How to Use Instant Fix with Photoshop Elements 2019 Organizer

Watch Adobe Photoshop Elements 2019 video training tutorial. Learn how to use the latest version of instant fix and show you how to quickly lighten, color and crop images, as well as show you how to use the smart fix.

Welcome back to our course on PSE 2019. In this section, we’re going to look at Instant Fix in the Organizer.

If you’ve used Instant Fix before then just be aware that it changed very dramatically. Two versions ago in PSE 15. So, if you’re experience is older than that, you may well want to work through this section.

Obviously, if you’re new to PSE I hope you’re going to work through this section anyway. First of all, I’m going to answer the question, why do fixes in the Organizer.

Then, we’re going to cover three examples of Instant Fix, we’re going to do a Smart Fix. A fix to the lighting in a picture and we’re going to crop a picture. And then, finally, I’ll answer the question. If you can do all that in the Organizer, why use the Editor at all.

First of all, then why do fixes in the Organizer? The Editor has by far the most powerful tools for fixing problems with photos so why use the Organizer? Well, as I mentioned earlier on in the course, some people really only use the Organizer. Because they’re primarily using PSE to manage their photos.

They’re not going to spend a lot of time enhancing. Changing a little bit of lighting here. A bit of color there, and so on. But, in many cases, people want simple tools to do the more obvious fixes to pictures.

So, if somebody has taken some pictures and one or two of them are very dark. One or two of them are very overexposed. Maybe one or two bits of cropping is needed. Some people just want simple tools to be able to do those things, and also to do them as automatically as possible.

They don’t really want to spend time learning sophisticated tools. They want a straightforward tool to do a reasonable job quickly. That’s really what Instant Fix is there for. To do a straightforward job as automatically as possible and as simply as possible.

There is another aspect to it as well and that is that some people that look at a picture and they know it’s not quite right. But they don’t really know what’s wrong with it.

They think; “Well, I’m not sure what’s wrong with that. Is the color wrong or the light wrong?” Some Instant Fix functions are very good at correcting situations where you can’t actually see yourself what’s wrong. But the Instant Fix can make a good job of improving a picture without you having to really scratch your head too much to figure out what’s wrong with it.

Let me take a picture that I’m not happy with. I’m going to take that one. I’ve selected it. I’m going to click on Instant Fix on the task pane down at the bottom. And the tools available in Instant Fix are shown on the right. I’m going to start with a Smart Fix.

Now, this picture although it’s sort of quite moody was taken in misty conditions and it’s definitely a bit too dark. So let me just try a Smart Fix. That’s the one tool on the right then.

Note, the tooltip Smart Fix. Click on Smart Fix. Now, there’s definitely an improvement. Therein, terms of the detail that you can see at the front in the cut hedge but maybe it’s lightened up the back a bit too much.

Now, as we will see much later on in the course. When we look at the Editor being able to selectively fix areas in a photo is something that you can do in the Editor.

But in the Organizer, things are much more straightforward than that. You do a Smart Fix to the whole picture. Let’s assume that I don’t like that. I can either undo it or I can click on Done without saving the changes.

If I do like the changes that I’ve made then, I can click on Save. That will save the fixed image as a new member of a version set. Of course, I’ll still have the original available at any time. Also, I have the option here to click into the Editor and do some more work in the Editor.

The other thing that can be useful is to switch between seeing the before and the after using these buttons down here. So, if I click on Before, After, then that can make it easier to be able to determine whether I’m happy with what’s been done.

On this occasion, I’m going to save that change and click on Done. So, that’s a Smart Fix.

The second example I’d like to show you is one where I’m going to improve the lighting not in one picture but in a number of pictures pretty much at the same time. I took a batch of pictures in a well known medieval village in England called Blanchland and I’m going to select a few of those pictures, say that one and that one and say that one. And I’m going to do an Instant Fix on those three.

Now, when I’ve selected three, I have alternative views. I can either look at them all together or using these buttons at the top, I can look at them one at a time. And then, I have arrow buttons here to take me through them. Let’s go back to see all three at once.

They’re all a bit dark really so what I’m going to do is to go over to the bar on the right. I’m going to choose Light. When I click on Light, what comes up is a number of presets for the light.

These are a range of lighting changes that PSE is offering me. The current value is pretty much in the middle. You can see that horizontal bar. If I try one of the presets, let me try these lower ones. These lower presets progressively, make the picture darker. Whereas, the upper ones as you can see progressively, make the pictures lighter.

Now, you probably get to a point where you think you’ve overdone it. You’re not restricted to just the presets. You can actually slide the bar to these intermediate positions. If you get one particular value, say like that one, and you think, “yes, that’s the one for me”. Then, you can click on Save and new versions of all of your selected images will be saved.

Note, you have the option to go into the Editor. You have the before and after option, and so on. So, I’m going to save those changes. There’s one, there’s the second, we’re done.

The third example of Instant Fix that I’d like to cover is a crop. I have a picture here of a cockerel. What I’d like to do is to get a little bit more of the cockerel and not so much of the background.

But, I’d like to crop the picture to a particular size. So I want to make it into a six by four.

So, what I do is to click on Instant Fix. The top option on the right is Crop. And when I click on Crop, I’m offered alternative aspect ratios.

Now, these are aspect ratios, not sizes. Note, there is a custom one at the top and six by four is the one that I’m looking for. I’m going to select six by four and what I see is a crop box, which is divided up using the rule of thirds.

If you don’t know what the rule of thirds is I suggest you have a look at the Adobe Help, which will explain the rule of thirds. I’ll talk about the rule of thirds a little bit later on in the course anyway.

But, in order to position the cockerel within this crop box. What I’m going to do, first of all, is just resize the crop box. A little bit by dragging the corners to make sure I don’t lose the six by four aspect. I’m going to move the box around by clicking and dragging and I’m going to go for that option.

At any time, if I’m happy with what I’ve selected if I click the tick box it will confirm. There’s also a Cancel button as well there. So, let’s click on Confirm to do the crop. Note also, that I have on the bar at the bottom on the left. An Undo button and in fact a Reset button.

So, if I’ve made a number of changes reset puts me back to the original file. The Reset applies whichever sort of Instant Fix or fixes you’re doing. But again, if I’m happy with the crop that I’ve made click on Save and Done and I’m finished.

Now, the final question I’ve posed is why would you use the Editor? There are many reasons for using the Editor. One of which I’ve mentioned is that you can target changes. If you want to improve lighting or color or many, many other aspects of images you can work on specific areas. You can also add things to images using the Editor. And in fact, you can remove things from images using the Editor.

A downside of all this sophistication and power in the Editor is that it takes longer to learn these things. But going back to something that I said earlier on in this section, for many people the sort of fixes we’ve done here.

Smart Fix, changing the lighting, cropping, they’re enough for their purposes. They’re all they need in order to get their photos to a situation that they’re happy with.

So that’s the end of this section. I’ll see you in the next one.

Adam Lacey

Adam Lacey is an Excel enthusiast and online learning expert. He combines these two passions at Simon Sez IT where he wears a number of different hats.When Adam isn't fretting about site traffic or Pivot Tables, you'll find him on the tennis court or in the kitchen cooking up a storm.