# Importing and organizing photos

When you start Photoshop Elements, it displays a Welcome screen that provides a starting point for whatever you want to do. The program uses two basic workspaces—the Organizer and the Editor—and lets you switch between them depending on the task you’re performing. Click Organize to get started by importing some photos. (To always start up in either the Organizer or the Editor and to bypass the Welcome screen in the future, choose the desired workspace from the Start Up With Welcome Screen pop-up menu at the bottom of the Welcome screen.

With Photoshop Elements, you can import photos from a camera or card reader, from a scanner, from a folder on a hard disk, or even from a mobile phone. To speed import, you can set the program to start automatically when you attach your camera to your computer; you can even instruct it to automatically fix red eye upon import.

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Preview photos and automatically remove red eye using the features of the Photo Downloader Advanced Dialog box.

Then, use the Organizer to find and manage your photos, video files, audio clips, and Adobe PDF documents, even if they’re stored in different locations. Photoshop Elements automatically organizes photos by date as it downloads, and you can further sort and categorize photos by adding star ratings, by stacking photos, and by assigning keyword tags to help you identify people, places, and events. You can quickly view every photo you’ve ever taken of your dog, for example, by clicking on your dog’s keyword tag. Photoshop Elements will even find all the photos that contain faces, so you can easily tag and sort photos of friends and family. You can also search for images based on date range, caption, filename, media type, and more.

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In the Organizer, you can use keyword tags, albums, and star ratings to categorize and manage your photos.

Another way to manage your photos is to use albums, which let you keep related photos together for special projects. For example, use an album to hold all of the photos you want to use in a slide show about your family reunion. Simply drag photos to add or remove them from an album. You can also create smart albums based on search criteria. Search for all of the photos you took at beaches over various spring breaks, for example, and save the results as a smart album. As you import new photos that meet a smart album’s criteria, they are automatically added to that smart album.

In the Organizer, you can also see previously saved versions of a photo, adjust thumbnail size, view photos in full-screen mode, and compare photos side by side.

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