Organization help please

[tlcmom]

I am trying to get organized before I have so much stuff that it would seem impossible. I just got 5.0. How do you organize your downloads (papers, ribbons, etc)? Do you tag them in the organizer like your photos? Do you also keep your photos in the organizer then? I want my time focused on being creative and not just searching for an element. I would appreciate any and all suggestions!

[Priss]

There is an excellent thread with a bunch of suggestions going on over on the Photoshop Forum (http://www.scrappersguide.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4944#post4944)

and there's already another superb one right here in the Elements Beginner's (http://www.scrappersguide.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169)forums too (you need to go back through this thread quite a few posts, to see some of the suggestions)

If you are using Organizer and using the enhanced features in V5,then, I would absolutely create a new category for elements, and then sub categories (and tags) for things like buttons, ribbons, papers. Caution when you tag this way unless you have identified the designer when you named the photo, it will be more difficult to credit properly. You must remember that Organizer is like a catalog. It is NOT the "real" file--that's on your hard drive, and IMO that's where your organization begins. I think you'll find help for organizing your photo files in that link above. Everybody does it slightly differently,and some use some third party software that seem s to be just wonderful. Good luck, and hope this helps.

[jodee]

I have found that the organizer in PSE5 is the most efficient way to organize all my items. I know it’s a lot of work to organize, and it takes a lot of time at first, but the effort is so well worth it.

First of all when I down load a zip file, I unzip, and then set about to rename each and every item. I have a number system that I use for each designer and I begin my rename with that number. Just an example: Linda Sattgast has a beautiful file with a blue button in it, so I would name it 200>Name of kit>blue button. 200 would be the number that I use for Linda, then the name Linda gave her kit, and the name she gave the item. So basically all I did was add a number and made sure that the rest of the pertinent information was there. I also rename the main folder to include that number.

Don’t keep your photos and your scrap’n items together in the same catalog. Make a new catalog for just your scrap’n items. To make a new catalog go to File>catalog (ctrl+shift+c),>new, be sure not to use the name “My Catalog”, then you start making you’re your categories, sub categories, and tags.

When you highlight multiple tags such as red>pattern>paper, it will pull up all of your red, pattern, paper, and when you pick the one that you want, all you have to do is look at the name of the file, the number will give you the designer, then the name of the kit, and the item name. This is saving me tons of time. I’m still working on my organizing, seems I’ll never get finished.

I have tried, and purchased other programs, but have found this system is really working for me.

You can have as many Catalogs as you want, one for your DH, one for children.

Sorry for being so wordy, but hope this gives you another idea. :)

[Scrapbird]

Jo Dee, thanks for the suggestion! I currently have photos and scrapping things in the same catalog.

If I make a catalog for my scrapping products, will I be able to move them from the original catalog with all their tags intact?

Thanks.

[troush]

When I download something, I have a "Scrapbooking Stuff" Folder. Under that I have web sites folders(DSP, Scrap Girls, Scrappers Guide, RAK, and a few others), and then under that I have a folder for the designer - if applicable. Some sites have kits that are designed by a whole team (especially scrapbook-bytes). In Elements I have a "Scrapbooking" category. Under that I have tags like: backgrounds, brads, corners, word art, ribbons, food, borders, mats, buttons, charms, etc. I haven't gone so far as to have colors or shapes. I like that if I find something I like, I can then go to the "Folder View" and then see if there is anything else in that kit that will go with it.

So, if I'm looking for a brad, I would check the "brad" tag and see what comes up. If I find something, I might see what folder it is in, then go back to folder view and see if I see something else that coordinates for the kit.

The other thing, I have lots of stuff I've downloaded but not used - most of it was free when I got it. I'm wanting to go back and really decide which things I want.

-Trish

[carlalee]

Hi Jo Dee - TY for the awesome tips! This sounds like EXACTLY what I want to do. Unfortunately for me I didn't see your post until this morning and last night I installed PSE 5.0 last night and I imported EVERYTHING into a single catalogue! :-O So today I'll try to figure out how to move from one cat to another. But before I do that, I need to rename ALL of my kit parts - YIKES!!! Basically this is just adding the designer number. I know the organizer doesn't make copies of everything but takes like a "picture" of stuff where it is on my hard drive. Do I rename in the organizer or in explorer on my hard drive? Also, when you make your los do you keep a running list as you pull things out from various kits or do you leave the name on the element layer? How do you keep track for giving credit? I'm sorry I have so many questions. Your organization tips just lit the light bulb over my head! If you're every in MN, I owe you a nice lunch AND a GREAT cup of coffee!!! :-D -c-

[troush]

Carlalee - If you have already imported them into your PSE catalog, do all your moving and renaming in the catalog, otherwise PSE will get confused.

-Trish

[carlalee]

Carlalee - If you have already imported them into your PSE catalog, do all your moving and renaming in the catalog, otherwise PSE will get confused.

-Trish
Hi Trish - if I change the names in PSE does it change the names on my hard drive too? I would like the names to be consistant in both places. If it doesn't change the names in both places can I delete the catalogue and start over with out deleting stuff off the hard drive? TY -c-

[carlalee]

Carlalee - If you have already imported them into your PSE catalog, do all your moving and renaming in the catalog, otherwise PSE will get confused.

-Trish
P. S. I owe you a GREAT coffee TOO! :-) -c-

[Fulltimer]

I have found that the organizer in PSE5 is the most efficient way to organize all my items. I know it’s a lot of work to organize, and it takes a lot of time at first, but the effort is so well worth it.

First of all when I down load a zip file, I unzip, and then set about to rename each and every item. I have a number system that I use for each designer and I begin my rename with that number. Just an example: Linda Sattgast has a beautiful file with a blue button in it, so I would name it 200>Name of kit>blue button. 200 would be the number that I use for Linda, then the name Linda gave her kit, and the name she gave the item. So basically all I did was add a number and made sure that the rest of the pertinent information was there. I also rename the main folder to include that number.

Don’t keep your photos and your scrap’n items together in the same catalog. Make a new catalog for just your scrap’n items. To make a new catalog go to File>catalog (ctrl+shift+c),>new, be sure not to use the name “My Catalog”, then you start making you’re your categories, sub categories, and tags.

When you highlight multiple tags such as red>pattern>paper, it will pull up all of your red, pattern, paper, and when you pick the one that you want, all you have to do is look at the name of the file, the number will give you the designer, then the name of the kit, and the item name. This is saving me tons of time. I’m still working on my organizing, seems I’ll never get finished.

I have tried, and purchased other programs, but have found this system is really working for me.

You can have as many Catalogs as you want, one for your DH, one for children.

Sorry for being so wordy, but hope this gives you another idea. :)

Jo Dee
I read with interest your suggestion for using a separate organizer for digital elements, which is something I have been wanting to do. I did create a new organizer & renamed it.
How do you switch back & forth between more than one organizer? Sorry, can't seem to figure this one out. I am using PSE 3.
Lois:cool:

[jodee]

To open a different catalog in PSE just go to File>catalog>open, and a list of your catalogs will come up, and you can open which one you want. Do all your moving of your file in PSE.

I do all my renaming in Windows explorer, just as soon as I unzip them. This is before I put them over on my external hard drive into folders, so PSE does’nt even know that the file names have been changed.

[Fulltimer]

Jo Dee
Thank you for responding to my question about two organizers. Looks like I have a lot of work ahead redoing all this. I will probably have more questions, as it sounds like your system works well.

[Wnderlnd]

Has anyone tried this osftware add-on...at tleast I think it is an add-on...

Digital ScrapRoom.

I'd love to hear some of your thoughts about it.
Wnderlnd

[Kay]

Hi- There's a thread about this http://scrappersguide.com/forums/showthread.php?t=279&highlight=scraproom

[Sissy]

I, too, love the catalog feature in Photoshop Elements. I have one for my husband's photographs, one for my photographs, and one for my digital scrapbooking supplies. The only problem I'm having is Photoshop Elements does not run well with both the catalog and the editor open at the same time. That part is making the process of creating rather difficult. I have a new computer with way more than the system requirements that the program calls for, but Adobe hasn't been able to isolate what my problem is. Very frustrating. :(

[troush]

Sissy,

Sometimes it is the photo downloader that does this. Barbara Brundage's book "Photoshop Elements: The Missing Manual" details how to disable it. Also, some people reported turning off "Watched Folders" helped too. I don't know the exact link, but somewhere on O'Reilly's (the book publisher, not the Fox news guy) web site there are step-by-step instructions for disabling the auto downloader.

-Trish

[Priss]

One way of disabling or enabling of the download and automatic features of Organizer is to open Organizer, and then Edit>Preferences>Camera or Card reader, and then turning on or off the automatic (grab it all) downloader. For information on watched folders, and that activity within organizer, there is wonderful assistance within Organizer's comprehensive help files. Type in watched folders in the help search field.

Permanently removing organizer (with how to's you may have seen on other websites) can be very tricky and should be approached judiciously.

[Priss]

I, too, love the catalog feature in Photoshop Elements. I have one for my husband's photographs, one for my photographs, and one for my digital scrapbooking supplies. The only problem I'm having is Photoshop Elements does not run well with both the catalog and the editor open at the same time. That part is making the process of creating rather difficult. I have a new computer with way more than the system requirements that the program calls for, but Adobe hasn't been able to isolate what my problem is. Very frustrating. :(
Have you tried accessing organizer FROM Editor, and then closing it when you have your files. They are both such powerful programs and both pull a huge amount of system resources to run at all....with several huge catalogs to pick from, I'm just wondering if getting into your scrapping catalog and pulling all the files you want for that session, then closing the Organizer side could help speed things up for you. Please keep us up to date on this, because as we add more versions of elements, and want to access previous catalogs, I can see a storm a brewin on this one.

[chris.orrell]

I've stopped using organiser as it slows down and often crashes my system, and i have a fairly new computer and 1gb RAM so it should work but it doesn't, I still use the auto downloader bit and then I close organiser and access my photos through windows explorer{ctrl o} it is so much easier.

[scrappinaimee]

Jo Dee, thanks so much for the organization tips! I didn't realize that you could have more than one catalog. I have thought about brining all of the scrapbook items into the catalog and tagging them to really organize them, but didn't want everything mixed in with all of my pictures!

Thanks so much for sharing your methods! I don't have that much yet so I was quickly able to organize everything! I wish I could organize all of my items for paper scrapbooking the same way!

[twirlerzmom]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one getting frustrated with the slowness of PSE! I too have almost stopped using it because of this and I also have MORE than enough HD space and memory to run this program. I wish Adobe would work harder at figuring this problem out as we are not the only ones to complain about it.

As for the Digital Scrapbook Room organizer....I purchased it and have been extremely disappointed in it. It has way too many bugs in it and in my opinion was not ready to be sold to the public yet. Updates are weekly (now) but each update requires you to uninstall and reinstall your supplies folder. Updates were sometimes 2 a day in the beginning. I major pain in the butt! I paid for a working program, not to be a beta tester. I've given up on the darn thing altogether now. I guess I was looking for something similar to PSE album, only faster and I was excited at first to see Scrapbook Room was going to do that.....until it started crashing or refreshing the screen and taking longer than PSE did! I know they've been through 2 programming companies already. My suggestion would be to hang tight until the bugs are worked out. At least that's been my experience with it:(

[Sissy]

Hi all, Well, I've followed your suggestions and turned off the watched folders and the automatic download. It seems to have helped some. Pris, I do open the Organizer generally from the Editor. What's happening now is that the organizer is slow, slow, slow for a little while, then begins to work a little better. It stays better for a little while, then either freezes up or slows way back down again.

It's such a problem, that I've gotten to where I don't even upload my new digiscrapping supplies. This is so disappionting. Nor am I uploading photographs.

I have my supplies filed into first of all in a folder in My Documents called Digital Scrapbooking, then I have folders by website; i.e., Scrapper's Guide. Then within that I have folders with the kit name and Designer. Or a few I started listing the Designer first, then put individual kits under their name. This makes identifying things very easy; however, it is very cumbersome trying to search through all of this for a particular shade of paper or ribbon, for example. I agree--why doesn't Adobe address this problem?? I want my software to do what it's advertised to do!!

I'm one very unhappy user.

[Sissy]

After trying again today to use PSE 5 without it doing something weird, I reinstalled PSE 4. Adobe can take PSE 5 and stuff it.

[hbarrow]

I have a photo organizing program call PixFiler that I have used for organizing my digital photos, especially my older photos on CDs.

After reading this discussion, I decided to make a new index called scrapbooking and put in the papers, templates and embellishments that I'm collecting. So far, so good. The program reads photo files like Jpg and png. On most of the Adobe psds, it does not read them. Once in a while one will go in.

I make my own catalogs and when I want to see the embellishments that I have, I look at that category and the program shows the ribbons, bows, etc that I have put in and where they are located.

The man who wrote the PixFiler software is in Norway and the only time I emailed him with question, he answered immediately in English.

There is a 30-day free trial version. It does take a while to get my jpgs and pngs in the program, but it does have batch capabilities and that speeds things up a bit.

If anyone is interested, the URL is http://www.pixfiler.com/

I have no connection with company and have been using the program since March.

Healan

[Babywearing Mama]

I have the same problem with PSE 4.0 and I am also disappointed. I love the idea of the tagging system in the organizer...but it never works!

[amyb]

I'll give a 2nd for Trish's suggestion. That is how I do it is well. I keep separate folders for the different designers and then just make tags for the different elements such as papers, alphabets, ribbons, etc... I keep my organizer on the folder view all the time so if I pull a ribbon up I can look over and see what kit it was in. I have 3 small children, so I don't have time to rename all my files, but I do make sure to set up file folders and dump everything in them.

[tiffanyc]

So far I have not experienced any of the "slow downs" with pse 5.0 organizer. I have over 8000 scrapbook items in it and no problems. Has all this been fixed since the last post? I just decided to give it a try the other day after using Picasa for over a year and not being able to see my png files properly. It was beginning to bother me.
I am getting a hang of tagging everything to my liking and filing system.

[troush]

Tiffany,

I think if you keep things organized, and do a File->Catalog->Recover often, it keeps the Organizer happy. It can also depend on your system specs.

-Trish

[Patty D]

The one thing that causes me problems with the Organizer is saving multi-layer psd files. Saving a scrapbook page in psd format in my Organizer is an invitation for a disaster. Since I no longer do this and Recover my catalog every once in a while it works great. I've got more than 22,000 items in my scrapbooking Organizer and it works great.

Try this and see if maybe this is your problem too. I can't remember where I read about it but it works for me.

Good luck, don't give up!
Patty

[tskb]

I have one question. It doesn't sound like the kits are kept together. Instead items are grouped by elements, paper etc... Is that correct? I too have had so many new items I don't even know what I have.

[troush]

The way I do it is organize by <website>\<designer>\<kit>. Then, I use TAGS (or categories) extensively to tag items. I just tag "Background paper," "Photo Corner", "tags", "Ribbons", "Ricrac", etc. I probably have 25 scrapbooking tags. So, I may want to use a specific kit, it's easy to find. If I'm mixing and matching, then I can use my tags to look at all "ribbons" or whatever. Or, if I can't decide, I might look at background papers, and then if something catches my eye, switch to folder view to get other items from that kit.

Some people group other ways. Some people also have color tags, but I find it hard to decide when blue turns into purple.

-Trish

[patties passion]

Hi,

I have PSE 3.0 on my iMac.....Waiting for new one to come out equal to 6. .....Anyhow, if I do the #>company, button for the designer and put all buttons in the button file or tag, do I have to do it it PSE or can I just do this in the file their in (Downloaded Scrap Supplies)? I don't use an organizer of any kind, just the file browser in PSE....Your idea would be so much easier for me....Right now, I download and put items into one file(web site), no sub folders so I only have to open one for each site... I have to go through each site file, the whole thing just to find what I want...And who can remember whats in every kit...KWIM It would take me a while to do but I'm very interested in your idea.....TIA for any info you might give me....

Patties passion

[troush]

I don't have a Mac, but you can just rename it right in the folder, I don't think you need to use PSE to do what you want.

-Trish

[wagge]

I am using PSE 4 and have organized my catalog, I decided to look into PSE6 and downloaded the free trial --- the most important thing for me is to be able to convert the catalog into PSE6 and I keep getting the message the operation failed. Try repairing with the software that created and retry --- I've tried that several times and I keep getting the fail message. It converts to about 75% and then I get the dreaded message. Can anyone help me, please????

[troush]

I sent you a PM.

You need to reconnect missing files AND file->catalog->recover.

-Trish

[givenout]

I may too late chiming in here, but I've learned caution is needed when making a new catalog.

Last night I decided to make a new catalog and named it Scrapbook Supplies (because I was going to separate to have one catalog for Scrapbook and one for my photos).

I opened a "new" catalog and as soon as I named it Scrapbook Supplies everything disappeared. My Catalog and organizer were empty. I found out this happened because I named the catalog the same name as a folder I had.

I eventually was able to salvage my old catalog by restoring my computer (restoring the catalog didn't work).

The other thing is to be careful not to save over the existing catalog and risk losing the original catalog and I learned it was wise to save the catalog before trying to make a second one, just in case.

Stacy

[Wendy]

Hi Patties ...

Yes you can just rename then in the folder :)

Wendy