Photoshop Elements 4: The Missing Manual

Troubleshooting

If Elements behaves badly from the moment you install it, something probably went funky during your installation. That's easy to fix. Uninstall Elements and reinstall it.

To remove Elements, go to Control Panel → Add or Remove Programs and remove Elements. Then reinstall the program. You can't perform a Repair Install for Elements—you just get an error message that keeps asking for the CD. (Repair installs are used for some programs to fix problems without having to do a full reinstall.)

Fortunately, Adobe makes very good software that looks after itself very well. There is however one simple procedure you can perform if things start acting funny in Elements: delete your Elements preferences file. The preferences file is where Elements keeps track of your preferred settings for the program. Deleting it fixes the overwhelming majority of problems you might develop. In Elements, you're most likely to need to delete the preferences file when dealing with Editor-related problems. The following steps explain what you need to do.

1. Quit Elements if it's currently running and relaunch the Editor.

   As soon as you start the program, immediately press Ctrl+Alt+Shift.

2. Delete your preferences.

   A window appears asking if you want to delete the Elements settings. Click Yes. You have to be fairly quick to press the keys in time. If you don't see the window, you were too slow. Quit Elements and try again.

This procedure resets the Editor to the way it was when you launched the program ...