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The dilemma of figuring out what digi-stuff to keep.

I have to do this soon. I am planning on doing maybe half an hour every other day and really being strict with myself. I am such a hoarder too, digi and real life.


bellbird said:
i wish you luck but i'm not a good one to ask - i just keep buying more EHDs!
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cookingmylife said:
But definitely delete old old freebies. Or ~2006-2009 kits that would even embarrass the designer.
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:rollinThese made me laugh so hard!

jagruti patel said:
What i want to do , but not sure i have the guts to do is delete all non TLP stuff. I hardly use it. i really only go to my TLP folder!
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Me too!! I have heaps of stuff from random designers, and a lot, lot, lot of stuff from when Scrap Orchard was my home. Only a handful of designers came here when SO closed down, and TLP is the only stuff I use! I really need to be brave and delete!!
 
patsyt said:
I've seen so many scrappers that say they trash the psd file and keep the jpg. Am I the only one who trashes the jpg and keeps the psd? I know it takes up a little more space but I make sure to delete any unused layers. I've gone back to psd files many times. Besides I can always make another jpg from the psd but I can't make a psd (and make changes or pull of something I can't find in my stash) from a jpg. Just curious!
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I agree which is why right now I keep both! I will go back if I need room on ehd to 2014 etc and start deleting psd first though. For now I keep both
 
I'm with those who just buy bigger EHDs. I have occasionally deleted some stuff from my stash that I'm sure I'll never use, but rarely.

I do delete PSDs though, every year or two. I started doing that a few years ago when I realized that I have never wanted to go back and edit a PSD, except maybe twice within a day or two upon discovering a spelling error.

As for being committed to TLP, yes, it has crossed my mind that all my non-TLP stash is largely sitting unused for two years now. But things change. I have been a regular at several other stores since 2007, most of which are closed. I would love TLP to last forever and maybe it will, but I'm not going to delete my non-TLP stash. I just try to think about using it occasionally. After all, we don't have to have 100% TLP products when we post in the gallery. Occasionally I've wanted a very specific item and broadening my search to my entire stash helped me find it.

I have stopped collecting non-TLP freebies almost completely though! I just have a few other favorite designers (who should move here to TLP!) that I follow on Facebook, and I still like to follow the every-other-month DigiScrap Parade. I don't collect every item though; only the stuff I like best.

Here's a stash reduction idea I just thought of! Try making searches for categories like button and ribbon and scrolling through looking closely for very similar or duplicate items. I know in my stash I've seen, for example, the same ribbon that must have been a CU item, colored differently by two different designers. Technically, I could easily recolor the item myself, so I really only need one. Then again, it's quicker to have it ready to use. :)
 
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I keep both right now but I am pretty new so not sure if I will forever. I love the idea of keeping the PSD. Already I have used them to make a similar layout or make small changes. I cannot do that, at least easily, with a JPG.

patsyt said:
I've seen so many scrappers that say they trash the psd file and keep the jpg. Am I the only one who trashes the jpg and keeps the psd? I know it takes up a little more space but I make sure to delete any unused layers. I've gone back to psd files many times. Besides I can always make another jpg from the psd but I can't make a psd (and make changes or pull of something I can't find in my stash) from a jpg. Just curious!
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I do purges every few months. I actually just purged after DSD and deleted 12 gigs of stuff.

I look at it like this .... if I haven't touched it, it's outta there. I can't do the put it in a folder for 6 more months and then decide. I've been doing this long enough that I KNOW my style. If a kit/product doesn't fit ...I have no use for it. A lot of my stash was built up of CT product, and you do your required pages and end up keeping it, but it may not always be my style, or rather a theme I'm going to use again, like sports, I have no kids that play sports, so I' not going to hold on to that kit long. And CT pages, if I'm not going to use it in my actual family albums, it's gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Oh and NO I never keep a PSD. I actually used to keep the TIFF since it's smaller AND you can see a preview of what the layout is. But I never go back and fix typos so there's no point in me keeping the TIFF either.
 
I'm afraid I have trouble with purging... I know it feels great to be able to, but it kinda...hurts? :lol

patsyt said:
I've seen so many scrappers that say they trash the psd file and keep the jpg. Am I the only one who trashes the jpg and keeps the psd? I know it takes up a little more space but I make sure to delete any unused layers. I've gone back to psd files many times. Besides I can always make another jpg from the psd but I can't make a psd (and make changes or pull of something I can't find in my stash) from a jpg. Just curious!
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mmm I keep not only both, layered & jpg, but I keep different sizes !!!!!!
For most page I keep the full size and the one i post in the galleries which is 72di, plus some of my CTs ask for a 600x600 on 300dpi, I keep that too..... so yup, I am an assumed Hoarder!!!!!:thankyou
:stash
 
I try to keep it manageable, I delete most of my stash that is more than a few yrs old except for my CT stuff and keep most of my brushes and styles. All my jpeg layouts go into online storage and I can delete any jpeg or psd LOs off my computer.
 
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Ugh. I'm trying to be more "on top" of this one. I track everything I use in a kit. (tagging and untagging in Finder) The idea being that once I've used everything in the kit once, I will go through it, and only save what I think is good for a second use. Problem is I buy so much new stuff, I am hardly ever closing out any old kits!
Also, @patsyt , I save my psd files for the exact same reason you do.
 
bellbird said:
i wish you luck but i'm not a good one to ask - i just keep buying more EHDs!
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What she said!!! One reason I love digital is that the supplies don't take up any physical room beyond the EHDs, so I don't even bother deleting. And I actually do go back and use older stuff a bit- I would do it more if I were not a Polly and always trying to use the newer things in the store.

Choosing what to delete also takes time, which I don't have a lot of, so I can tell myself that I'm also saving time by just adding another EHD, too! :giggle
 
I have no need to purge right now since my EHD died and it purged everything for me.
 
Just so you ladies know... this thread encouraged me to pull out my EHD and clean it up. I purged a little but mostly I am organizing all my photos! That EHD had become a dumping ground where I would back stuff up but not delete a previous back up. Things were mislabeled, somehow photos have the wrong dates... it is a hot mess. I am wading through and it needs to be done, but WOW what a chore. I just keep telling myself that my digiscrapping will go so much smoother when I am more organized! And my previously full EHD is already at half from deleting all the stuff I had on their multiple times.
 
I try to do some of the purging as I download... So, if I get a pack of templates that comes in a ton of formats, I dump all but the tiffs because they are the smallest. I also dump a lot of the extra stuff that is just repeated over and over like the links to stores and terms of use. I have one inside the designer's folder, and the rest can go unless something changes. That way, I can just update if it is different...

But otherwise, when I purge, there are a lot of questions I go through like: Is this a quality item I would actually use? (I'm brutal about stray pixels and weirdly sized things) Is this an item from a designer who is no longer designing? (if I love it, I'll keep it if they are retired, but mostly I won't) Is this something I can post in the galleries I am using now? (which is really only this one, lol) Do I still like this thing? (Because if I don't even like it, why keep it?)

I use these same questions for all my PU and CU stuff, because why not?? For CU, I will add: Is this thing in a folder by itself? (and sometimes I do that with the PU stuff too) If you have only made one product I was interested in, and it didn't wow me so much that I was back in your store over and over, then I don't need to necessarily keep it around. Another CU question- Is this something I have a million of or is it something unique? There are some things I have a million of but I use all of them at different times like ribbons, buttons, strings, and textures. But other stuff I have a million of but only really use the ones I really like such as shadow styles or paper clips. So, again, to streamline, I can be brutal...

Right now, I only have about 155 gigs in my Paid Graphics folder, which is a huge reduction, lol...

And, I have my photos sorted by year and then month, which makes it really easy to find things for me!! ;)

Huggles!!
~Sarah~
 
patsyt said:
I've seen so many scrappers that say they trash the psd file and keep the jpg. Am I the only one who trashes the jpg and keeps the psd? I know it takes up a little more space but I make sure to delete any unused layers. I've gone back to psd files many times. Besides I can always make another jpg from the psd but I can't make a psd (and make changes or pull of something I can't find in my stash) from a jpg. Just curious!
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This is probably like the Artisan .page/.sbpage, etc. files, something that we can go back and use again. I tend to keep mine rather than the flattened page just in case I want to go back and fix something on it, like the journaling or get an element from a kit that I no longer have. It's a space hog for sure, but I'd be in a big panic if I deleted them!

Dalis said:
I have no need to purge right now since my EHD died and it purged everything for me.
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Oh, I'm so sorry! That happened to me a few years ago. It was sad, but it was an easy way to get rid of the things I didn't use anymore.

GlazeFamily3 said:
Just so you ladies know... this thread encouraged me to pull out my EHD and clean it up. I purged a little but mostly I am organizing all my photos! That EHD had become a dumping ground where I would back stuff up but not delete a previous back up. Things were mislabeled, somehow photos have the wrong dates... it is a hot mess. I am wading through and it needs to be done, but WOW what a chore. I just keep telling myself that my digiscrapping will go so much smoother when I am more organized! And my previously full EHD is already at half from deleting all the stuff I had on their multiple times.
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I think the photos are the worst space hogs! I will upload photos from a card, then never go back to edit through them. Therefore, I've TONS of bad photos just hanging around. I use Forever's Historian for my photo editing/sorting which allows me to save a photo in multiple folders at once without having it take up extra space. I love it. It automatically saves everything by date/chronological order which is a live saver. It will save the original photo and all edited versions that I want to keep. I'd be lost without it!
 
I have now purged and organized SO MUCH that my EHD is close to full but my computer has well over half the memory available. My husband was looking into ordering a bigger EHD last night so I have room to grow. Because you know I won't stop taking pictures or getting new supplies any time soon :agree
 
My templates folder I go through frequently & flip through EVERY one. (They are saved as Tiffs so I can see the previews without opening them in Photoshop). If I still think they inspire me & love the design I keep them. Otherwise they are gone. Also if I've used the template I will delete the original since I keep my pages as layered so that means if I want that design again I just need to find that page. Makes my template folder more tidy. It still has about 500 templates in it though. Doh!

That just means I need to scrap!

With kits, I have all the folder previews in one folder & flip through that. If I KNOW I won't use it anymore I'll delete. If I know I can just get one page out of the kit I'll go ahead & scrap with the kit & then delete. Again, I still have thousands of kits I love that will get more pages from eventually!
 
The other thing I do is when I first open any kit, paid or CT, I flip through everything in the folder and delete any items I don't want or sticker versions of things that are easy enough for me to remake a sticker if needed. I delete any papers that I know I won't use or elements that are dupes that aren't easy for me to recolor & make again. I used to delete more than I do now, before I started making Art Journaling pages, but now my style is so much broader that I keep more. This is still a vital step for me when I open kits though to be sure everything in it is something I might use & it gives me a good first look at a kit to be inspired.
 
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