Opening graphics files using right-click in XP Pro

"send-to" option behavior with Photoshop, ImageReady, PSP?

[Robert Charlton]

Not sure which forum to put this in, as it might be an XP question, or it might be a graphics software question. I'm guessing readers in this forum are most likely to be familiar with both.

I've migrated over to a new PC running XP Pro, and I've just installed several of my image editing programs (Photoshop 5.5, ImageReady 2.0, Paint Shop Pro 7.04). I've set XP up to launch files with the right-click "sent-to" option, but the sent-to behavior of Photshop and PSP are different than expected. I'm trying to figure out if there's anything I can do about it.

I set up "send-to" in the standard way... put shortcuts to the programs in the \Documents and Settings\username\SendTo folder.

For four basic file types... for now, Windows file associations are set so that jpegs and gifs open (ie, via left double-click) in Windows picture viewer, psd's open in Photoshop, and psp's open in Paint Shop Pro. And left-clicks work as expected, with only one instance of the program getting launched, no matter how many files I open.

Right-clicking for send-to, though, gives these anomalies...

- send-to Paint Shop Pro opens a separate instance of the program for each file opened, whatever the type. It will open gifs, jpegs, psds, and psps. Anyone have this problem?

- send-to Photoshop won't open some jpegs that PSP and ImageReady will open, but it will open them with the File Open command from inside the program. It does not have PSP's problem of multiple instances of the program; and it does open multiple files via send-to in one instance of the program.

- send-to ImageReady apparently has no problems. It seems to open everything (except for PSP, which neither it nor Photoshop recognize, but it tells you that)... and it opens multiple files via send-to in one instance of the program

So this seems more like program behavior than XP behavior, but I'm not sure. Any thoughts?