Help needed with PSE 5 please!

[BeckyG]

Hi there,
I'm just finishing up taking Amy's PSE beginner's class and was spending the afternoon "playing" around on it. Well, after awhile, I went to apply drop shadows, and find that there is nothing - nothing at all - coming up under "Artwork and Effects"! I've got the five icons to select either Artwork, Themes, Special effects, etc., but nothing comes up in the drop down menus. I have no idea what I might have done - it was working fine last time I tried it. Any help you guys can offer, or suggestions, would be great!
Thanks in advance!

Becky

[schock77]

I'd try to reboot your system... and if you still don't see them you could try to reinstall. Do you have Vista or XP? I can show you the path the check and be sure your styles are still there if you let me know what system you use.

[WenRob]

I have PSP so won't be a huge help but when this happens to me, (more then likely I've hit something that 'hides' things) I reset the 'view' of preferences back to factory defaults. I have to reset things the way I like them but it always works.
Another thing I have happen (and again this is PSP I don't know PSE's quirks) is my program will out of the blue get a glitch that for whatever reason won't go away. I go to the website and trouble shoot but if that doesn't work I set my computer back a day. It doesn't hurt anything and it's my only sure fire fix for PSP glitches.

[BeckyG]

Thanks for the quick responses! Stephanie, I am using XP. Wen - you mentioned something about "hiding" something and it made a little bell go off. I was trying to use brushes today for the first time, and while downloading and installing one a box popped up prompting me to "hide", which I did. At the time, i assumed it would move it down to the task bar and didn't give it another thought until I read your note. How would I reset that in my preferences?

[WenRob]

Well, I'm not sure where it would be in PSE. Do you have a 'view' in your task bar? When I hit view it gives me a drop down menu and in there is a my preferences and I just set it back to default. Look for view in your menu in PSE not the computer.

[BeckyG]

There is no reset for preferences in "view", but I did find "Preferences" under the "edit" tab on the main bar. When I went in there, under "general" there is a reset button. I tried that, but no luck. When I try to open the drop down menu I get the message "Could not complete your request because of a program error". I think I'll just try to reboot, and if that doesn't work I'll try a system restore.

[Scrapnladybug]

When I have this problem, I read somewhere to hold down the shift key when you open PSE5. This rebuilds the brushes and artwork effects. I don't know how buy it does work for me.

Donna

[OneMemory]

Each time you open PSE it rebuilds the cache and lists for those styles & effect items. You can intentionally delete that file and it will attempt to rebuild it the next time you open. If your other efforts don't work, I can post the string you need to delete and try that.