[sanot]

I started using PSE7 and it's photo organizer about 2-3 years ago on my desktop computer, and have enjoyed the benefits of tagging my photos. I started digital scrapbooking on my desktop computer about 4-5 months ago and am using Ro's system and putting my scrapping supplies on an external hard drive. I now have a laptop as well (yay!!!), and am trying to figure out how to make this work. My scrap supplies are all on the EHD so that's not a problem, but all my photos are tagged on my desktop in PSE7 organizer (they are backed up on the EHD). On my laptop, I can't access my photos with tags. I can use them but there are no tags which I really have come to rely on. I need one central location for all the changes and additions I make.

Are there others out there that scrap on 2 different computers? I'm not certain I'll keep scrapping on the desktop, but I want to keep my options open. Can I put photos and scrap supplies on the EHD and just take that from desktop to laptop? how do I get all my tags into the EHD? I've read a lot of the posts about Picasa, and wonder if that may be my best option as long as I'm in transition.

Thanks for any insight you can offer! I'm guessing I'll eventually move to the laptop exclusively, but my kids like to scrap too, and I'd prefer they do it on the desktop computer, so it needs to be accessible both places.

[naninca]

I jump around between computers, but mainly scrap on my laptop. One thing that's made it much easier is to have a network drive. It's accessible wirelessly to all computers in the house. Not the perfect solution, but it might be worth looking into. Ours was around $100. It's also a nice backup, but Mozy won't recognize it. As far as tags are concerned, I'm not much use there. All my photos are in Picasa, which sorts them by date (and I label each event or folder). I don't tag photos, only supplies (in windows photo gallery in vista).

Nancy

[SodScrap]

All my photos and scrapping supplies are on a EHD so I can take it anywhere and use them on any computer. I only use my laptop though! So basically, I'm not help to answer your question regarding tags and such...sorry!!

[tiza126]

I keep all of my photos and supplies on an EHD as well. It mainly stays connected to my desktop computer, which is my primary computer. But whenever I am traveling, I can just unplug the EHD and take everything with me. But as far as I know, only one computer can be plugged into the EHD at the same time. Unless you bought 2 EHDs, and saved the files to both....then you could have one for each computer, and they can act as a backup to the other.

I do not use tagging for my supplies, nor do I use PSE's Organizer. I do have Picasa installed on both computers which I use to quickly find and browse my supplies.

Another options is store some of my scrapping supplies in my Dropbox account. Dropbox is a web-based file storing system. Once you install Dropbox on your computer, it appears as a folder on your computer. Any files you put in the Dropbox folder can be accessed from any computer that also has Dropbox (using your personal log-in and password, of course). I've done this on occasion when I needed to work on a scrapping project from my office computer...I put the PSD file and a few supplies in my Dropbox folder, so I could access them from work without having to drag my huge EHD with me. That might be an option if your kids wanted to access your scrapping supplies, while you had the EHD on your computer.

[BarbaraC1977]

You've just hit on why I have a double system for storing my supplies. My main scrapping machine is a desktop, and all of my supplies are backed up to an EHD, which I use with my laptop.

I store collections and scrapsimple products intact, AND I have a copy called "SG_Materials" in which I have papers, by color, embellishments by type, etc, very similar to Ro's system. Depending on what I'm looking for, both systems are helpful. The EHD is a duplicate of these, so just the same for my laptop.

I gave up on tagging, as PNG files (all embellishments, word art and some papers) are PNGs. PNGs do NOT store their tags internally. So if you tag with Picasa, Windows Photo Gallery or any other tool, and then MOVE the file outside of the tool or rename it, etc, the tag is separated from the file. I'm not willing to only move files within the tool; I love Windows Explorer (especially in Windows 7.) When I run out of disk space, I'll to reassess, but for now, I have about 100 GB for each system, and it works for me!

[Pab]

Hopefully you figure out what works best for you. I use both my desktop and laptop excessively... so I put EVERYTHING I buy from SG's on both. That way I always have whatever I need whenever I need it in a hurry. I do backup everything to EHD"s but don't have to move it much since I have all supplies on both. Granted you would have to have enough hard drive on your laptop to store it all since they do take up alot of room. I have a laptop with 500 gigs, so I have plenty of room. I also have my pics on both, but recently have thought about just storing the last six months on my laptop. I haven't changed it yet though. As for the tagging, I don't use tagging inside any program either. I have twice went to all the trouble to tag all my pics and lost all my work when I had to reinstall the programs after crashing. I just tag the photos by naming them when I put them on the computers. (Ex. 2011_01_ 12_SavvyBday). By naming the folder that they're in that then renaming each pic the same name, it's very easy for Vista and W7 to find them with the built in search option. To rename each picture all you have to do is highlight them all then right click on one and choose the rename option. Vista and W7 will rename everyone of them for you super quick, whatever name you tell it plus put consecutive numbers after the name... Clear as mud?! lol

[April Showers]

Like a few others, I keep my supplies on an internal drive on my desktop computer and use an EHD to scrap with my laptop. The EHD works as a back-up too, though I do back up in at least three places. I synch the drives regularly to keep the content the same.

[PBarnes]

April is soooo together! I wish I could be as disciplined.

I scrap mainly on my desktop and keep my supplies on an EHD and my photos on the desktop. When I go for a Scrap Girls meet up, I decide which photos I'm going to scrap (plus we usually go out for a photo shoot too) and I put the photos either in Dropbox (LOVE IT) or on an flash drive. I have Picasa on both computers but I've never taken the time to let Picasa scan my EHD. I should do that sometime, huh? LOL

[April Showers]

In case you didn't know, you won't need a new adobe license to use the software on your laptop too. One license covers two machines. They realize many of us use a laptop and a desktop and want to be able to work on both.

[sanot]

Thank you, and keep the tips coming, it's so helpful to hear what others are doing! I still need to figure out what to do with my photos, because I rely on those tags to help me find them...but my tags won't transfer to the EHD.

How do you store your photos? Do you tag them? If you don't tag them, how do you find the one you want, that, for example, has "Uncle Chip" and "Isaac" at the "park" (if you don't remember when you took it and can't just go to the month/year it was taken?) I'm not opposed to using a new organizing system since I'm making the transition to laptop and it has Windows 7 (have Vista on the desktop).

[Smiles]

I love the facial recognition feature in Picasa - photos are the only things I tagged. Anything else I can find with the SG naming convention.

[BarbaraC1977]

Sanot, I try really hard to use explicit names for photos: 2002_0519_MarkBarbara_SixFlagsTx.jpg, for instance. I use a tool called "Bulk Renaming Utility" that makes this easy, and it will number them if you like, too.

[Belle]

Vista and W7 will rename everyone of them for you super quick, whatever name you tell it plus put consecutive numbers after the name... Clear as mud?! lol (entry #6 by Pab)

I just read this in a magazine yesterday and was coming here this morning to put it on and saw it was already on. I have tried it and it works like a bomb. Thanks Patsy.

[mimes1]

You can actually write your tags to the photo meta data through PSE organizer. I will have to look it up though and post a little bit about it. If you do that then theoretically you can store everything on your EHD and the tags would be recognized on either computer. I used to use PSE photo organizer and did this and it worked great. I just don't remember the commands for doing so since I moved to CS and then Picasa. I'll look it up in the morning and see if I can find the instructions for you. I know I have them for an earlier version, and I don't imagine they are too much different for PSE7.

[Sara Arell]

Smiles, on 02 July 2011 - 07:58 PM, said:

I love the facial recognition feature in Picasa - photos are the only things I tagged. Anything else I can find with the SG naming convention.

I love the facial recognition in Picasa too and I use that exclusively for my photos - SG goodies are found with SG naming convention for me as well.

I used to scrap on my desktop AND laptop, but alas, we have a teenager who uses my desktop so I put everything on my laptop and my EHD and I use my laptop for scrapping now - not totally the way I would like it, but it's fine for now.

[mimes1]

If you open your organizer and go to the file menu and click on it, about halfway down you will see an option to "Write Keyword Tag and Properties Info to Photo". I would first do a "clean up" of your organizer by reconnecting any missing files. Then do a "control A" to select all your photos, then go this file menu option and click on it and follow the prompts. Doing this should write all the tag info to your photo, so when you use a different computer the tags will be recognized on the photos and picked up by PSE, and presumably PS if you ever decided to upgrade.