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.
If you chose the second option, in addition to installing and moving the tool folders (tool folders are named: PowerBonus, PowerSeparations, PowerTools1, and PowerTools2), you will want to delete the Effects Cache folder. You can find the Cache folder in the "Photoshop Elements 3.0/Previews/" folder. You may want to rebuild the settings file as well.
