Photoshop Saving Photos. This includes...

a description of options available when in Photoshop saving photos and how to use those options.

I have Photoshop Elements 5 and a PC with XP Home edition operating system. When using Photoshop saving photos there are several options available as you save a finished work of photographic art.

We will be going through your save options one by one. I may not hit all the options available but I will be sure to talk about the ones that can make a difference in certain circumstances such as when file size is a concern.

I will recommend that you ignore many of the available options. A few have a use for those of us who just want beautiful photographs, but many are designed for advanced use that we just don’t need.

It would probably be best to read this all the way through once or twice so you are somewhat familiar with the process. Then reread the page to decide what you expect will work best for you. Adjust as you become more familiar with Photoshop.

It seems that in order to save a picture all you have to do is click “file” then “save” huh!? Or “control-S.” Well it can be as simple as that but there are times you will want to use certain file names or any number of other options available.

Let’s start with a simple save. First be sure the folder containing your original pictures is open and up front. Create two folders inside that folder. Name one “Ready” and the other “Origs Done With.” You will use these folders for saving your pictures as you complete them. See "Learn Photoshop" for details on simple loading and editing.

Once you decide the picture is your perfect work of art and you don’t want to lose it, click “file” in the upper left hand corner of your screen. In the drop down box click on “save as.”

The next screen you will see if, like me, you don’t want to use Photoshop’s “organizer” and this is your first save of the session, will be the one below. Click on the “no” button, of the screen that pops up.

For simplicity I choose to not initialize the “organizer” in Photoshop Saving Photos. Instead I save and organize my pictures in my PCs “My Pictures” option. I know that system well plus I don’t have duplicate systems trying to work.

Then click O.K. on the next popup screen. This will prevent the organizer from initializing. I do this each time I save my first picture of the session because I use my PCs “My Pictures” option to organize my photos. If you once initialize the “organizer” it will automatically take over, load and organize all your pictures. This will be quite the headache if you prefer to organize in another way.

Also, I disable the “Adobe Photo Downloader”

in the tool tray. That prevents Adobe from automatically downloading the pictures from any device you connect to your computer, like your camera for instance.

You can end up with 2 or 3 programs all trying to load every picture you have. Photoshop Saving Photos included! Every program wants to be your primary and it seems that many picture programs have no way to disable them. Imagine that, you don’t have control over your very own computer and its programs!

To disable “Adobe Photo Downloader” right click on the little camera Icon in your tool tray. That’s at the bottom right corner of your screen. Then click on “disable.” When the box closes the camera Icon will have a red circle and white X at the bottom.

After all those steps, the "Save As" screen will pop up.

Let’s start at the top of the “Save As” box. I click on the “save as” button under “file” because if you use “save” there is a possibility that your original will simply be replaced by the edited picture. When you use “save as” you will always have the options shown below.

At the top where it says “Save in” the name of the folder your picture was in should be displayed. This means your edited copy will be saved in the same folder. You will see the two folders you created plus the file names of the other pictures in the window.

The Icons on the left are in case you want to save the picture elsewhere. Same with the Icons to the right of the "Save In" box. Hover over any of these and it will display where your picture can be saved.

For now I strongly recommend saving photos in the folder from whence they came. This way they all stay together. Like a little child who can easily get lost, so can a picture file inside a big ol’ 500 gigabyte computer.

Be sure the “Format” window says JPEG (*JPG,*JPEG,*JPE) as seen above. There may come a time you want to save things in a different format, but for now you want the finished work to be saved in JPEG format.

Under the title “Save Options” in blue lettering, I never worry about any of the options. The program automatically sets those and I have never found a reason to change them.

Except before you click “save” on the save screen make sure you check the “As a Copy” box and be sure the word copy is at the end of the file name. This is what ensures you will not delete and replace your original.

Now click “Save.”

In this next box you have more options.

Soon you will be ignoring most of the options available except in special instances.

Matte: option. Never mind. It has specific applications you will probably never need to know. If you are doing photographic work for a website you may want to learn about it. I don’t use it at all.

Image Options; This will affect your picture’s finish quality. I normally keep it around 8 or 10. That does fine for most applications as it provides good quality prints.

I set it much smaller when digital space is a concern. For instance, on this site I can use a file size up to 100K. I must make sure that all pictures I use are under that limit. Look toward the bottom of the picture above and you will see the word “Size” in blue letters.

Inside that box you see ~93.1K. That is the actual size of the file for the picture I was saving. This particular picture has a small file size even set at an image quality of 8.

Another place that a small file size comes in handy is a digital picture frame. The smaller each file size, the more pictures you can fit in the frame's memory. However, don't take those files and try to get them printed. When a file is small it may look very nice when displayed in digital form but look terrible when it is printed.

Format Options; The program will automatically set this option. It mostly will click between Baseline (“Standard”) and Baseline Optimized. Once again there are differences but you will very likely never need to know those differences. They have to do with a Web browser's and other electronic component's ability to open and display the file. Only the oldest browsers have any trouble with either of them.

There you have it, click O.K. and your picture is saved as a copy of the original and in the same folder. Now you can go to the bottom of your screen and click on the blue box with the name of the folder in which you are working. This will bring the folder to the front.

Maximize the window, scroll down to the bottom of the pictures and you will see the copy you just saved. Click and drag or cut and paste from its current location into the folder you created and named “Ready.” Drag the original into the folder you named “Origs Done With.” You are finished with this picture.

Go back to Photoshop and have some more fun. Close out the picture/s you just saved. Right click on the picture in the photo bin. Click “Close.” If a popup asks "save changes...before closing?" click “no.” You've already saved the changes. If you click on the “Yes” the Photoshop Organizer will initialize.

If that happens you will be forced to do one of several things.

First option, deal with it and all the extra time and hassle it takes when the organizer automatically starts some operation you don’t want it to do.

Second option, go online and find a site that shows you how to disable it. It can be disabled but it is an in depth process and if you’re not particularly computer savvy you may want to consider having your I.T. guy do it.

Third option, is to uninstall Photoshop and reinstall it. I don’t like any of the options so I make certain I always slow down just enough to be sure I never initialize the “organizer.”

Remember to “JUST SAY NO!”

Another way to close each picture is by clicking on the lower X in the upper, right hand corner of Photoshop. Either way, the Photoshop Organizer information remains the same!

And don't click on the upper X. You'll close out Photoshop!

Have lots of fun in Photoshop Saving Photos just for the rest of today. Tomorrow's a whole new day.

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