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JamieMac13
JamieMac13
Participant
February 17, 2026
Question

Photoshop Elements editor will not open

  • February 17, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 118 views

I have used PS elements (currently on 2020) for several years - Recently, the loading screen opens, the organiser opens from that, but the Editor will not open.  I have tried opening as Administrator, Running the “.exe” file direct, uninstalling and re-installing, then all of the above again, but still not working (Windows 11) 

I don’t need all the new stuff on 2025, and am tempted to ditch it completely due to frustration - I have been trying workarounds for several hours.

    3 replies

    JamieMac13
    JamieMac13Author
    Participant
    February 17, 2026

    Jeff, thanks - didn’t have an Editor folder in any of the folders, so couldn’t delete it ( I have hidden files as “seen”)

    I have had (and still do) Affinity Photo, which works, but is less intuitive than PS Elements, and I am loathe to pay £80 for a new PSE with only 3 years licence when I don’t really need it!

    Jeff Arola
    Community Expert
    Jeff ArolaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 17, 2026

    JamieMac13,

     

    I would try a preferences reset of the Photoshop 2020 Editor by going to

    C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\18.0

    and deleting the Editor folder.

     

    Those files are usually hidden by default and require showing hidden files and folders:

    https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/show-hidden-files-folders-extensions.html

     

     

    JamieMac13
    JamieMac13Author
    Participant
    February 18, 2026

    Jeff, thanks - didn’t have an Editor folder in any of the folders, so couldn’t delete it ( I have hidden files as “seen”)

    I have had (and still do) Affinity Photo, which works, but is less intuitive than PS Elements, and I am loathe to pay £80 for a new PSE with only 3 years licence when I don’t really need it!

    Jeff Arola
    Community Expert
    Jeff ArolaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 18, 2026

    Did you find the 18.0 folder?

    C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Photoshop Elements

     

    M
    Moon Rouge
    Participant
    February 17, 2026

    Welcome to the club, I had to ditch my PSE 2021 Elements week ago, after updating to Mac OS Tahoe…. I’m on Elements 2026 now. There was no way to fix it, and my Full Photoshop 2020 is gone too. 

    Jeff Arola
    Community Expert
    Jeff ArolaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 17, 2026

     

     

    Moon Rouge,

     

    If you had an subscription to the full Photoshop 2020, you can just update to Photoshop 2026 using the Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop application in Applications/Adobe Creative Cloud, which works on macOS Tahoe 26 and if you need the 3D functions that were in Photoshop 2020, Photoshop 22.2 is available.

    https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/3d-faq.html

    M
    Moon Rouge
    Participant
    February 18, 2026

    If I had the PS2020 subscription I would have updated a few times already, and most likely didn’t buy Elements 2021 in 2020, so let’s just leave it at that. My first Photoshop , and I paid in full, was CS2, but when the subscription rolled in I got used to Elements. I don’t like subscriptions. In last days I tried Krita and Affinity by Canva. I paint in Photoshop. I use the mouse as a pencil, a few my own brushes, styles, and patterns and many, many, layers, often masked. It is time consuming, but that’s what I do. Krita seamed to be similar to Photoshop, but…. my PSD files in Layer Preview (when I hovered over with mouse) shown all was there, but whatever was masked didn’t displayed on the document. I use gold lines (my fx style) often and they were there, editable fx style and all, but since I could see/work on all layers Krita was a bit useless.

    Affinity by Canava showed everything, layers and masks, but the linework I used my fx style were all black looking like a blob. It’s good, but not better, just different, and for me also useless, cannot import my style, would have to make it from scratch, maybe. 

    So, in less than 2 weeks I bought Photoshop Elements 26 and it looks like all works fine except a hiccup in the brushes.

    My custom brushes loads fine but when I use them the preset set display the name of the following one. The first one  has name ‘none’  the next bears the name what I gave to the first and so on. And when I change the set it asks me if I want to save changes, while I didn’t do any. I deleted them, rename them, restarted, put them to another location. All the same.  I had uploaded them to : user-Library-Application Support-Adobe-Photoshop Elements-Presets-Brushes. Then I  move them to MacHD-Applications-Support Files-Presets-brushes. The difference was the ‘Default’ brushes had name ‘none’ . So I moved mine back to library-app support location. The Default brushes are back to Default now and my first set is ‘none’. Blah. It’s minor thing, the brushes themselves work as they supposed too, some are too big, but it’s OK. All else of mine loaded well. So Adobe is still a winner for me.

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