iPhoto and Adobe photoshop elements 4.0

bbbonzai

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.

Have you set PSE as an external editor in iPhoto?

iPhoto -> Preferences -> General

At Edit With -> Use the drop down menu to select PSE.

Then, when you double click on a pic it will open in PSE, you can make your edits and when you Save in PSE, it will be saved back into iPhoto, all automatically.

Regards

TD

To expand on Terence's post a bit, if you use PSE as your editor of choice in iPhoto via iPhoto's preferences and edit a file it may be changed to a psd file during the Save process. You'll be presented with the navigation save window in PS. If that occurs you can take one of two routes:

1 - navigate to the Desktop and save the psd file as a new file and then import it into iPhoto.
2 - cancel the save, to to the Layers pane and flatten the image. Then save as a jpg. You'll get the smaller save window where you select the quality of the jpg and the type of format, Baseline, Baseline Optimized or Progressive) You'll want to choose Baseline. If you select this type of save the edited version will be saved in the Modified folder and the thumbnail will be updated as it should.

Do you Twango?

TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

bbbonzai:

What I'm referring to is when editing a jpg with PSE, some types of edits want PSE to save the file as a psd file. That's when the Save window comes up. In those cases if you just save the psd file will be saved in the same folder as the original and iPhoto won't know that there's been an edit made. So, you either have to save the file to the desktop and import or stop the save and flatten the file so that PSE will continue the save as a jpg which iPhoto will put in the Modified folder.

However, when I try to import them into iPhoto because it shows that there aren't any pictures currently there it tell me that they can't be imported because they are already in the iphoto library folder.

If you're trying to import a file that's been saved inside the iPhoto Library folder that's why you're getting the message. iPhoto will not import any file that is inside the library folder. You must move it outside of the folder before you can import. I hope that clears it up. If not post back and we'll have another go at it.

Hi Old Toad,

When you add layers to a photo in PSE after doing "Open in external editor" from iPhoto, you can save it back to iPhoto easily without flattening the image. After selecting Save from the File menu, the Save As... dialog will actually come up and it will default to the Photoshop format. If you change the format back to JPEG in the Format: popup menu, the As a Copy option will automatially be checked and when you click the Save button and it will be saved in iPhoto as normal. The Photoshop version will still be open in PSE. You can then just close it without saving unless you want to keep it for some reason.

You gotta love these forums. I learn something new every day. Thanks, Thomas.