[thedesigndiva]

I am new here, and trying to find the best and fastest way to keep organized!!!!

I use Photoshop, and was wondering if someone could make me a step by step way of how they keep organized.

Maybe starting from when you download ... then what?

Thanks so much this might just help me from going crazy

~Sarah
thedesigndiva

[DDecker]

Hi Sarah! I can't believe no one else has jumped in and given you any suggestions!

We all do things a little different but here is what I do.
1. Set up a Scrap girls folder
2. download zip to subfolder within SG folder called downloads
3. unzip to same folder as zip (my computer defaulst to this)
4. I now have 2 files with the same name 1 zipped 1 unzipped
5. Now you have a choice keep things in kits or move to catagory folders
6. I keep full kits in their own folder but have catagory folders for freebie and single files. Some of my catagory folders within the SG folder are, papers, wordart, embelishments, tags, ribbon\fiber\bows, metal
7. after a while I will back up just the zips incase something happens to my computer.

A couple of other things, I have 2 hard drives one for my operating system and program files and one for my "stuff". A lot of people use an external drive to back "stuff" up to, I use 2 internal. 1 is 80G 2 is 280G

Hope this helps, PM me if you have specific questions.

[thedesigndiva]

Dee

Thanks so much for your reply

So I should never delete the zipped folder, even if I have the "ingriedients" into a new folder?

Thanks again
~Sarah
thedesigndiva

thedesigndiva, on Aug 30 2006, 08:27 AM, said:

I am new here, and trying to find the best and fastest way to keep organized!!!!

I use Photoshop, and was wondering if someone could make me a step by step way of how they keep organized.

Maybe starting from when you download ... then what?

Thanks so much this might just help me from going crazy

~Sarah
thedesigndiva

[DDecker]

I never delete zips, I back them up to get them off my computer but since they take less space I back only them up not the contents. You can always recreate the file by unzipping again but if you loose the contents and didn't save the zips you are outa luck!

Dee

[Selena]

If you are using PSE4 or 5 you can organize the files in the photo organizer. Leaving your original file set up the way you unzipped them. (Set up a system for that process) This way your files can stay grouped by site- artist- and name of the kit or element. Then the actual visuals (the thumbnails in the organizer) can be grouped using the tags. This really helped me keep track w/o creating double files or rearranging the folders after I had unzipped them.

An example. For Scrap Girls they have thier files named wonderfully, by the artist ABR or AHG ect... I have everything in one folder under that heading then unzipped into its own file whether a kit or freebie and I am done. When the graphics are added to the PS organizer then I tag them. Since I am working in PS anyway it makes it easy to find what I want. And you can tag the files with more than one tag. Want to tag by kit? Great! Want to tag the same file as an alphabet or frame or ribbon embellishment? You can do that too!

Good Luck!

[Leigh Ann]

That's basically what I do too. I love to tag with PSE, it makes it so easy to find what I'm looking for. I have all my embellishments tagged by type, and I recently had to start tagging ribbons by type. I tag paper by color, solid or pattern. Soon I may have to tag my embellishments by color also, I'm getting so many!