A quick tutorial to change default 'edit' for image files.


Archigos

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I searched the forum and didn't find anything about this and I can't for the life of me find where I originally got the info from years ago. If @Brink wants to turn this into an actual tutorial (with reg files) that'd be awesome.

Side note: I did the Disable "Show more options" context menu in Windows 11 Tutorial tutorial prior to doing this, so I'm unsure how this affects the 'new' context menu.

To add "Edit with Photoshop" to the right-click menu of specific image types
Screenshot 2022-02-05 13.57.53.png
Open the Registry Editor and navigate to:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\SystemFileAssociations
Find the image type you want (ex. .jpg) and navigate to:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\SystemFileAssociations\.jpg\Shell
Right-click on "Shell" and select "New -> Key" and enter the name you'd like to show up in the Context Menu (ex. "Edit with Photoshop")
Right-click the Key you just created and select "New -> Key" and enter 'command'
Now on the right, double-click "Default" and enter the location of Photoshop, followed by "%1" so you end up with something like:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2020\photoshop.exe" "%1"
Screenshot 2022-02-05 141112.png

You can repeat this for any image types that Photoshop can handle (ex. .png, .gif, .bmp, etc). This will work instantly, no need to restart Explorer, reboot, or log out/in.
To remove any of these, just delete the Key that you named (ex. "Edit with Photoshop") and it will remove it from the context menu.

---

Instead of doing these one at a time, you can change the default "Edit" that normally opens in Paint to use Photoshop instead. Some Windows 11 systems are missing this entry in the context menu by default, but this will add it back in on 'most' images.
This time, open Registry Editor and navigate to:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\SystemFileAssociations\image\shell
If you are missing the 'edit' key, do the following to create the keys needed, otherwise skip the next two lines.
Right-click "shell" and select "New -> Key" and enter 'edit'
Right-click "edit" and select "New -> Key" and enter 'command'
Double-click "Default" on the right side and enter the path to Photoshop followed by "%1" and have something like this:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2020\photoshop.exe" "%1"
Screenshot 2022-02-05 143100.png
To revert back to using Paint, or having no 'edit' in the context menu, delete the 'edit' key.

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Just an FYI, it's redundant to use both of these methods as you'll have both options in the context menu just wasting space.
 
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