Good troubleshooting begins with a good installation attempt. Even if you have attempted the installation before, please begin your troubleshooting by following the installation steps before jumping to troubleshooting directly.
You will find the Hidden Power tools in the Styles and Effects palette. Open the Styles and Effects palette by choosing Styles and Effects from the windows menu. Choose Effects from the drop list on the left and the Hidden Power tool categories should become available in the drop list at right (it may take a few minutes for Elements to rebuild the cache...).
If you called on the phone for technical support, the first thing that would likely happen is that you would be led through the installation as per the steps above. They are a little conservative (meaning all those steps are rarely necessary), but effective in most cases.
If the installation is complete and you still cannot access the tools or if the installation failed, please follow the tips in the trouble-shooting section just below. Take the steps in order, one at a time, A through K. If you get to a point where the tools work, you can stop troubleshooting.
Some of the following troubleshooting steps may seem redundant either with the installation instructions or with one another. Please humor me...These instructions were developed to help you get out of installation troubles, so they have to cover the bases—and that sometimes means a little tedium.
A. Be sure you have followed all the instructions in the installation instructions above, including disabling virus protection and restarting your computer before bothering with troubleshooting.
B. Reboot your computer, then restart Elements. Check for the tools in Elements by looking at the Styles and Effects palette.
C. [PC-only] If you have installed Photoshop Elements to something other than the C drive, the tools will not install correctly. You have two choices for fixing this:
1) Install Elements to the C drive and reinstall the tools from the CD.
2) Install the tools from the CD to the C drive temporarily and move the tools to where you have Elements installed.
If you choose the second option, see Moving the Tool Folders Manually below.
D. Check to see if the tool folders are installed in the Elements Effects folder. The Effects folder is in the Previews folder, inside the Photoshop Elements program folder. The tool folder names are: PowerBonus, PowerSeparations, PowerTools1, and PowerTools2. You can find the Effects folder in the Elements program folder on Mac or PC as follows:
PC: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 3.0\Previews\Effects\
Mac: Adobe Photoshop Elements 3: Previews: Effects:
If the installation does not complete, please take note of the exact error as it appears on screen (if any). You may need this later.
If the tools have not been installed to the Elements program folder, look for the tools on your system by Searching for 'PowerTools'. If the tools have installed, but are not in the program folder, you will need to move the folders manually. See Moving the Tool Folders Manually below. If the tools have not installed on your system, disconnect all peripherals and try the installation again.
If the tool installer appears to hang during the installation, disconnect all peripherals and try the installation again. After you try the installation again, reboot and try to use the tools in Elements.
If the tools are installed partially, try the installation again. After you try the installation again, reboot and try to use the tools in Elements.
If installation appears to hang or fails, check the Elements folder name to be sure it has not been changed. For PC the program folder should be named Photoshop Elements 3.0; for Mac, it should be named Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.
If the tools have installed to the correct folder and still don't work, continue with the next Troubleshooting section.
E. Be sure you have Elements installed only once and that you are starting the Elements application from the folder where you installed the tools.
F. Delete the Effects Cache folder manually. Reboot and try to use the tools in Elements.
G. Rebuild the Adobe Photoshop Elements Settings file. To do this, see Rebuilding the Settings File below.
H. If you have completed A through G, and you see the files in the right place but the tools still do not appear in Elements, open and save the PSD files associated with the tools, saving each without making any changes. Use Save As... and overwrite the existing file. [See Resaving the Image Files below.]
I. Disconnect all peripheral devices, including internet connections, and attempt the installation again using the installation instructions as stated above.
J. Reinstall Elements, and then reinstall the Hidden Power tools from the CD.
K. While it is highly unlikely that you will get this far without a solution, you aren't a lost cause yet. Contact Richard by sending an email to: thebookdoc@aol.com. Please use the Subject: Installation Trouble HPPE3. Include information about what tools you are trying to install, what version of Elements you are running, what platform computer you are on, and any information you have concerning errors (and wordings of those errors), along with a description of what is happening during the install.
