Photoshop Elements 3: The Missing Manual

Scanning Photos

Elements comes bundled with many scanners, because it's the perfect software for making your scans look their best. There are two main ways of getting scans into Elements. Some scanners come with a driver plug-in, a small utility program that lets you scan directly into Elements. Look on your scanner's installation software for information about Elements compatibility or check the manufacturer's Web site for a Photoshop plug-in to download. (If you can scan into Photoshop, you should be able to scan into Elements.) You may also be able to scan into Elements if your scanner uses the TWAIN interface, which is an industry standard used by many scanner manufacturers.

If you don't have any of these, you'll need to use the scanning program that came with your scanner. Then, once you've saved your scanned image in a format that Elements understands, like TIFF (.tiff, .tif) or Photoshop (.psd), open the file in Elements like any other photo.

To control your scanner from within Elements, in the Editor, go to File → Import and you'll find your scanner's name on the list that appears. In Windows, you can also scan from the Organizer by choosing File → Get Photos → From Scanner, or by pressing Ctrl+U.

Tip

If you do a lot of scanning, check out the "Divide Scanned Photos" command (page 47) for helpful tips on how to quickly scan in lots of photos at the same time.

Also, you can save yourself a lot of drudgery in Elements if you make sure your scanner glass and the prints you're ...