Wondering how to install actions or effects in Photoshop Elements?

One of my first major finds in my quest to improve my photography was Rita at CoffeeShop Photography.  This angel straight from heaven automates processes in Photoshop and makes them available FOR FREE to lots of complete strangers just because she is a nice person.  There are lots of  these actions available, but not all of them work for PSE.

Rita’s PowderRoom action in particular is great – I love the skin softening effect on babies.

As Rita published these actions over the past few months, I noticed that she was getting tons of questions on how to install them in various versions of PSE on various operating systems.

Lord knows I want Rita to concentrate on writing more actions (just kidding!), and I thought it would be a good thank you to her to help with those questions.  I dug out all my old PSE disks  and installed them on an XP computer and a Vista computer and documented the installation process in great detail.

Some of the folks in the Flickr Photoshop Elements groups (more on those later) have written up great instructions for installing actions.  I started with their posts and expanded on them.

I am sending huge thank yous to Dan Rhett, Geoff Chalcraft, Rita and all the other generous and helpful people in the Flickr PSE groups whose knowledge is the source of much of what I am posting here.

Click here to see the instructions. Are they helpful to anyone?  I’d love to hear whether they work for you!