PSE 6 Tool Assistance

[Buckeyekid]

Good Evening all!

My beautiful daughter gave me PSE 6 for Christmas, I installed it and immediately found myself eyeballs deep into the "read me" files at the Adobe Website.... needless to say it was very dry reading and didn't really help much as far as getting started!

Anyway.... I found several video tutorials and was trying to follow along when I noticed that none of my "tools" work! I can import my photos, enlarge, and move the photo in the window but other than the "quick fixes" I get nothing... My pointer doesn't change (stay's the little hand to move the picture) and I'm at a loss as to how to fix this!

Any and all suggestions are welcome!

I am trying to restore 100's of old pictures that I obtained from my grandfather who recently passed away and many of these are from 35mm slides so I really have my work cut out for me once I figure out how to operate this program!

Thanks!
Sherry

[Juergen D]

Sherry,
If your images are scans, check if they are in 16-bit mode. You can go to >Image >Mode and click on 8-bits if it is not grayed out and that will convert to that mode.
While you are doing this, see if you are in RGB Color. If not, check it to convert. You may also want to make future scans in RGB 8-bits.

Juergen

[Richard_Lynch]

My pointer doesn't change (stay's the little hand to move the picture) and I'm at a loss as to how to fix this!

Unless you are never changing tools and have some sort of installation or computer issue, the icon will not stay the same, even if you have changed the preferences.

My first suggestion is merely to test to see that you are changing tools to make the cursor change. Please try the following:

1. Open Elements
2. Open any image
3. place the cursor over the image.
4. press V
5. press K
6. press M
7. press I

Each time you press a key (steps 4-7) you should be getting a different icon. If not you will want to restart and rebuild the Settings file. To rebuild the Settings, hold down the Command+Option+Shift/Ctrl+Alt+Shift keys (Mac/PC) on the keyboard when starting up Elements — immediately after choosing Edit and Enhance Photos on the Welcome screen, if you are on a PC. Hold the keys down until the prompt to delete the Adobe Photoshop Elements settings file appears, and click [YES]. The deleted file will be re-created automatically. This will restore default palette placement and tool settings, and will delete your color settings — you will have to reset your preferences.

If this does not work, Uninstall and reinstall the program.

OK?

[Buckeyekid]

Thanks to both who posted a reply.... I don't know what I did (or didn't do?) but it is working fine now after I rebooted!

Sherry