Digital Organization

@Katherine B I have two Digi catalogs. Catalogs are like data bases or the old metaphor is the card catalog in a library. The cards are NOT the books but tell you all about the books. My entire digi stash resides on a 2T EHD as do my photos also. ( Backed up and then backed up again.)

One catalog is called Digital Master and it has LR links to all my digi supplies broken down by Store, then Designer. When I came to TLP I made an additional Catalog just for TLP stuff as I am using products from about ⅓ to ½ of the designers here. I had a lot of products from some current TLP designers who had moved from another store. Here is a photo of my keywords. They were based on products from another store so I have a couple of categories that have duplicate folders I'm cleaning out bit by bit. The Elements folder is my biggest one as there are some things that I have but will not remember whose product they are...one off items like binoculars. I realized I could keyword that item in LR or change the designer's product name. (see above post!)

 

That's what I was hoping! Thank you so much for your help!

Thank you for the information, @cookingmylife!

 

Yes, that is sometimes a problem.

 

I just have to chime in here and put in another vote for Lightroom! I use a Mac, and I use Lightroom to organize. It's wonderful! I don't tag files, but as others have said Lightroom does have great facilities for that.

@gonewiththewind taught a great series on Lightroom last summer, including some about organization. You can check out all of her videos here https://the-lilypad.com/forum/threa...-lightroom-series-thurs-sept-1-9pm-edt.44356/ if you're interested.

 

That drives me crazy. I've been doing a massive clean and reorganise of my supplies (I do small batches each day so I don't get overwhelmed but there is still SO. MUCH!) and the number of of things that are just generic element## and paper## make me want to just give up and hide in a cupboard.

But I suppose on the other hand there are images that are named so specifically that you get errors once you put them in folders upon folders and end up with a file name that's too long!

 

Can I chime in with a non-tagging way of organizing?

I used to tag the previews, and it honestly took me hours and hours, especially after big sale events like NSD and DSD. I'm mainly a one-kit scrapper except for alphas, and this past year I re-organized everything into by THEME instead of by Designer and I absolutely love it. I could never find things before, even with having tagged them, and now I find I'm actually using things and using kits I bought and forgot I had. I still keep the kit together, and label it with kit name and designer name, and I tag the folder with a green dot (on Mac) for TLP so I can easily see which store it's from and browse for challenges (saved me so much time for MOC!). On my Mac when I search in Finder I can search by designer name and the folders will come up (I change the folder image to the preview), so if I'm looking for a specific designer I just do it that way.

Then I took a bigger plunge and separated all my templates by number of photos. I renamed the files to the pack name and designer name (I only keep the TIF), tagged with colour again for TLP, and separated the packs. I do this as soon as I buy things, and I mark it with a "z- " when I've used it, so it naturally goes down to the bottom of the folder. I know it's a wacky way of doing things, but after 9 years of tagging my supplies, I really love this way so had to share (I know it's not for everyone!). I spend so much more time scrapping now rather than tagging.

 

I seriously need to work on organizing, but it seems like an insurmountable task. Guess just little bits at a time.

I might get creative cloud too, for Lightroom purposes. I want to learn Photoshop, but I'm so stuck with Elements that I don't want to change. Haha.

 

@tjscraps When I lost my ACDSee catalog (ugh, yes, it was awful), when I had to start over, I chose to only tag certain staples that I use frequently and then everything else gets tagged according to theme since that's the way I usually scrap. I've really enjoyed it!

 

@gonewiththewind I also lost an ACDSee catalog, which is when I switched to tagging in Bridge .... and switched to tagging just previews, I couldn't keep up with the changes between where I stored my goodies and my previews folder, so after years of not really ever catching up I changed it lol I loved it when my stuff was all tagged, but this way is working for me now too. In a couple years I'll probably go what was I thinking???? lol

 

@tjscraps Yes, I'll probably do the same thing . . . but my scrapping changes and I have to change my organization along with it!

 

I thought about tagging previews but they can be so cluttered that sometimes it's hard to see just what the item does contain. Now I mostly tag things that are unique...I sure don't tag staples!

 

OMG, I have nothing to suggest except I'm so so so sorry you lost the tags! I'm a PC user and I just add Tags to the Properties file. No ACDSee or anything (I tried it awhile ago but the program ran really slowly on my old laptop). Anyway, I hope you can figure out a system that works for you! A waaaaay long time ago, before I just added Tags, I would include a little Text file in each kit's folder. Usually I didn't even add anything to the file itself; instead, I just "named" the file key words for the kit. Examples: "boy, birthday, girl, grungy, woman, kid, family, home, nature" etc. But now I just add the Tags to the kit's preview and I have started putting all previews in a PREVIEWS folder for easy viewing/searching. Previews are KITNAME_DESIGNERACRONYM

Wow, I said I didn't have anything to add, but I guess I did! I really do hope you can sort this out, or contact ACDSee about it, if only so they're aware of what happened and can maybe make a fix so it doesn't happen to other users.

 

I am in the middle of doing this very thing! Reorganizing by theme, keeping kits together, relabeling folders as needed, and separating templates by # of photos!! Once this is all done in my folders, I plan to create a new catalog in LR and I'll tag as needed in there. I do still want to be able to do a quick search by designer (i.e. if I want to know if I have a specific kit by XYZ designer, I can't easily find that in my new theme based folders). After years of struggling with my digi organization, this approach has already proved really useful for me!

If anyone is interested, I've been documenting my process in OneNote - it's basically a stream of notes/screenshots.
https://1drv.ms/o/s!As5Iq2xbam6mhNw7zgUO_-u80qMqhw

 

I think in this case Staples refers to the basics or frequently used items, not actually Staples.

I haven't used it since 11, so I don't know if it was my computer or the program but it struggled with my catalog size. That said, bridge is free to all Adobe users currently. No cc sub needed!

You could tag the designer name in Lightroom super easily.

 

Yes, that is exactly what I'm planning to do!

 

..I sure don't tag staples!
I think in this case Staples refers to the basics or frequently used items, not actually Staples.

@bestcee Oh you smarty pants! I've also realized I've pretty much given up on using staples.

 

I understand your pain! I am in the same boat. I need to learn how to tag another way too. I hate the idea of starting over and folders by designer don't work for me at all.