I use Lightroom, and mark my photos that I've already scrapped with the color purple. That way, at a quick glance I know what has already been scrapped. Before I used Lightroom, I had started changing the name of the photo file by adding SCRAPPED at the end. Like 2018-01-02_SCRAPPED.jpg. Additionally, I also keep an Excel file with the dates I took photos, what transpired that day, and then tuck in a thumbnail of the completed layout. When I'm done with a particular day, then I fill that row with a medium gray so I know that event is scrapped. This is SUPPOSED to help me when it comes to printing and/or finding particular layouts. I find it quite satisfying to see the rows of completed layouts. LOL
I was hoping you'd drop by with that excel sheet Cheryl! Man, put you and @Chippi should get together and sell yourselves as the organizing digi queens! You do the photos, she does the supplies. Boom! Done.
@bestcee Man, I love Cheryl! I actually do the same with my photos in Lightroom, except I mark them green, and I TOTALLY copied the idea from her too, haha!! I had spreadsheets with all my photos set out similarly to Cheryl's too, but they corrupted and I haven't been back to recover/fix everything... just don't wanna...
Glad to know that I'm not the only one that puts a thumbnail of my layout on my spreadsheet @gonewiththewind. Although my spreadsheet is just for tracking what kits/templates/fonts I use for a layout. I also record the file name on the spreadsheet. I have columns on there for whether it was printed and what album the layout has been put in (I use CM albums) but I abandoned that when I started moving layouts from one album to another! An added bonus is that I also can get a total for the number of layouts done per year from this. It has come in handy when I might have done a layout for an event but don't finish the event until months later. Instead of trying to figure out what I used by looking at the layout, I've got it listed. In February for SWL's MIS I did a layout of my kitchen before the remodel. The remodel wasn't done until September. I finally did the after layout in October. No way I would have remembered which kit after that many months. Spreadsheet had all the info I needed. I have a tabbed page for each year. Any special albums (like my cruise in 2010) has its own tab because that was just one big special event! When I was on a couple creative teams I had a page for each designer as well so I could keep track of which kits that I had scrapped for them. All that being said, I do not note which photos I have scrapped in any way at all.
I have folders for each year, with sub folders for months/days. I highlight the "day" folder once I've scrapped those photos.
Like Cheryl, I tag my photos that are "To Be Scrapped" in Lightroom. If I've edited the photo and I am happy with it, I will also export to my TBS folder so that I can grab them easily when I am ready to scrap. As well, I keep a list of album pages that I need to complete in excel. Any layouts that are high priority are in a yellow highlight until I am done with them. I also mark the ones that I am doing hybrid so I can work on them in a group when I have my paper stuff out.
I LOVE to organize things, and when I was really restricted in physical activity, it made me feel much better to be able to organize something that was easily accessible, you know? I know it's a bit of overkill, but it's working for now. When it doesn't work anymore, then I'll rearrange things to make scrapping more efficient. Work smarter, not harder! LOL
I will never run out of photos unless I live to be 100 and by then I might be kinda blind! But I do like the idea of 'stroke outline' coloring the ones already used in LR. But it sure won't be purple!! aargh!
So, I like purple. But the reason I choose purple? Because it's a soft purple, so it's not jarring against the Grey and Black of Lightroom. But I totally understand those that hate purple!
It comes with the Creative Cloud package - Lightroom and Photoshop. It's also stand alone, and prior to Creative Cloud that was how most people bought it.
I don't want to use my scrapbook time organizing and sorting, although I have to admit that I'm impressed by those systems! (This is a little out of date -- I have a new computer since the last time I scrapped. I am looking for a replacement for Picasa but will likely end up installing an old version of it since I haven't found anything that displays my files the way I want them. ACDSee is close, Lightroom does not at all.) I have a folder that has thumbnails of all of my completed layouts. The names of them start with the date of the newest photo, so that when I sort by name, they are in chronological order. I mostly use it to plan my books and albums, but it helps with remembering what photos I've used. My photos are separated into directories by date -- Lightroom imports them for me this way -- and Picasa allows me to scroll through them on a single "page" (similar to the way iCloud displays photos under "Moments" on iPhone.) Photos can be dragged right from the Picasa window into PSE, or I can "show in folder" and it opens the directory for me. Since I scrapbook chronologically (mostly newest to oldest), I can easily compare the two windows to see if I've caught everything.
I love Picasa as well. I made sure I kept several copies of the exe file so that when I do get new computers in the future I can still install the program. The one thing that I love about Picasa is that is can be used on 2 different computers very easily. At one time I kept all my kits and photos on a EHD because I went to a lot of retreats and that was the easiest way to share them between laptop when away and desktop when home. At that time ACDSee did not do multiple catalogs. Picasa did. I don't use PS or PSE so I just don't see the need for Lightroom. PSP does have an organizer but it loads every single thing and bogs the program down. Picasa is just so easy. If you ever find something that works like Picasa, let me know!
Cheryl- I LOVE this so much! I love using Excel, but I completely stink at setting up the spreadsheets. Thankfully, my husband actually enjoys creating spreadsheets and I just get the benefit of using them. I am so incredibly OCD, so your system is pretty perfect for someone like me. Thanks for sharing... now off to ask my hubby to make me a spreadsheet edited to add: I am just curious... do you feel the need to make your pages coordinate if they are for the same event? It looks like your birthday ones do. I have mainly scrapped Disney pictures using Project Mouse this past year, so they obviously work together because Britt and Krista's kits coordinate well. But, as I go back and try to catch up on the first nine years of my daughter's life, I am unsure how I really want to tackle that as far as coordinating pages go.
I also use Lightroom for my photos and color code them ---- I do use purple to mark the ones I have scrapped. I wish I had set something up a long time ago as to which ones I have scrapped. I tried moving them to "scrapped folder" but hated that after a while so I ditched it. My photos are so disorganized it is terrible. I should do some better organizing but I would rather scrap then move stuff around.
Hey Desi! I shared the link to my Excel sheet in the other thread and tagged you, but sharing it here as well! https://www.dropbox.com/s/liteh0uefmut5l9/2003 Calendar of Events & Layouts Completed.xls?dl=0 I don't feel the need to coordinate pages if they are of the same event. What you saw in the screen shot above was a fluke. LOL Or maybe not? Maybe I subconsciously pick the same colors/themes? Ha! Seriously, though, when I paper scrapped, I either did double pages that coordinated or they were single pages and they just went in the album chronologically whether they matched or not. I've never really felt a strong need to have them coordinate across the page break . . . I was more focused on the photo(s) and making sure that whatever I was using on the page helped me with my story/theme for the page. Does that make sense?