I love making my favorite photos look even better. I get so excited when I see a photo that I can fix- like getting rid of red-eye, removing a blemish, whitening teeth, or making other (sometimes advanced) photo improvements to my special pics. But I have to admit, when I was still so new to the fabulous world of photo editing, I made my fair-share of mistakes. I’d make an edit here and another tweak there and save my only original copy with all my many edits. You can imagine my horror when I went back to use my original photo and was only left with an edited version… laced with all kinds of filters, effects, and changes. I unfortunately had to learn the hard way about the importance of making duplicate copies of my original photos… but hopefully you can learn from my mistakes, and won’t have to!
That said, it is very important to keep your original photos as-is, and only make changes to a copied version of your photo. That way, you never have to worry about making permanent changes to your only copy of a favorite photo.
In this Digital Scrapbooks and More’s blog, I will give three helpful hints on duplicating a photo, so that you never have to go through the photo editing heartbreak that I did!
AVOID HEARTBREAK- TIP ONE: This is my favorite tip for duplicating a photo: After taking some photos and uploading all the images to your computer, they come in a folder. The quickest way to get duplicates of all your photos, is easy! Just right-click the folder that has the image(s) you want to copy and select COPY. Then right click again, and select PASTE. Save your folder as “Duplicate Photo of (insert photo album title here)” This makes an entire folder full of duplicated photos! This method saves so much time because you can copy a lot photos at a time (instead of doing many pictures one by one…tedious!), and when I use the photos from this new copied folder I know if I save any of my changes, that still have the originals- safe and sound in their original photo folder! I don’t even need a graphic program or software to even accomplish any of the copying either- it’s that easy!
AVOID HEARTBREAK- TIP TWO: The second way to duplicate photos is by doing so in an actual graphic 
program – like Photoshop Elements. In Photoshop Elements it has a very easy and simple way to duplicate the photos right within the Workspace Area, and is a good duplicating-option for individual photos you would like to copy.
To use this method, bring the photo into the Workspace Area of Photoshop Elements and right-click at the top of the photo. Then select DUPLICATE.
This makes a duplicate copy and names it same name but with “copy” added to the end (note: you can rename if you like). Save your newly duplicated photo and click out of the original photo. Now you can begin making edits to your copied pic without having to worry about damaging your only original!
AVOID HEARTBREAK- TIP THREE: The third way to duplicate a photo is a method I use frequently, and the best part is that it works almost the same way in both Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements! To use this method in Elements, select the photo in the Workspace Area and then go to File > Duplicate. To use this method in Photoshop go to Image > Duplicate.
If you would like to see this last method within a detailed Step-by-Step Training Guide (for Photoshop Elements) please check out our handy training guide for more complete information on this last method!
This guide training guide will give you photos and text of each of the steps in duplicating a photo using this last method – go ahead, take a look!
(Note this training guide is in PDF format so you will need to have Adobe Reader. If you don’t have it get the FREE Reader at Adobe.com)
Any one of these three duplicating tips should help you avoid photo-editing heart break and enjoy playing around with your best photos!
So until next time, enjoy the power of Photo-editing, but always remember to be adventurous with the copies- not the originals!
Happy Scrapping!
Cheri
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Want some Photo Editing training? Check out our Scrap Shop for Photo Editing Training!
Edit your own photos, and start by removing that scary, “demon-looking” Red-Eye! Learn how to get the red out of eyes using this Digi MakeOver Madness Tutorial in Photoshop! Make eyes look natural and brilliant once again!
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