How to create a Show Effects submenu item in Photoshop Elements 6

Friday, July 18, 2008

Disclaimer: these instructions aren't for the faint of heart. While these instructions have been thoroughly tested by a 3rd party, please make a backup before trying any of this. I am not responsible for any computer related issues resulting from your implementation of these instructions.

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To create a new drop down menu item in Photoshop Elements Show Effects (for example Atomic Cupcake) you will need to create a new .xml file for each action (.atn) file that you have (to locate your .atn files see this post). With the current set of Atomic Cupcake actions you would need 111 .xml files!


1. To create the .xml file:


XP Users - Open c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\6.0\Locale\en-US or your own locale\Photo Creations Metadata\Photo Effects.


Vista Users - Open C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\6.0\Locale\en-US or your own locale\Photo Creations Metadata\Photo Effects


2. Copy and paste an existing .xml file (doesn't matter which one). Note: To create a new .xml file, it is preferable to copy one with the same TypeCat value (that way you only need to change the Name value). So when creating the 2nd .xml file, copy the 1st one you made.

3. You will now edit the one with the new name -copy.

4. Right click, select Edit. You are editing the Name and the TypeCat highlighted below.



5. Save and close the file.

6. You will now need to rename the file. The name must be the same as that used for the Name in step 4 above (which in turn is the same as the name of the .atn file).

7. Once you have created all the .xml files, you need to rename the Mediadatabase.db3 to MediadatabaseOLD.db3 it is located at

XP Users - C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\6.0\Locale\en-US or your own locale

Vista Users - C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\6.0\Locale\en-US or your own locale


8. Restart Elements. Your Mediadatabase.db3 file will be rebuilt (this takes some time) and a progress bar will display on your screen. Once it is finished you should now be able to see the new drop down menu item.



*Edited* - 09/30/2008 - To do this in PSE 7.0 with Vista you will need to rename the name.xml file to be name.metadata.xml and put them in the same directory at the .atn and .png files (i.e. In Vista your Photo Effects folder is located at C:\Program Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\7.0\Photo Creations\Photo Effects). Note: No rebuild of the mediabase database is necessary.

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