow you to fix your photos without leaving the Organizer.
This information does not apply to when a photo is fixed in the Editor workspace or with another application.
Version Set behavior when you fix photos in the Organizer in earlier versions of Photoshop Elements
Prior versions of Photoshop Elements (earlier than Photoshop Elements 6) provide only two options for fixing photos: Auto Smart Fix and Auto Red Eye Fix. When either of these options are used, Photoshop Elements creates a new copy of the selected photo. The new photo is placed in a Version Set with the original photo and set as the top item in the Version Set.
This behavior is always followed. If you apply both Auto Smart Fix and Auto Red Eye Fix to a photo, or apply the same fix multiple times, each time you fix the photo a new copy of the photo is created and added as the top item in the Version Set.
Version Set behavior when you fix photos in the Organizer in Photoshop Elements 6
The new Fix panel in the Organizer of Photoshop Elements 6 features several new ways that a photo can be fixed: Auto Smart Fix, Auto Color, Auto Levels, Auto Contrast, Auto Sharpen, Auto Red Eye Fix, and Crop. With all of these new options, you may find that you want to apply more than one fix to the same photo. Photoshop Elements 6 therefore has different behavior when you fix photos that are in a Version Set.
The first time you fix a photo in the Organizer, the same behavior as earlier versions occurs: a new copy of the photo is created, it is placed in a Version Set with the original photo, and it is set as the top item.
Any time afterwards that you fix a photo in a Version Set in the Organizer, the following behaviors occur:
- If the photo you selected to fix is the top item in the Version Set, a new version will not be created. The top item photo will be fixed and overwritten. (Note that when you select a collapsed Version Set, you select the top item by default.) The exception to this behavior is when the top photo in the Version Set is the original photo. In this case, a new version will be created and set as the top item. Photoshop Elements never overwrites the original photo.
- If you reveal the photos in a Version Set and fix a photo that is not the top item, a new version will be created and set as the top item in the Version Set.
- If you select a photo that is not the top item in a Version Set, when you fix that photo it will stay selected. The newly created fixed photo, which is now the top item in the Version Set, is not automatically selected. (The exception to this behavior is when you fix a photo for the first time, before the Version Set exists. In that instance the new fixed version of the photo is automatically selected.)
IMPORTANT: If you intend to apply multiple fixes to the same photo (for example, you want to both crop the photo and fix the color), after you apply the first fix it is important that you remember to manually select the newly created photo. Since the newly created photo will be the top item in the Version Set, you only have to do this once after you apply the first fix. If you don't remember to select the new photo, each fix that you apply will create a separate new photo, each of which will be have only a single fix based on the selected photo; the fixes will not accumulate. (For example, if you both cropped and fixed the color in a photo, you would get two new separate photos: one that is cropped and one that has the color fixed.)