Finding Your Way Around Elements - Photoshop Elements 13: The Missing Manual - page 39

panel works even if you've saved your file: As long as you haven't closed the file, the panel
tracks every action you take. You can also drag the pointer down to redo changes that you've
undone.
Be careful, though: You can back up only as many steps as Elements is set to remember. The
program is initially set up to record 50 steps, but you can change that number by going to
Edit→Preferences→Performance/Photoshop Elements Editor→Preferences→Performance
and adjusting the History States setting. You can set it as high as 1,000, but remembering
even 100 steps may slow your computer to a crawl if it doesn't have a superpowered pro-
cessor, plenty of memory, and loads of disk space. If Elements runs slowly on your machine,
then reducing the History States setting to, say, 20 may speed things up a bit.
The One Rule of Elements
As you're beginning to see, Elements lets you work in lots of different ways. What's more,
most people who use the program approach projects in different ways; what works for your
neighbor with her pictures may be quite different from how you'd work on the very same
shots. But you'll hear one suggestion from almost every Elements veteran, and it's an im-
portant one: Never, ever work on your original. Always, always, always make a copy of your
image and work on that instead .
The good news is that, if you store your photos in the Organizer, you don't need to worry
about accidentally messing up your original. If you save your files as version sets ( Saving
Your Work ) , Elements automatically creates a copy when you edit a photo that's cataloged in
the Organizer, so you can always revert to your original. Other image-management pro-
grams, like Apple's iPhoto and Adobe's Lightroom, also make versions for you if you set up
Elements as your external editor (see Opening Stored Images ).
But, as explained on Organizing Your Photos , you don't have to use the Organizer. If you've
decided not to use it or version sets, then follow these steps to make a copy of your image in
the Editor:
1. Open the image you want to copy, and then go to File → Duplicate .
The Duplicate Image dialog box appears.
2. In the dialog box, name the duplicate, and then click OK .
Elements opens the new, duplicate image in the main image window.
3. Find the original image and click its Close button (the X or the red dot) .