Setting Import Preferences for Photoshop Album

You can get your files into Photoshop Album many ways, depending on the source they're coming from — your hard drive, CDs, your digital camera, your scanner, and so on. You'll find that it is helpful to set the import preferences for your various devices. Once you do so, Album will use those preferences as the defaults for all of your importing tasks. The only time you will have to change your preferences is if you want to import from another device.

Camera or card reader preferences

After you identify your camera to Album by setting your camera and card reader preferences, you can bypass the Get Photos from Camera or Card Reader dialog box when you execute the Get Photos command (unless you click the Restore Default settings button). Your photos are imported directly into the Photo Well.

If you are experiencing difficulty importing photos, try clicking the Restore Default Settings button in the Preferences dialog box to return to the original defaults, which may alleviate the problem.

Here's how to set the preferences for your camera or card reader:

1. Choose Edit --> Preferences.

The Preferences dialog box appears.

2. Choose Camera or Card Reader from the list on the left side of the dialog box, as shown in Figure 1.

3. Choose the name of your camera from the Camera pop-up menu.

If you've used more than one camera, or a camera and card reader, all devices will appear in the list. If you connect a different camera, you need to select it from the list.

4. Specify the location you want to save imported files. Also check any of the options you want.

5. Check the Always Ask to Become Default Application option.

This action ensures that Album automatically launches when WIA-enabled cameras are attached to your computer, and your computer is running Windows XP or ME. Select this option even if you don't have a WIA-enabled camera.

6. Click OK to close the Preferences dialog box.

Scanner preferences

After you set your scanner preferences, the scanning process is streamlined. Essentially, you bypass the Get Photos from Scanner dialog box and are transported directly to your scanning software interface.

You will lose the flexibility in choosing file formats and Quality settings for various scans. All images are scanned to the settings established in your Preferences. If you need to change the settings, as well as the default location you are saving your scanned images to, you have to change your Preferences settings.

Here's how to set the preferences for your scanner:

1. Choose Edit --> Preferences.

The Preferences dialog box appears.

2. Choose Scanner from the Preferences list on the left side of the dialog box, as shown in Figure 2.

3. Choose your scanner from the Scanner pop-up menu.

If you connect your computer to a different scanner, you have to go back to the Preferences and select that scanner from the list.

4. Choose a file format from the Save As pop-up menu. If you choose JPEG, select a Quality setting.

5. Click the Browse button to select the location of the folder where you want your scans to be stored.

You can skip this step if you're satisfied with the default location.

6. Click OK to close the Preferences dialog box.

Preferences for offline photos

In the General section of the Preferences dialog box, you can choose a default size of the proxy images you want to store in Album. Here's how:

1. Choose Edit --> Preferences and click General in the list on the left side of the dialog box, as shown in Figure 3.

2. Choose the default pixel dimension for the Proxy File Size in the Offline Media section.

Album's default size is 640 x 480, which is a good middle-of-the-road size. A larger size (such as 1024 x 768) provides better quality, and a smaller size (such as 320 x 240) saves disk space.

3. Click OK to close the dialog box.