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What Software Is Best For Organizing On A Mac?


carp12310

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Hi All,

 

I have been using a PC to do all my digital scrapbooking and it recently decided to quit on me. I have been using PSE 7 and ACDSee to organize all of my digital scrapbooking stuff. I am looking into getting a mac for the first time....

 

I am an organizer and I like all the tags I can put on my things to find items quickly. I have read some use iPhoto, or picasa and also saw a program called shoebox. I also saw that acdsee is in beta for mac. I want something like acdsee as I like all the features that gives you for organizing. I was wondering if someone could recommend a program that is similar to as when looking on line at screenshots of all the different ones its getting confusing and Im not sure which way to go...also is there a way to migrate my acdsee tags into another program?

 

Thanks so much for all the help!

 

Alicia

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Alicia,

I am a Mac user too and quite honestly, I have not yet found an organization method that I really like - ACDEE seems to be the most popular one and I have not tried that yet - it would be interesting to know how you like it if you decide to go that route. I really struggle with organizing everything on my Mac - it is wonderful in every other way, but organizing? Wish I could help!

 

I do use my iPhoto now - it's great and right now I am fine with it - but think you are looking for something even better.

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Hi-welcome to the world of Mac!

 

Short answer as far as organizing digi stuff on a Mac-I used iPhoto for awhile (long time ago) and it got funky on me. Tried Shoebox, thought it was good and turned out it wasn't so. I use Picasa now-it's free and so far it's working fine for me. That being said, if you have used ACDSee before and you liked it and there is a beta for the Mac for it, maybe you could transfer all your digi stuff to the Mac version and all the tags would be intact-may be a question for the ACDSee people! I have looked at that and wished there was a version for the Mac (this was a long time ago-I was told that there was no plan for a version for the Mac so I moved on). I know there are some Mac users that use the Finder and that works well but not if the image is black-you can't see it against the black backdrop!

 

So I hope that this was some help. Help is just a post away, so when you need help, just ask! Judy

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Hi there Alicia,

I'm a mac user and I use Picasa and totally are very happy with it!!

I used shoebox and at first it was great but it clapped out and not good backup with the company.

I haven't used ACDSee but have heard lots of good about it. But after buying Shoebox was a little reluctant to spend more money. Found alot of for and against for iPhoto, same with bridge so thought I would give Picasa a go and with its price tag (free) felt I would only lose time. But it has proven to be really great for me.

I think if you are already comfortable with ACDSee and can afford to get it, it would probably be the way to go and as Judy has said maybe stuff you have already tagged maybe able to come over to the mac side of things.

All the best with your choice.

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I use Bridge-I don't have much trouble with it, it lets me keyword, and save keyword searches to save me time (eg. "fasteners" is a saved search so any files with that keyword comes up). There are a few kinks, but once I figured them out and found a work around, I don't have the problems that I did at the beginning.

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Hi Everyone,

 

Just down loaded ACDSee. So far, I love it! Its like bridge but better. I also use Ilife but its been acting funny and I have been forced to create a new library. I just do not want to do that all over again. To much work.

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Hi All,

 

Thanks so much for all your replies. I just got my mac yesterday. I downloaded picassa to try it as..but I think I may be going back to acdsee and trying the beta. I am a very detailed organized person. I know that everyone likes to organize differently but acdsee allowed me to do this and Im not so sure I can do it with picassa...I organize like this:

 

For example:

Paper

--Patterned

-----dots

-----stripes

-----(other categories..I have lots :-) )

--Solids

 

Then I cross categorize with colors...so if I wanted to see blue dot paper I guess I would have the following tags to see it....paper, dots, blue?

 

It looks like in picassa I can tag...but I think I would have gazillion tags if I did it this way and it would be a pain to try to view them all...Is this correct in my thinking? Like it would show all tags for embishments, paper, templates etc all together (because I subcatogorize all this stuff too)

 

does that make sense?

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I think it would show all the tags. I tag my paper with the word, paper. Then I tag it further with the color and then if appropriate I tag it with the word floral or dots or stripes. Then if I put the search word in as blue let's say, all the blue paper would show and if the word blue is in the title, that would cause that item to appear too. If a tag has the word blue in it, that would show up too. I can add as many tags as I want to the search criteria. I also have a tag that is the word masculine-if I put that in the search field, all items (paper, tags, embellishment, etc.) that I tagged as masculine would show up. I wish that there was some way to see the list of tag words though so I could edit them within Picasa because there have been times that I have misspelled a tag word and it remains there in the list. If I am not careful when I tag new things, that misspelled tag gets put in for the new item. If there is a way to edit the tags in Picasa, I don't know about it.

 

I have looked at ACDSee in the past and wished there was a Mac version! It looked like it would be very slick for viewing and tagging. When I contacted the company that makes it I asked about a Mac version and there were no plans to make such a thing so I gave up. That was a long time ago. There aren't very many times that I wish I had a PC (that thought is rare and fleeting) but that was one of them because ACDSee looked perfect for what I wanted to use it for! Now I am wondering if I wanted to use ACDSee, would it take the tags I have entered in Picasa and preserve them????

 

Have fun with your new Mac! My sister finally became a 'switcher' and is enjoying her Mac very much! She has hit a few glitches and I wish that I could help her out but she lives 3000 miles from me. She is coming to visit for 3 weeks soon so I can help her get more acquainted with her Mac. It only took her 14 years to switch! Ha! ;->

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I'm currently sort of using Picasa, but don't really like it. I'm interested in trying ACDSee for Mac. iPhoto got way too complicated as I have a huge stash, was ok when I first got the Mac, but as I added more and more, it doesn't seem to like it. I know you'll love your Mac. I am so glad I switched last year. Never going back, Apple now has my customer loyalty.

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I have been playing around with picassa and iphoto some...but I am thinking of downloading the beta of acdsee to try that. I like iPhoto does subfolders...but everything else Picassa does better (imo)..plus I like it automatically searches on colors. I just wish picassa did sub albums then it would be fine for what I need. I sometimes drill down two or three levels so I dont want to see all that listed under albums...I like to be able to hide my organizational mess under subfolders :-)

 

I dont think you can convert your tags from picassa to acdsee...as I am going to have to retag everything...which is going to take forever...I think that is why I am flip flopping so much on programs to use.

 

Im only nervous on acdsee for mac as it is beta and not sure if I want to install that or not on my new computer ....

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  • 5 weeks later...

Think I'll go try the beta acdsee for the Mac. I LOVED Organizer on my PC. I had over 54,000 files and never had a minutes problem with it. Can you access the acdsee files and bring them into PSE??? I've got to do something. iPhoto isn't the answer for scrapbooking files for me. Bridge seems awkward. I've used Picassa before and the price is right. And Picassa is a breeze to send emails and blog photos from.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am so thrilled to have Organizer back again. Thanks to whomever for including Organizer with PSE v9 for the Mac! Since I had done some drastic housekeeping and reorganization since I converted over last May, I couldn't reload my existing Catalog and have everything organized and up and going. If I'd made the direct switch, I could have imported my existing Catalog. I'm having to rebuild Organizer but it's worth it. I'll just add one collection at a time during my "free" time. HA! I looked at ACDSee but it's not seamless. I guess it boils down to what you are comfortable with and like. I can tell you the months without a system were awful. I couldn't rely on remembering where everything was. I'm much happier now.

 

:dancingelephant:

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  • 4 weeks later...

I picked up Atomic View as part of a MacGrab bundle. It's pretty slick. I'm still playing with it to see what I think. It also does sorts on hues and saturation. Alows you to create your own meta data to sort on. And unlike picasa you can drag directly to photoshop or set it to open the photos. I've been going crazy trying to figure out what my own scrap organization is going to look like and what software I'm going to use too. I'm still recovering from two hard drive crashes over a year ago. (not a lot of free time) Anyway I thought I'd toss this one out there in case anyone else wanted to try it out. I've been playing a bit with the Acdsee. It's harder since it's a beta and not there yet.

hth

 

ps: Bonnie, I can't wait for that happy feeling! lol!

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I downloaded and looked at ACDsee and decided that while it is nice, I have a majority of my digi stuff organized and tagged in Picasa so will stick with that. It's just too much work to go through the whole process again, tagging. I will take a look at that software you mentioned, Dotted-have never heard of that one.

 

As an aside, I see you are a gringa living in Mexico. My sis is going to stay in Costa Rica for 2 months this winter, for her health-the cold temps are very hard on her. She lives in Central Oregon. Should be an interesting experience! Judy

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Yeah, I hadn't heard of it either. It has some good tutorials that I'd advise looking at. I'm looking at more of the tagging options so I can't give you all the info. (haven't had a lot of time to play)

 

 

Costa Rica is wonderful and beautiful!!! So much to see! She will love it! No spicy food though. ahh well. can't have it all. -smile- I hope to go back someday. I have some great pics from there that I have yet to scrap!

If she needs any suggestions pm me. My first suggestion would be for you to go with her, you know to "help her get settled in" haha!

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Yea, we have already discussed me going to visit her there since 2 months is a long time without family around......just trying to be supportive, ha! She is fluent in Spanish so that will be a big help. She does have one friend that she is going with which is nice-someone she met online that just so happens to live near me! It's a small world! Judy

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  • 2 months later...

I didn't read all the posts i have to admit lol I'm trying to catch up on a few things and don't want to sit here forever reading LOL

I bought a mac about a year ago and still haven't organized! I just use the built in search features.... I can type in white... and everything white shows up.. paper,elements whatever. At the top is an option to search the whole mac or just this folder. I have all my supplies in one folder called Scrapbooking so it makes it easy for me to find things. Unless the designer has named a file wrong it's not effective but I also have a photographic memory and know exactly where to find certain things.

I've not been able to find a program I've been happy with nor do I really wish to spend the excessive amount of time tagging and organizing everything! I keep all my collections together as a collection which does make things a little easier. I've used picasa and shoebox.. i tried using iphohto but don't care for it.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I just downloaded trial for AtomicView. Dotted - you said you had this software... have you been using it? It looks pretty incredible. Still playing... anyone else have this software?

 

Yes, and I really like it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just started using Lightroom. I am following the tutorials by Kayla Lamoreaux on the Digiscrapping 101 blog. It works with

Photoshop, Bridge and Lightroom. Awesome program and it does not leave all the .xmp file all over your hard drive. It cost a

little more, but well worth it. I also just switched to a Mac. I used ACDsee on my PC and even after using 4 versions had

way to many problems with it and had no help from their forums. Same issues with each version I had. Wish I had spent the money on Lightroom instead. So happy to be ACDsee free. lol

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