First download the newest version of Add-O-Matic (just log into your account at the Graffishop, choose “My Account” at the top, and then click ”Show all orders”. Locate the order that has the Add-O-Matic in it, and you’ll see that the download link is reactivated.

Next, remove any earlier versions of Add-O-Matic (if you used the suggested method, first delete the Add-O-Matic.exe file from your My Documents folder, and then go to your Start menu and remove the link to Add-O from there - just right-click it, and choose either “Remove” or “Unpin”, whichever comes up). Unzip the new version you just downloaded, extract the .exe file to your My Documents folder, right-click it, and choose “Pin to Start Menu” from the menu.

Third, navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\5.0\Photo Creations\special effects\Added Effects (this is a hidden folder, so it might be easier to just copy & paste that address into your browser and let it open the folder for you). You should see a bunch of individual *.atn files - select all of them, create a new folder on your desktop, and move all of these actions out of this folder and into the new one on your desktop. Make sure this Added Effects folder is empty.

Fire up Add-O by clicking it in your Start menu (assuming you pinned it there - if not, run it from wherever you’ve saved it). Open the folder on your desktop with all the actions and drag them all into the big orange square in Add-O-Matic, and click “GO!”. It will reinstall all the actions into the Added Effects folder, but now they’ll all be in individual folders.

To make thumbs for these actions: First, open an image you want to be the thumbnail and run the action (let’s call it “Cool Action 1″).

When the action finishes, resize the image to 64 x 64 pixels (you could also crop to this size if you prefer - choose the crop tool and input 64 px width x 64 px height in the options bar at the top) and then flatten it - there should be just 1 layer in the file. Rename this layer (currently “Background“) by double-clicking the layer name in the Layers palette and typing in exactly the action it represents (so in this example, name the layer “Cool Action 1“). Look for any weird characters in the action name - “*” or “_”, for example.

Click File>Save As and keep .psd selected as the file type. Name the file thumbs.psd - this is important, it MUST be named “thumbs.psd”!

Navigate to the folder where the action lives - C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\5.0\Photo Creations\special effects\Added Effects\Cool Action 1\ and save the thumbs.psd in the same folder with the Cool Action 1.atn

Restart PSE 5 and your effects palette should show your new thumbnail - !

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