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I know I have seen some various ideas noted in different threads on some other topics, but I wanted to see if I could get some opinions in a thread here.

How do you organize your digital layouts:
I have heard by color, artist, website...
But how do you find, for example, a metallic frame or a brad, without going thru all folders to find just the right one if they are kept separated by artist?
I have changed my folders two or three times already since I have started here and haven't decided which is the easiest way. It's getting as bad as my paper supplies! (at least it's not taking up shelves and boxes and drawers though!)

My latest is folders for backgrounds, embellishments, overlays, page kits, wordart and alphas, with the files labeled with the artist (or the text file in their folder). But it still seems to take forever to scroll through the previews in PSE's browser to find exactly what I want.

Any thoughts on how yours are organized, and how that helps you find items for your layout would be appreciated by us newer digiscrappers.
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I don't download much, because I prefer to make all my own stuff. But what I have done is organize my photos and layouts in seperate folders by month, and I burn a CD every so often.

My kits and layouts are all kind of willy nilly, unfortunately. I haven't found a good way to document them or organize them.

The stuff I have downloaded is in a downloads folder, then organized by person, then by kit.
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Guest lesliefavela
Sounds like you're on a roll, Jax. It does seem to take forever to resort, doesn't it? I'm doing that work, too. It's not nearly as much fun as creating our pages is! Good luck.
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Guest Pearl Girl
Like you, I have folders for collections, papers, embellishments, alphas, overlays, etc. I generally keep everything that goes in a collection together along with a notepad for artist info so I know who to give credit to. I agree it's a pain sorting through everything just to find the right little brad or whatever, but I'm afraid if I separate everything out, I'll lose track of credit information.
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Guest nviars
I have been trying to organize my kits and I'm finding that it's a never ending job. However, if you want to get really organized, and detailed, you can download Picasa2 (for free) from google (www.picasa.com). It's a very simple program to use, and you can also use it to quickly print contact sheets which will help you to look for things more easily (hopefully, unless you have 2 binders full of contact sheets like I do!).

There are a lot more options with picasa, including keywords and search capabilities. HTH!

Nicole
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I myself found it easier when downloading purchases and freebies etc for digital scrapping to make a folder for the main site, then make folders for the artists as well. I'm usually pretty good at remembering who made what kit or freebie but to be on the safe side, I also rename the file by adding the site I got it from to the beginning of it, then if the kids decide to move a file on me I still know what it is and where I got it from. I've not attempted to do much more as far as organizing them though. But after reading some of what is here, I think I am going to try and at least get them a little better organized. :)
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[quote name='nviars' date='May 30 2005, 03:54 PM']I have been trying to organize my kits and I'm finding that it's a never ending job.  However, if you want to get really organized, and detailed, you can download Picasa2 (for free) from google (www.picasa.com).  It's a very simple program to use, and you can also use it to quickly print contact sheets which will help you to look for things more easily (hopefully, unless you have 2 binders full of contact sheets like I do!).

There are a lot more options with picasa, including keywords and search capabilities.  HTH!

Nicole
[right][post="16100"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post][/right][/quote]


I was afraid to add that initially I did do contact sheets using the PSE organizer. Although after I finished them, I have a 3 inch binder full also, so not as easy as I thought it would be to use. It is nice to flip thru to see the kits and backgrounds at a glance though at the rate I am adding stuff, it's already outdated.
Oh well, back to the drawing board....
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Guest MN_Scrapper
I have a folder called "Digital Scrapbooking" with subfolders for Alphabets, Page kits, Quick pages, and Themed pieces. Under page kits, I have them organized according to topic, with each kit listed under the appropriate topic. The larger kits have three subfolders - alphs, embellishments, and backgrounds.

Here is what works best for me, though: Every time I get a new kit, I copy the preview to a folder called "kit overviews." If there is not a preview with the kit, I will copy one of the background pages that contains most of the main colors of the kit. This folder I have Picasa keep track of. I can scroll very easily through the kits to find the color or look I want, and then I know what folder to go through.

It works for me.
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Guest jlf_loves_mjf
When I first download them, I do organize them by website. After unzipping, I have my kits organized by designer and then by collection. So far, I don't have too much and can remember the kits I've downloaded and who did them. I also have a couple of "misc" folders (misc_alphas, misc_papers, misc_wordart) for the things I've picked up that weren't part of a collection. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do this, and I'll probably have to start over when I start forgetting who's done what. I do think I'll start pulling the previews for anything new I get (GREAT IDEA) and maybe go back and grab the older ones before they disappear!
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Guest EJay
i just go find what i want when i want to use it and if i dare to go into moms stuff i get lost cuz she has everything all in there by dates and names and i can not see pics of the stuff so may be i will have to get her to make it so we can see thumbnails of what is in the folders that can help too i think when you want to find something you can see it
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Guest DeeZee
My "stuff" is in folders by site and then designer or kit name, but then I use Paint Shop Album to organize (similiar to Picasa but Picasa frustrated me with the browsing method). With PSAlbum, I can add thumbnail shortcuts without moving my actual file by whatever "collection" I choose -- so all my eyelets are in a collection, all my papers are in a collection, etc etc.

Problem is keeping up with it LOL!
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  • 1 month later...
Guest abbier626
right now I have my digital elements organized by the website they came from and then the kit or designer, but it is not very easy to navigate. Maybe I will try reorganizing how some of you suggested.

Nicole - thanks for the tip about Picasa. It looks very helpful. I am going to try it out :)
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  • 11 months later...
Guest scrappyscientist
I am just getting organized myself. I have folders for paper,elements, alpha, printables, and a folder with the different artists TOUs (terms of use). When I download anything I rename it and add on to the original name the artists name and the website. Then I break everything up. Under each folder I have sub-folders. I have sorted everything by color. So under paper I have neutrals and metals, reds and pinks, oranges and yellows, multi, etc. Under elements I have brads and eyelets (then inside each I have more folders with colors), ribbons, borders, word art, etc. I may seem like a ton of folders (it is), but it works for me because I tend to think in colors and that way if I want an orange ribbon, I can go right to that folder and pick one out.
I hope this made sense :rolleyes: I tend to ramble. -Alison
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I'm still pretty new at digital but have accumulated quite a bit of stuff. I'm creating a collection in PSE Browser for scrapping and I'm tagging by color, kit, designer, type (paper, tag, etc). Sort of like how Ro suggested in her 15 Steps book. So far it's working. I can drag the item I need right from the browser just like for folders. Disadvantage is that I can't make the window really small. I'm working with a 15 in monitor so space is a premium.
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  • 2 months later...
Guest zachsmommy
This is a constant struggle for me too. I finally got around to printing contact sheets of all my kits (while still purchasing new ones) so now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to update my contact sheets in the easiest way...

At any rate, my files are organized into a scrapbook file, then by designer name and within that file, by kit name. I like the contact sheet idea at least in theory, but since I've been procrastinating on actually producing ANYTHING while I get organized, I don't really know for sure if it works for me.

I guess we'll see.

I've gotten as bad about collecting digital stuff as I was about paper stuff.....and then I never used it!!!!!! Argh.


Kim
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Guest hhugginsgirl
I just got this new program called Digital Scrapbook Room. I love it you can organize it any way you like. You can put everything in it's own seperate folder and keep it all together too. It's says it can keep track of what you use on your layouts, but I haven't tried it yet I'm still tring to get everything where I want it. It's great!
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  • 2 months later...
[quote name='hhugginsgirl' post='63198' date='Oct 9 2006, 07:14 AM']I just got this new program called Digital Scrapbook Room. I love it you can organize it any way you like. You can put everything in it's own seperate folder and keep it all together too. It's says it can keep track of what you use on your layouts, but I haven't tried it yet I'm still tring to get everything where I want it. It's great![/quote]


The Digital Scrapbook Room sounds very interesting. Where did you find this? Who makes it? I tried putting the name in an Amazon search and got -0-. Sure would appreciate more infor on this--
DianeB
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Guest siraacsa
One of the great things about Scrapgirls and why it is so easy to credit them when using their products is that every piece in a kit is named with their initials, kit name and item name. I wished every designer/website would do this.

It is possible to rename everything by this method when you download them.

I also have two copies of everything as I keep a collection together and have a folder named Collections divided into sites and then designers and then kits. I then break this done and put a copy of each piece into backgrounds, alphas, embellishment etc as per Ro's system which you can find in the university.
I ended up doubling my harddrive space needed to store my supplies but I can search either by collection or by item required.
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Guest scrapgrammy
Here is a quote from another message board on Digital Scrapbook Room organizer that can be found at:

Digital ScrapRoom..I found it on www.scrapbook-elements.com (http://www.scrapbook-elements.com) website

>>As for the Digital Scrapbook Room organizer....I purchased it and have been extremely disappointed in it. It has way too many bugs in it and in my opinion was not ready to be sold to the public yet. Updates are weekly (now) but each update requires you to uninstall and reinstall your supplies folder. Updates were sometimes 2 a day in the beginning. I major pain in the butt! I paid for a working program, not to be a beta tester. I've given up on the darn thing altogether now. I guess I was looking for something similar to PSE album, only faster and I was excited at first to see Scrapbook Room was going to do that.....until it started crashing or refreshing the screen and taking longer than PSE did! I know they've been through 2 programming companies already. My suggestion would be to hang tight until the bugs are worked out. At least that's been my experience with it:(

Hope this helps!
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Guest sfcgijill
Thanks for the review on Digital Scraproom- I woulda been mad at it for sure.

It's the end of the month, end of the quarter, so I am backing up my stuff on CD. LOs on a CD, kits on another CD, etc.

On my computer, I have kits organized by website (SG the biggest file I have, the others just aren't that interesting to me lately). That makes it easier to credit someone if I use their stuff and the filename is ambiguous. I also have a 5x7 binder that I print the kit thumbs to, so that way I can flip through to find what I'm looking for. I have the kits kind of filed by color scheme, that way I can cross-utilize. I find the binder lots easier than having lots of windows open on the computer screen. Frankly, my current computer just isn't up to having too many things going on at once, especially with PSCS or PSE running.

I have one file named Basic Elements that has the generic stuff I use a lot- eyelets, staples, that kind of thing. The stuff that you use over and over, maybe just recoloring to match your layout.

I do download other site's freebies from time to time- usually they just aren't up to snuff and they only get used once, if ever. So, during my quarterly clean up, they just get deleted.
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I think the key words in your suggestion Jill is "quarterly cleanup". Just doing that on a regular basis would help with organization a lot. If everything just keeps going in and nothing ever comes out, it just gets wayyy too big. It is way too big anyway. But I like the quarterly cleanup idea. Since this is "almost" the first day of the New Year of 2007 it sounds like a good plan to implement.
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I bought the Digital ScrapRoom and haven't had any problems with it. I really like the concept, but it runs too slowly for me.

So, after trying it and buying it, I then heard about another program called ACDSee Photo Manager. I downloaded the trial version and decided that I really liked this one so much better. It loads extremely fast along with all the thumbnails of my photos.

One of the advantages of this program over the Digital ScrapRoom is that it acts like windows explorer in that you can create/delete/rename/move folders. The way I'm using it now, and this is just the tip of the iceberg, is to unzip all my digital kits first using an unzip program. I then open ACDSee and move all of the unzipped files to their final destination, creating the appropriate folders for the items as I go. It moves along pretty quickly and I'm thinking that within one week I'll have 6 months of downloads organized into their final resting spot.

Once I've accomplished all the sorting out of my files/photos, I will then go back and start tagging them with keywords and other stuff so that when I'm looking for a red button, I'll be able to search for just red buttons.

With Digital ScrapRoom, you will have free upgrades for life and I know they are working on improving it, so I'm not deleting it from my computer. The price is $24.99, so it's not a huge investment and I do see it being great after they add some of the things they plan to.

You can download a 30 day trial from ACDSee, however, to see if you will like that program. During the first 15 days you'll get a buy it now pop-up everytime you start the program, and I believe it's cheapest if you take advantage of that offer, rather than waiting longer than 15 days. Also, if you google "ACDSee Coupons" you can find additional coupons.

So just an alternative I thought I'd throw out there for organizing all those files we have.

Terri
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I use the organizer in PSE - I assign tags to each item in a kit and the tags are in folders, so I have an embellishment folder that contains brads, paper clips, etc. My paper folder contains size (12x12 or 8.5x11) and color, pattern, solid, etc. Then I can do a search in PSE that will isolate all the brads regardless of what folder they are in on my hard drive. Or all the pink 12x12 paper, etc. I also assign a tag with the name of the kit. It takes time to maintain this system, but it's *so* worth it, especially in the one hour crops in the chat room, LOL. I'm a little behind in my organizing because of the sale, but I'm working on it.

BTW, everything I've assigned tags to also gets a "hidden" tag, so that the only thing that shows in the all photo view are the ones that I've not tagged yet. Then when I want to do a search, I search all hidden items.

It works for me.
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All my folders are organised by designer name then I use the ACDSee program as Terri has mentioned above to locate items I want by color, design, paper, elements etc... After the first 15 days I was so hooked I decided to buy it as it cut my Scrapbook LO time down by more than half, no more searching endlessly through folders. I will admit it took some time to tag all my files but now its as simple as opening ACDSee, clicking on the Scrap Girls Tag I made then browsing by the sub tags, paper, blue, textured etc when you hover your mouse over the item you want it tells you exactly where it is located on your computer.
On the other hand I did try Picasa and loved using it but found I had trouble viewing some .png files.
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[quote name='MN_Scrapper' date='May 30 2005, 06:24 PM' post='16113'

Here is what works best for me, though: Every time I get a new kit, I copy the preview to a folder called "kit overviews." If there is not a preview with the kit, I will copy one of the background pages that contains most of the main colors of the kit. This folder I have Picasa keep track of. I can scroll very easily through the kits to find the color or look I want, and then I know what folder to go through.

It works for me.
[/quote]

Hey, this is a terrific idea! I was trying to catalog all of my stuff in PS Album and it was a daunting task...cataloging the preview will work though. :D
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Does anyone know if there are any benefits to using ACDSee over PSE Album? I have PSE Album and like it...I don't see the need to buy ACDSee unless there are some definite benefits...KWIM?

This is me trying to be responsible and not spend needlessly...let's see how long I can behave myself...lol
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