Cannot force quit Finder on MacBook Air M3

Thank you I will try that. I did the drop down from the Apple menu to force quit and re-launch, but it didn’t work that way the several times I tried. I will try holding the option key down ans you indicated and see if I can get finder to relaunch. I can’t clear out my pictures in downloads until I quit all the apps and that’s the only one holding me up. I keep getting an error that says you can’t move the photos to trash because they’re still open by another app. I’m presuming it’s finder.

I still could not get Finder to relaunch and I still cannot clear pictures in downloads without this error message: "Some of the items you are moving are in use by another application. Moving the items can cause problems with the application using them. Are you sure you want to move these items?"

I did start it in safe mode and then restart, but still could not delete the pictures from downloads without the warning message. Finally I just deleted them even though it said it might connected in another app. I double checked on some of the pictures and they seem to still be ok. I will try to keep on top of the ghost files in the future. I am leery to get behind the scenes in the MacBook, so I hope after the update and clearing these downloads, things will be ok. thank you for your input.