Elements

[Patty5E8D]

I am new to Elements, but I have my pictures on my desktop and everytime I click on a picture to look at it to decide if I want to edit it it opens up in RAW editor on elements.  Is there a setting I can have to make this stop.  Yes I am shooting my photos in RAW but I just want to look at them without using the editor first.

[Greg_S.]

What OS and version of Elements are you using?

What application do you wish to view your photos in?

Raw files cannot be viewed natively in Windows.  I know nothing about Macs, but I doubt whether a native file viewer is available there either.  If you or someone else wants to set me straight about that, I'm all ears.

Camera manufacturers usually provide some software to download and view their raw files.  Perhaps, that is what you are talking about.  If so, in Windows, you can change the file associations for your raw files to open in a particular program.

There are also some third party utilities (some free) that will allow you to view raw files in your OS file browser. 

[Greg_S.]

Since you are new to Elements, I should of course add that you should use the Organizer, which is part of Elements, to view your files (and then send them to the Editor if you want to do so).

[Patty5E8D]

thank you for your help.  I discovered that I was only shooting in RAW and so the RAW editor was naturally opening them up for me.  I have since started to shoot in RAW and jpeg and have no issues.