I've had a play with both and I'm realising neither really fit the bill for me right now so I'm not sure what to do....possibly some of the issues are stemming from my laptop being old but I don't know ACDSee I've used more so am more familiar with it but I've lost the database approximately once every month in the past 6 months or more for no apparent reason. I've talked to ACDSee Support and they "tried" helping for the span of one email which I replied to then dropped the ball from then on in regards to helping so I still have no idea why it happens or any solution. It's marginally better now I've embedded the metadata on a regular basis every time I shut ACDSee down. It also takes forever to start up and can be prone to hanging (not nearly as bad as Bridge though) @cfile suggested yesterday I give Bridge a go....it gave me a chance to redo some of my categories which was good (though now I feel like I've gone OTT on them to the point of too detailed) but Bridge hangs and crashes something fierce - I don't think I've had a single time I've opened Bridge without at least one hang or crash Sooo I'm not sure what I should do.....I know I need a decent level of organization otherwise everything falls into the "black hole" known as my laptop hard drive Maybe the solution is simplify my categories and stick to ACDSee but losing my database isn't ideal. How I simplfy I'm not sure - Here is a rough outline of what I tag....its extensive which is why I hate having all of the database and crashing issues BYOC by month & year Document Your December by year Month of Challenges Designers & Stores > TLP etc > Designer Name Alpha>Style of Alphas Colours (tagging papers and alphas by colour) Embellishments Arrows Attachments (Miscellaneous) Banners Beads Bookplate Brads Buttons Clips - Paper Clips, Clothes Pegs, Bulldog Clips etc Doodles Ephemera Flags Flair Flowers Foliage Frames Hearts Labels Lace & Fabric Mixed Media & Art Journaling Paint, Ink & Gesso Paper Pieces & Tears Photo Corners Pockets Ribbon & Bows Scatters Sequins Staples Stars Stitching Thread String Tabs Tags Washi Tape Vellum Wire Wood & Veneer Stamps Words > Word Art > Word Strips Journaling > Labels > Journal Strips > Doodles, Stamps etc Templates One Photo Two Photos Three Photos Four Photos Five Photos Six to Ten Photos Eleven Plus Photos Pocket Pages Albums Styles Glitter Paint Stamped Gesso etc Papers Patterned Checks Chevron Cork Dots Floral Graphic Hearts Houndstooth Notebook & Composition Book Numbers Painted & Messy Stripes Triangles Woodgrain Words Plain White Black Kraft Coloured Textured Themes Achievement Adventure Bad, Awful etc Beautiful, Pretty etc Best Bored Changes Childhood & Teenage Years Chores City Habits Hobbies Local Mood Happy Sad Angry Frustration COVID-19 Relaxation Shopping Op Shopping Sleep & Rest Daily/Everyday LIfe Details Document Exercise Explore Fashion Food Cold Drinks Fruit Meal Planning Food Allergies & Intolerences Baking Breakfast Comfort Food Dessert Dinner Eating Out Fast Food Groceries Hot Drinks Italian Mexican Asian Bread Kitchen Appliances Lunch Recipes Sweet Treats Vegetables Thanksgiving (Turkey etc) Iced Treats Friends Best Friends Girl Friends Family Mum/Mom Grandma/Grandmother Fun Laughter etc Gatherings Go Goals & Resolutions Goodbye etc Good, Nice etc Happy Health Eyes & Glasses Respiratory Sickness Hospital Heart Mental Health Hello, Hi etc Heritage & Yesteryear Home Moving Rooms Staying Home Hair & Makeup Healthy Eating Luck Pets List Look, See etc Love Mail Me, Myself & I Girl & Woman Single Attributes Facts Horoscopes Self Love Memories Moments Music & Podcasts New Year No, Nope etc Noted Outside & Nature Photography & Cameras Positive Progress Reading & Books Remember Review Routine Day/Week in the Life Sport School University Graduation Scrapbooking & Creativity Scrapbooking Digital Scrapbooking Art Creativity Disability Sign Language Sleep, Rest etc Start & Finish Story Talking Thank You Surprise Birthday Celebration Time & Date Dates 2022 2021 2020 Blank Stamped Handwritten Days Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Weekdays Weekends Later Months January February March April May June July August September October November December Today Tomorrow Week Yesterday Travel Flying & Planes Buses & Trains Cars Staycation Road Trip Hotel Luggage TV & Movies Seasons Summer Autumn Winter Spring Yes No Maybe Weather Clouds Cool Hot Rain Snow Wind Sunshine Forecast Writing Adventure ANZAC Day Basketball Brave Canada Christmas Halloween Thanksgiving Dream Technology Computers Laptops Mobile Phones Money Working Job Search Office Volunteer
All I gotta say is I got a headache reading through that list! That is way too much tagging for me. I did notice that there are some categories that might be on there twice but I'm not sure as I can't tell if some are top level and others are sub-level keywords. I see Paint, Ink & Gesso then later Paint is listed on its own as is Gesso. Words is also on there multiple times. I pulled up my keyword list in Excel and I have 69 tags. But then I don't tag every single item. My tags are for the previews only so generic tags work. Don't know what to tell you about the programs crashing.
@HavaDrPepper the duplicates are there for a reason - ie: gesso png files are separate to gesso paper which are separate to gesso styles
@gonewiththewind ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2021 and nope never used Lightroom but I'm willing to consider it if it might be an improvement. I did open it and got overwhelmed so closed it again....literally all ideas are welcome cause I'm sick of losing weeks/months of work (slow and steady gets it done)
Thanks for answering. I was hoping that an upgrade with ACDSee might solve your problems, but you are almost current. I have tagged using ACDSee, Bridge, and Lightroom. With ACDSee, I've had similar problems losing tagging. Bridge is a resource hog so if you don't have a up-to-date computer, you're going to experience lagging and possible crashing with it. Lightroom is the last program I used for tagging. I don't like that I'm unable to drag right from LR into PSCC. I have to request LR open up the supply in Explorer, and then drag from there. I am currently using ACDSee Photo Studio Home 2022 as a trial. I'm not tagging or anything at this point. I keep going back to ACDSee over and over again because it IS so very easy to add and remove keywords, and I love the viewing capabilities for various file types. I don't know if that helps you or not. I think I'm in the same boat with you, trying to make SOMETHING work.
@gonewiththewind thanks for your two cents....I only upgraded ACDSee in July because of my new hard drive. I went to reinstall it but had no record of my previous ACDSee serial numbers for some strange reason in my email that I've had for over 15 years which is highly unusual for me. Yeah given my slow iffy computer currently Bridge won't be the right fit either - I was so drained trying to use it earlier (not because the actual program was bad but the hanging and crashes made it unbearable). It might just be back to ACDSee but somehow simplfying my very long list of categories
Really struggling on how to simplify my categories but with close to 200gb of stuff it won't be easy....cause I think less categories plus ACDSee is about my best option
Jennifer, do you actually scrap/look for supplies at such a small detailed level? It's nice to be organized but only to the extent that it helps and not hinders. For instance, you have several very specific food/meal-related tags that could be combined into a simple "Food" category. Unless you're going out to eat several times a week and/or scrapping every meal in a separate album, I'm not sure you would be looking for a tag like "Vegetables" or "Bread" often enough to justify their existence. The same could apply to your multiple traveling tags that you could combine into types of travel like "Air" and "Road" vs. "Luggage," etc. I'm not sure what the "Go" or "Hello/Hi" tags are for but for feelings vs. facts-type kits or elements, I have an "Emo" category with a "Whining" (negative) or "Winning" (positive) tags that encompass everything. I tag kit previews vs. each element in a kit to save time/space, too.
Probably not, it's more that if something isn't tagged then I won't realise I have it. I probably only roughly know what I have in maybe 20% of my total stash if that. I'm very much a if its not visible (ie: tagged or organized in a way I will remember) I won't know I have it and use it even if its for my own layouts
I don't for the most part. I have started tagging my previews in a generic way, i.e. Christmas, Summer, Fall, Birthday, etc. Why I did it was because I wanted to know how many kits I had for a specific theme since I've been scrapping a lot of photos for my cousin that fall within themes and I kept using the same kits (lots of Christmas photos). Also for some previews I add the word "Kit" (Football Kit, Dog Kit etc). Then in Picasa I can do a search for Dog Kit and all my previews will come up and I can try to avoid using the same kit all the time. But to look for staples, flowers, ribbons etc using tagging. Nope. I'm a one kit scrapper.
@Pachimac I use acdsee but don't tag either. I love it for viewing and dragging supplies onto my 12x12 canvas. I keep thinking I should learn more about it and learn how to tag, save my info, etc but just have never gotten around to it. One of these day though...
I never did like ACDSEE and bridge drove me nuts because it has to browse everything every time you open it. I like Lightroom, but I only tag the previews (kit, element, paper, alpha, brush/paint, word art, and styles). I just use text search to find buttons, stitch, flowers, bows etc. I’ve been using the element previews lately to identify things I’m looking for. Then I can right click and go directly to the folder in Lightroom. I do have a subfolder that is newer stuff so I can limit my searches there or go up a folder level into my larger stash.
I would stick with ACDSee for tagging but way simplify your tags. I have a tag for "food" for instance that covers pretty much all food, cooking restaurants etc. instead of particular types of food. And I have a category called "glitter,paint,sparkles" that covers all kinds of paints, confettis, scatters, etc. I have a lot of stuff and it's still relatively easy to look through without having individual categories for, say, types of paint. So, I would create some higher level categories into which you can combine some of your more detailed categories. Then get rid of the detailed ones. That will save a lot of tagging time too going forward. I do find ACDSee to be relatively unstable, though, which drives me crazy.
Nope. I never have. Most designers give their items good file names so a simple search in my digistash folder works for me. If I had a lot of time to devote to it, I might like to tag for themes, maybe. But I can just scroll through my folder and see what I have, so it doesn't seem necessary to tag.
I'm going to piggyback off some of the suggestions above, and Michele specifically. There are tags you use that should come up in ACDSee because that's how the designer names them. Like Arrow, banner, bead, button, brad, etc. I would stop tagging those. Then, I would combine some of your tags down to one. You said above if it's not tagged, you won't see it. But, if you are doing a page on fast food or lunch, both would be "food". So, I would stick to food. You can tag an entire folder with a name pretty easily, so it's your scrapping style whether to drop the keyword onto each element in a kit or just the preview that has that as it's subject. I think that if you widen your categories, it'll make tagging easier too because it'll take away some of the decision making. Is this kit a girl friends kit? or a best friends kit? Or a friends kit? (Unless you mean the tv show). If you look at it and go "friends" then it's a quick decision and move on. The best part about broad categories is if you decide later that your food category is too big, and you are doing a lot of baking, it's easy to go to that food category and add another tag called "baking". Like, I notice you have a tag for each day of the week. You could instead have a tag called "Days of the week". The folder will be 7 times bigger than each one individually, but I'm betting that's not a huge category anyway. I'm making that guess based on the size of my Days of the Week folder from doing Project Life. You could do the same for Months. It probably doesn't save much time on the searching end to open up Days of the Week and find Wednesday, but would save a lot of time on the tagging side of individually tagging each day.
I have a huge number of categories too in my database. At one point, about three years ago, it was crashing regularly, but once I started optimizing and backing up the database regularly, it didn't seem to be a problem anymore. I have also stopped tagging every item in a kit but still tag the previews of the kits with all the items in the kit. If there is something quite different in the kit, (bingo card or charm) then I will tag or keyword those specific items. It has helped to keep my database smaller and more manageable.