I periodically see comments, I wish that I could see more of my categories in ACDSee Photo Manager. And we digiscrappers have categories don’t we??

Well there is a way. If you undock your pane, you can create a much larger area for you categories in your organize or properties pane. Rather than try explain, I created a video for you!

For more info, go to Help, click on Getting started, and browse through “Using the Browser”

Yesterday I posted: Soon you can View & Catalog ABR brushes in ACDSee 10

There are coupons to upgrade to ACDSee 10 that expire October 31st. So now’s a great time to upgrade if you’d like to.

Download a FREE Trial of ACDSee 10 Photo Manager Today ! See below for a coupon of 25% off the regular price of $49.99

Already own an ACDSee product? Previous ACDSee Customers Get 30% off regular price of $34.99 (click on Upgrade from a previous version and look for coupons below to get additional 25% off $34.99)

and SAVE on the new version of ACDSee 10:
In addition here are some coupon codes, only 1 coupon can be used:

• New ACDSee Customers:
  • Get 25% off the regular price of $49.99: “en10oct“
• Customers upgrading from previous versions of ACDSee:
  • Get an additional 25% off the upgrade price of $34.99: “en10ugoct“

Codes for ACDSee in other languages:

French

Upgrade – fr10ugoct

New Customer - fr10oct

German

Upgrade – de10ugokt

New Customer - de10okt

The coupons are valid for the month of October only. They expire at midnight Pacific time on October 31. They are not valid in conjunction with any other offer, and are valid only online at the ACDSee website. They are limited to one use per customer.

In the near future ACDSee 10 will have an update that will include a major enhancement that will appeal to Digital Scrappers! You’ll have the ability to view your abr brushes!  I can’t share the details on how it works but I can tell you this.  Soon you will be able to view and organize your abr brushes just like you organize your other image files in ACDSee Photo Manager 10. 

By the time the update is released, Heidi will have a video guide showing you just how it works!  

ACDSee recognizes the importance of customer feedback and is striving to improve their product to meet digital scrapbookers needs & requests.

Did you know that you can upload your photos directly inside of ACDSee 10 to two photo services, Smugmug & Flickr?   We presently have a poll going on what other services people would like to see included in ACDSee Photo Manager 10. What online photo services do you use the most frequently? Please let us know there.

If you have ideas for other enhancements for ACDSee products, please add them to this thread.

And we’ll keep you updated on when the update for viewing ABR brushes is available for ACDSee Photo Manager 10.

ACDSee Photo Manager 10 was recently released with a number of new features.

Connie, Heidi and Chris will be chatting at the Scrap Outside the Box on Saturday, November 3, 7 pm EST.  Join us and bring your questions! We will be discussing Photo Editor and the newly upgraded Photo Manager 10. ACDSee is providing software for prizes & it should be a lively chat as usual!

http://www.scrapoutsidethebox.com/

http://www.scrapoutsidethebox.com/chat/

Julie Ann Shahin had invited me to be a guest on her creative team at her Everyday Digital Scrapbooking Blog. Have you seen it? It’s a treasure trove of projects & tutorials. You can learn so many things there. And I like how her categories make it very easy to find things. By clicking on ACDSee Photo Editor you can find both of my tutorials.

I enjoy using my paper scrapping supplies & mixing them with my digital scrapbooking. When planning the project I keep in mind that I can’t print larger than 8.5 x 11 and that keeps everything in perspective (& I can print too! :)   ). ACDSee Photo Editor has a 30 day trial if you’d like to try it.

Here are the two projects that I did for my stint at Everyday Digital Scrapbooking.

Timeless Treasures - materials & instructions

I love doing heritage type of projects & this one was fun!

Halloween Placement - materials & instructions

Do you enjoy doing hybrid projects?  Link us to them

Pm 10 is da bomb! Since the release of Photo Manager 10, digi-scrappers around the ‘net have been buzzing about it’s new features.
Some of the favorites being talked about are:

Calendar

I downloaded the trial to test it out after our ACDSee chat and had to go for the upgrade. The pop up feature is too cool. That is probably the best thing. I think there are new ways to view and sort too. I have been meaning to try the calendar out. Probably will be happy if I ever get around to scrapping!

From Robin at RAKScraps.com

Extracting

I have the trial right now (but I will be sure to upgrade before the month is over). I’m really liking it. Love being able to unzip files from within ACDSee!

From meems at DigiChik

Pop-up Thumbnail Preview

I have upgraded to ACDsee Photo Manager 10 and have to say the new features are fantastic! I love how a the pop up comes up when you move the cursor over you gallery, i love that you can unzip more than one file! ACDsee rocks! There is still so much more about it yet untaped by me, but it was truely worth the investment!

From 5angels at ScrapArtist

Uploading

I am really really glad I upgraded to version 10, some y great new features. But the one I LOVE LOVE LOVE is being able to upload to SmugMug from within ACDsee. I store my layouts on SmugMug for my family to see (and as an added backup source). It is TONS quicker to upload thru ACDsee. Worth the price of the upgrade for me with just that one feature

From *becki* at scrapbook-bytes.com
Despite what they each claim is their fave new feature, all of the comments have a common thread- the ease of keeping that ever-growing digi-stash neat and organized and ready to be scrapped with. And who doesn’t love that? Add that into the idea that Photo Manager 10 helps you get a lot more time scrapping, instead of searching, people are calling this program a keeper.

You can keep browse and organize digital kits with ACDSee and you can make backup CDs/DVDs with ACDSee. Unfortunately, ACDSee doesn’t provide a way to keep track of what digital kits you have burned to CD/DVDs. So I am going to provide a method/system to use to keep track of what is burned. As we go along, I am just going to say DVDs since that is what most of us are using but this would work the same for CDs.

First, to learn to burn DVD’s, this is the tutorial for you: Creating Photo CDs/DVDs. During this tutorial, I need to make a comment on one option. If you are creating a backup DVD of digital kits, you do not want to check this option: “Add the created disc to ACDSee as a Photo Disc” What this option will do is add the contents of the DVD into Offline Media and you will get duplicates returned when you search (a file on the hard drive and a file on the DVD.)

So here is the process:

For all your existing digital kits:

1. First, let’s get your Burn Basket open, to do that do View | Burn Basket
2. Start going through your digital kits in a methodical process, top to bottom in the folder pane is the easiest.
3. Select a bunch of digital kits and drag & drop them into the burn basket. As you can see here, I dropped all my recently downloaded digital kits in the burn basket but I added too many so it saying that in the bottom of my burn basket. My estimated size cannot be larger than my media size. (click on any images to see them larger)
4. 
5. I recommend adding digital kits until it just starts turning red, like this:
6. 
7. Then burn the DVD.
8. Now, for whatever digital kits you put into the burn basket, select them up above where the folder thumbnails appear and assign the keyword “BackedUp” to the digital kit folder. The reason why I am using keywords instead of categories, is because I assign a keyword to a folder and a category can only be assigned to images. It’s just a little easier and cleaner.
9. 
10. Repeat the above process and keep burning DVDs for all your digital kits.

For bringing in new digital kits

1. I would recommend as you unzip a new digital kit, you immediately assign it the keyword “NeedToBackup”
2. 
3. Then when you are ready to burn your next DVD, do a Quick Search at the top for “NeedToBackup” and it will return all digital kits that need to be burned.
4. 
5. Drag and Drop them into the burn basket until you have a full DVD.
6. Burn the DVD.
7. Afterward, select all digital kits that you put into the burn basket and change their keyword from “NeedToBackup” to “BackedUp”
8. 
9. Repeat the process the above process if you have more digital kits that fit on DVD.

So there you go, one system of keeping track of what you backed up. This can obviously be customized to meet however you backup. I remember one reader saying they want to make 2 DVDs of everything. She added a third keyword “BackedUpTwice”.

Some tips:

If you add digital kits to your burn basket, the burn basket can be saved from session to session. So some people as they download new digital kits, put them in the burn basket at the same time and when it is full, burn the DVD. The disadvantage of this, is it is hard to go find those digital kits and assign them the keyword “BackedUp” to signal you that they have been backed up.

What happens after you start this system and you encounter a folder that has no keyword on it? It could mean 2 things. You backed it up and forgot to add the keyword “BackedUp” or it hasn’t been backed up and wasn’t even assigned “NeedToBackup.” The safest thing is back it up again. So if you are burning a DVD then, do it then and add the “BackedUp” keyword or just add “NeedToBackup” and at your next backing up session, it will be backed up.

What is working for you?:

I know some of you have come up with your own method. What is working for you to backup your digital kits? Come visit this thread and explain your method: How are you backing up your digital kits & photos?

And here is a little about my process:

I myself don’t burn DVDs of my digital kits and choose to backup to a second EHD. It’s not ideal but I don’t want to burn that many DVDs. Maybe if I would have started when my collection was small. I do make DVDs of my photos but my process there is slighly different. I take the recent photos and put on DVD and keep going back in time until I fill up the DVD. This allows me to backup my photos multiple times. For example. My December 2006 photos are are my January 2007 backup and they are also still fit on my July 2007 but I wouldn’t expect them to fit on my December 2007. I make DVD backups every few months but in addition they are backed up to EHD drive also. If your computers are sitting only on your computer, I recommend making a CD monthly to get them backed up. For more information on backing up in general, visit this page: Wondering how to backup your digital kits, photos and layouts

One of the complaints I have heard about ACDSee is that it takes over my computer. It tries to be the software that wants to open all the image types and other types of files too. (which is really called File Associations. A File association is telling your computer that for this type of file, I want to use this software.)

The other day, I was going to show my husband a video file on my laptop. It starts loading and he asks what software are using. I replied with ACDSee of course. His reply was “Isn’t that an IMAGE organizer software?” Well, for the most part it is. It does allow you to view movies and listen to audio clips. But I will agree that there are other tools out there that are made for video or audio files and have more functionality. And if you are using an image editing program, you may want to keep those files it creates associated with that program. (.pspimages are opened with PSP) So how do you avoid it? It’s during the install process.

I wrote up a help that takes you through the install process to avoid this file takeover. Installing ACDSee Photo Manager with custom options

Have you already installed it and want to return it back to a different way? Here’s how: How do I change File Associations? It’s also a good idea inside of ACDSee Photo Manager to go to Tools | File Associations and uncheck the ones you don’t want ACDSee to handle.

Heidi, Connie & Chris will be at SOTB at 7 pm est on November, 3rd.

Trailfire.com The idea behind this web tool is to create a trail through the internet on a topic. Its basically a list of web pages linked together on a common subject. For each web page you add to your trail, you can add a note about the page. These trails can be public or private. Here is Trailfire’s overview.

What could we use this tool for in digital scrapbooking? Well, I think one of the parts I don’t like about digital scrapbooking is if I want to find a particular type of kit, I go wander around digital scrapbook stores looking for that type of kit. Some people ask questions at DigiShopTalk.com and have others point to that type of kits. Some try search for it using google but this returns a lot of extra non-digital scrapbooking stuff. Although I finally created a google search just for digital scrapbooking. Have you tried it? Digital Scrapbooking Search So I think trailfire could simplify how users find particular types of kits, just create a trail of kits through the different stores.

Let’s say the particular type of kit is a heritage kit. There are some great heritage kits scattered throughout the digital scrapbook stores but to find them takes a while. What if you had a way to link up all those heritage kits together? That’s where trailfire.com comes in. I started a trail of Heritage kits. Digital Scrapbooking Heritage Kits As I or others (because its public) find more heritage kits, you can keep adding. Follow the trail and see if you like it! (note when I published this Scrapartist was down for maintenance.)

This could be done for those Template Lovers!. Create a trail of templates. Or for any other categories or subjects.

How could designers use this to promote their products? Create a trail of layouts done with a particular kit. Here I created a trail of Robyn’s England “Return to my Roots” of layouts using this kit. I know if I am thinking about buying a kit, I like to look at layouts using that kit. Also, it provides a service to your customers that do buy and gives them ideas on how to user your kit. Most designers already have CT’s spreading layouts around using their digital kits. Why not start the trail with those and happy customers would be glad to add to the trail. All it requires is a click of button. How can you add a trail to a digital kit in a store? Just add the trailfire public link to the digital kit’s description in the store.

Another features is you can add comments about each site you mark.

It’s kind of cool!

Other facts:

• Here is how you can create your own trail: Create Trails
• Trails can be private so only you and whoever you share with can see them.
• You can make trails public but no on else can add to them.
• You can make the trails public and allow people to add to them. That’s called a Wiki Trail.
• You can even subscribe to the rss feed of the wiki trail At the very top of the home page of the trail, look for the rss link and enter that into your favorite RSS reader. (Now I know when people add to the Heritage Trail.)

TrailFire’s help is pretty good and self explanatory.

Have fun with it.