How do you name your layout files?

I name them by the title and then store them by the album they're going to be printed in (ie, Jan-June 2018). If it's a very generic title like "Our Family," I'll use identifying details instead, like "Family Photo, NY 2018" Since I print everything chronologically, it works for me.

 

2019AJessicaBirthday
Year
Month (A=January, L=December)
Name of person
Theme
It's weird but it works for me haha

 

Year First. And I try to remember to do the month next. Then something about it.

You can see my naming trend in my gallery because I don't change the file names.
My last few were:
2019 Courtney Calva connection (me and my grandmother the connection one)
2017 Feb Valentines Party Cupcake
2018 Sept Comic Con wand copy (I like to add the event in there, or vacation name if there is one. It helps me sort later)

 

I name by person (just initials though) and event and sometimes year. I store my layouts (TIFs and JPGs) in folders by year in which I create them, which is how I print too. Every page has a similarly named txt file which contains my credits. So I can go back to a page from 10 years ago and know exactly what I used on it.

 

LOL! I do it on purpose. Because if I'm looking for a layout, it's easy to see if I uploaded it, if I search by the title. Or, if I find it in my gallery, I know what name to look on my hard drive for.

 

So, I save my credits in the file info in the PSD, and it saves it to the jpeg. Is there a better reason for saving as a text file? I'm always up for best practices!

 

I print my pages in chronological albums, so I create a folder for each album. The files are named mmdd followed by the template file name. I like to keep the designer's template name because it helps with credits. I use PSE2018 and if I drag in the elements and papers correctly, it will preserve the elements names (i.e. designer & kit). If I have multiple pages for the same date, I put an a, b, c, etc after the date to sort them in the correct order. If I don't use a template, I just put something else.

 

I give them a two digit month, an abbreviation for the challenge I'm doing (if applicable, which is often the case), followed by a word or phrase that's the topic of the page. So for the Scrapping With Liz Make It Snappy page I just finished, the filename is 02SwLMIS-family.

 

YearMonthDay_Kit.filetype (20190202_Product.tif). I use this method for everything since it will chronologically sort everything. It's very useful for me when I make photobooks.

 

I name them by year, month and a title.
e.g. 1901Frost

I add kit credits etc to the comments part in the file properties. I also add to the tag if it was a CT page, a page for a challenge, or MOC. I add my name to the author, the Toucanettes would add their names if they created it.

 

For me as a CT-member it is the easiest way to put the release date first and then the kit name.
When I buy I kit I put the date first and then the kit name
I also have a folder for every designer

 

I do that too. At first because I didn't know I could add them in the file, but also it's quicker to open and edit a .txt file (Photoshop takes a few minutes to open).

 

I do year month day ie: 20190201andwhatitis

 

Many years ago when I was on CT's, I would use the kit name for the file name. Thankfully I wasn't on very many and it was that many layouts.

For my personal layouts I have gravitated to using the year (month and date if known) event in the name. If it is a multi-page event, I add the letters A, B, C etc at the end of the name so it sorts alphabetically on my hard drive. For example I documented a huge, destructive fire in my town last month this way: 20181224 Koneta A, 20181224 Koneta B up through G (7 pages).

For my Week In Review pages (Project Life/52/365 whatever) I do it like this: 20180101 WIR with each layout using Sunday's date.

On a side note, credits are tracked on a spreadsheet with the date the layout was completed as well as a thumbnail of the layout. In the past I also tracked if it was printed and what album it was in. I quit tracking the album but will update the printed cell. Started doing that when I had 1 layout printed twice and the other half of the layout not printed! I now also save layouts to a "To Be Uploaded" folder when done. Once they are uploaded to PP for printing, I move them to their final storage folder on my computer.

 

My project life were 2018_50L and 2018_52R for printing. (left and right)
Other layouts are by date: 2019_Stefanie'sBirthday for example.

 

Unless I need to name it something specific for a CT team, I do:

Year month day whatever is going on in the picture(s)

For example:
2019 January 9 Raileigh riding Dumbo

 

I didn't realize you could save it in the file info, that is so cool!