If not, let’s explore the possibilities of Group By!

Here’s a few things to play with:

I almost always have Group By set to File Type.  It separates out my paper from my elements and allows me to quickly minimize folders.

Here’s another one, I selected all the folders that contain my purchases from 2008.  Sorted them by author and I can quickly browse and view all my recently purchased kits but still keep them “separated.”

Or if you have a collaboration kit and the designers named the files with their name first.    Select the whole kit and group by filename.  It will group all the files by each designer in their own section.

And another tip for you, if you click on the bar above each group type, it will select all images in that group!

Have you found a good use for group by?  Comment and let me know.

First, let’s optimize.  It’s kind of like cleaning up ACDSee’s messy desktop in a way. 

• Optimize your ACDSee Database

Let’s set the backup reminder if you haven’t already done so.

• Database Reminder: Set the database reminder to remind you to backup!

And then backup!

• Backing up ACDSee Photo Manager Database

And if you haven’t done so already, make your ACDSee backup disk with your license and trial version:

• Create own backup disc of ACDSee Photo Manager  

Your Categories & Authors:

• Look through your categories?  Do you have categories you don’t use?  Right click on them and delete.
• Look through your authors?  Are some misspelled?  Here’s how to fix:  I have a misspelled author/designer name. How do I get rid of them?

Lastly, where do you save all your downloads that you have already unzipped and organized.  Have you deleted them recently.   I know I put mine in "Done" folder and then periodically delete them from there.  How full is your "Done" folder?

Yes, back by popular demand (ok a couple of requests…lol) here are five more favorite ways to customize ACDSee Photo Manager.

5. Let’s start off with fonts again.  Or at least my favorite way to find my system’s installed fonts.  It used to be a dig through my C drive and Windows folder but I created a shortcut in the favorites pane.  Now it’s right at my fingertips.  You can also add a shortcut to your ‘new downloads’ file to make it easy to keep up with unzipping and tagging new downloads.  Have a go-to file of favorite elements or a favorite designer you search for a lot?  Add a whole folder to your favorites or individual files from all over your collection and create a folder to put them in.  Here’s a tutorial showing you how to do it!

4. Get rid of those Auto-Categories you never use.  That’s right, you don’t have to scroll endlessly through that long list of auto categories.  Just right-click on one of them and then click on the ‘Remove from Commonly Used’ option that pops up.  I decided to only keep Author and Keywords in the Commonly Used list since I actually use those and I keep the Photo Properties set collapsed.  And don’t worry, the information is still there in the properties pane and can be restored to the Auto Categories lists by right clicking on them in the properties pane.

3. Customize your workspace.  I like to keep the Preview Pane closed…with PM10, the pop-up preview is all I need.  If I want a closer look than that I double click to see it in the viewer.  I like to have my file tree go from the top to the bottom of the screen and I close the Image Basket to tag and browse and only use it when I’m pulling stuff together to create a page.  With ACDSee, there are lots of panes to choose from so seeing your images clearly and the tools you use the most often is easy to do.  And anything you want to see that you closed is available in the View menu…you can even Reset Layout to return to the default workspace layout.  Each pane has a stick pin icon in the corner that lets you auto-hide that pane when you’re not using it and the little drop-down arrow next to that allows you to float panes so you change where they are docked.  (I keep my calendar pane on the left under the files, favorites, and search panes.)

2. Set up your default editor.  I have used a variety of scrapbooking programs and am currently using ACDSee Photo Editor Beta 2 for most of my scrapping.  But it’s not the only editor on my computer.  Go to Tools|Open in Editor|Configure Editors… and then you can add editing programs, set the default editor, and check the box if it supports opening multiple files at once.

1. The most important customization this week: Set your database to remind you to back up weekly!  You can set it for other time spans such as monthly or yearly but why would you want to do that?  Take it from a veteran of computer crashes, you can’t back up too often!  Just go to Tools|Options and find the Database options in the list.  Check the reminder box, and pick a time interval…that’s all there is to it!

I hope you have fun this week playing with getting your workspace set up nice and comfy and get your back-up habit going.  Don’t forget to check our calendar to the left…and sign up for our newsletter if you haven’t done so already.  We have some big chats coming up that I know you won’t want to miss!

Happy Tagging!

I’ve been playing with setting up my categories, my preferred desktop layout, and other goodies in ACDSee Photo Manager and thought I’d share my top five ways to customize ACDSee.  So let’s get started!

5. Changing the font display text:

4. The minty-fresh background of my PNG thumbnails:

3. Speaking of thumbnails, I love my custom thumbnail information display:

Just click on Tools | Options and find the Thumbnail Info option under File List.  Click on Choose Thumbnail Info… then customize it to your liking.  I like mine with designer and kit names…of course, you have to fill in that information when you’re organizing.

2. Generated file listing details.

It’s the same options settings dialog we just looked at…just use Details View instead.   Generate a listing of your Image Basket to make giving credits easy.

1. My number one favorite thing to customize is setting up Photo Manager to start where I want it to start:

Yes, same box…Tools | Options again…click on Browser then pick a starting folder or have PM start wherever you left off last time you were using it.

Once you get your workspace all set the way you like it the tagging, searching, and crediting all goes pretty fast!  So what about you…what’s in your ‘Fave Five’?  Post a comment here and tell us what customizations you like best.

Hi everyone! Liz is back with another challenge for ACDSee Photo Editor. I’m going to utilize some of the tutorials we already have here at DigiScrapInfo so we can get to know this program better.

First off, did you see this post?

ACDSee invites you to help build ACDSee Photo Editor 2008!

I’m so excited- we’re all going to be able to give input! So if you don’t have ACDSee Photo Editor yet, you can wait until the 25th and you can download the beta, or download a 30 day trial of our current version. Then we’ll post challenges here every week so you can work your way around the program. Isn’t that exciting! The good news is, you’ll be able to play with it for 90 days!

Anyway, let’s move on to the challenge. If you currently have ACDSee Photo Editor, please feel free to jump right in. If not, wait until the 25th and download it then so you can play along!

We’re going to focus on drop shadows today. They are an integral part of a digital layout. My goal is to make my digital layout look like it was done as a paper layout. A good way to help with that is drop shadows.

I LOVE shadows in Photo Editor. They are done on a separate layer, so you can manipulate them as much as you want! I think they look realistic, but I admit, it took me a few layouts to get a good groove going. So I’ll share the settings I use at the end.

Here is the tutorial we will be using:

Drop Shadows with ACDSee Photo Editor

Here are some examples I’ve done:

A few tips that I’ve learned. I am by no means an expert on this, and I’m sure most of you already know this, but we cater to everybody- new user, or very experienced, so I’ll post it anyway.

When working with drop shadows I have used this tip as a general guide. The closer you want your element to appear “attached” to the paper, the smaller a shadow to use. For example, I put a very small shadow on pictures, background paper, and small elements, but use a larger shadow for things like flowers, ribbons, and frames. Here are some excellent tutorials regarding shadows from Digital Scrapbook Place.

Digital Realism: The Shadow Knows

Shadows and Perspective

These helped me tremendously when starting out.

Anyway, I want to see some layouts with some cool shadow tricks. Post a link in the comments section to your layout, and feel free to let me know what settings you used, any tips and tricks you discovered, etc.

Here are my settings:

I almost always use the same shade, and vary the opacity. Unless I’m working with a dark background, I will usually go to R48, G48, B48 or 303030, which is a dark gray. If I’m using a dark background, I will usually use black. I adjust the opacity down to between 60-80%, depending on what I’m using it for.

For Photo mats, photos, background papers, and small elements such as glitter, buttons, etc:

Offset- 8-12, Blur- 4-5, Opacity- 80%

For frames, cardboard, etc:

Offset- 13-16, Blur- 9-10, Opacity- 75-80%

For Ribbons, flowers, and big shadows:

Offset- 17+, depending on what I want, Blur- 11+- again, depending on what I want, Opacity- 60-75%

Feel free to play with them and come up with your own! I admit, I haven’t played with them a lot, but it is fun once you get the hang of it. I’m pleased with how mine turn out in print. They look realistic enough to me.

Thanks for playing! See you next week!

I’ve had a lot of requests to explain my speed tagging system and include screenshots so here it is. Of course, all the credit goes to Heidi and Connie for providing this site where I learned all these tips and tricks…this is just how I’ve combined them to make organizing my digi supplies a fast and fun process.

Step 1. Select a range of folders in your file list. Try not to bite off more than you can do in one sitting. In order to include sub-folders you need to expand your file tree…highlight the parent folder above the ones you want to work on and use the asterisk * key to open all of the sub-folders at once…hit it again if you still have plus + signs showing. If you have alphas mixed in with other files, separate them into their own folders first.

Step 2. In the center pane just above your thumbnails click the drop-down boxes to Group by ‘File Type’ and then Sort by ‘File Size’. This places JPEG’s together, previews on top, paper below. The next group is PNG’s and small files like staples are on top while the largest ones, usually quick-pages and overlays, are near the bottom of the group. Layered PSD files are in a separate group as are ABR files. Be careful when you’re ready to work through your PNG’s, to select kit folders but skip the alpha folders.

Step 3. You can tag by selecting multiple thumbnails such as all the quick-pages and dragging the thumbnails to the category in the Organize pane, the category to one of the selected thumbs, or by checking the box next to the category in the Properties pane (make sure it’s on the Database tab)

Step 4. Highlight only one designer’s folders, click inside the center pane and use Ctrl I to select all images, then assign the designer’s name to the Author field. Select only the folders belonging to a particular kit and use Ctrl I again then add the kit name under Caption. You can see that I changed my ACDSee thumbnail display options to show author and caption instead of filename. I can also choose for the Generate File Listing function to include these fields and easily handle credits.

I had several starts using several types of organizing systems and this is what ended up fitting my style. There are many ways to use ACDSee Photo Manager and it’s flexibility is part of what makes it such a powerful tool for digital scrapbookers, professional photographers, or anyone with a lot of media files to organize.

The yummy kits featured in this tutorial are from the 4 Seasons CD which is only available with the purchase of ACDSee Photo Manager and/or Photo Editor
And be sure to grab the 20% off discount code on our Birthday Celebration page here at DSI! Happy Tagging everyone!

Have you all been getting the same emails as I have? Lose 10 pounds by January 31! Get your home organized in 21 days! It seems that as soon as the New Year hits, everyone wants to make some positive changes to have less junk and more organization in her life. But you know what? I don’t last very long on diets, and my house only stays neat and clean for a short time. This year I don’t want to spend the time on something that doesn’t last. I want to spend my time on my important things~ like digi-scrapping. Or perhaps I should rephrase that- I want to record my family’s history to last forever? That sounds so much more important, doesn’t it?

Instead of worrying about counting calories in my cereal or the clothes in the back of my closet (you know, that ones that might fit if I counted the calories in my cereal), I want to work on the good stuff. Instead of trying to get my sock drawer to stay color coordinated, I am going to get my digital papers color coordinated! I want to get my computer organized, cleaned up and running great. I want to finally get all of my digital goodies tagged so I can find them when I want them. I want to finally take the time to delete all of the digital elements I know that I will never use, and I definitely want to toss some of the ones I tried to make myself way back when. Now that I can see my fonts and my brushes, I want to get them organized and tagged too.

Even though I have been an ACDSee Photo Manager user for well over a year, I know that I still do not use it at its full capacity. There are neat projects I want to try out and learn how to use better. So my New Year’s Resolution is to work a bit every day on getting my digital stash under control. When that is done, I will be better able to try out some of those features, like slide shows and PowerPoint presentations. I am going to do this by setting up some challenges for me to follow. As I complete these tasks, I am going to come back here and blog about it so you can follow along. Better yet, I’ve heard that resolutions tend to be more successful when you have a partner. Imagine what many partners could do together! I think you should come along for the ride, don’t you?

Starting on Monday and every following Monday, I am going to post a challenge for us to work on some tasks. I will be blogging about how I made out completing the challenge. I’ll also be posting tips on how to do these tasks so if you aren’t sure the best way to work something out, I’ll be able to guide you through. And I am sure we will all learn a lot more about Photo Manager as well.

Looking forward to a new year and a new Comp-U-ter with all of you!

I have been busy scanning photos to add into my parents muvee dvd. A I have been scanning them, I am trying out some new tips and tricks to pass along to to all of you. Most of these tips are likely to be Epson specific, but hopefully some of them will help you to get more familiar or to play around a bit with getting photos in Photo Manager or in scanning software.

To save space and get more photos on your scanning bed,  the photos do not have to be placed in the right orientation. After the scanner preview scans, there is (in Epson Software, at least), an icon to rotate that picture. Make sure you have the correct photo selected, then click the rotate icon until the photo is right side up.

Before:

After:

If you forget to rotate the photo, or your scanning software does not have that option, you can rotate files easily in Photo Manager.

Another neat trick I tried was to use a selection to scan only part of the picture.

First, scan in the photos you want. In the photo I am working on, I only want the two faces on the right. I go to the Target Size Drop Down box and choose “Customize.”

There are many presets, but in this case I think a 2 x 2 area would be good to use. Enter the dimensions in the box, name the preset, and click save.

The 2 x2 preset is now in the drop down list.

Making sure that the picture you want to use is selected, choose the preset of your choice, and a selection box appears on the photo’s thumbnail. Use the hand tool to move the selection box to the appropriate area.

  And here is the finished scanned photo.

Since I still have many more pictures to scan, I will post more tips and tricks as I find them!

I have an Epson Perfection 3170 Photo Scanner. It was a Christmas present from my in-laws a few years back. I will never complain about them, because they always get me awesome scrapping/computer gifts. Now, that is not the only reason I love them, but it helps. Haha!!

Last year I made a movie DVD for my best friend as a Christmas present. Since we have been freinds for more years than I like to admit, I had a huge amount of non-digital photos and memorabilia that had to be scanned before I could upload them into the movie software. It was a big drag, although the outcome was worth it. The movie was a huge hit. Well, at least it was in my family!

This year, my mom asked for a movie for herself as a gift. At first I was dreading it. But since I now have ACDSee Photo Manager, the scanning is an absolute breeze! Photo Manger is much easier to handle files than the software that came with my printer.

I will set about 3 pictures on the scanner bed, depending on the orientation of the pictures. I make sure that they are not touching so that ACDSee can easily “see” them as separate files.

In Photo Manager, click on Get Photos and select your device. Click Next.

Then, check the box for Scan Multiple Documents and select the first option. Select your file format. jpgs is the most common and versatile. Click Next.

Choose the File name you want, Select Folder and Subfolder where you want the files to be placed. Click Next.

At this point, my Epson Scanning Software opens up and scans a Preview. I have my scanner set to Home Mode which gives me different levels of control. If I want to change any of my settings, my preview scans will be erased. You can also see that even though I did not place my photos on the bed exactly straight, ACDSee is able to straighten them as it selects the photos to scan. Since I am happy with all of the settings for these photos, I will click Scan. ACDSee will then scan each of the photos.

After the scan has finished, I close the scanning program and them the Photo Wizard appears. If you have more photos to scan, click scan to restart the process. If not click Next.

The Wizard is complete. Select Browse to your new images if you choose to. Click Finish and you now have three new photos scanned in a flash.

If you already have ACDSee 10, there is a free update you should go get. If you are running with ACDSee 9, there are some new features in ACDSee 10 that make digital scrapbooking easy: ACDSee 10 New Features plus these new features/enhancements below:

And this latest update allows users to: View, browse and organize .abr, .jbr and .pbr files, known as ‘brushes’ and used in applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro.

Let’s see it action:

What else is new:

• Hot key for mouse over pop ups
  • Show or hide mouse over pop ups with the Shift key
  • If you a pop up thumbnail showing and you want to get rid of it, just hit the shift and it will hid the pop-up.
• Enhanced uploader to Flicker
• More RAW Camera support
• And the new missing artistic effects are now available.

To get the update, download the file here:

ACDSee 10 Update

• You must have ACDSee 10 installed for this update to work. It will not install ACDSee 10 for you.
• Close ACDSee 10,
• Run the downloadable file to install it
• Restart ACDSee 10.
• It’s that simple.

And if you want, ACDSee 10, remember the current special going on: 2 for 1 with gift: Get ACDSee 10 Photo Manager- Gift with Purchase

If you want to upgrade ACDSee 9 -> 10 , the cost is $34.99.

And for all those that don’t use Adobe or Corel’s products, I was hoping this new brush feature would allow me to save my brush files and turn them into usable png files. It can convert the brush files to different images types (using Batch Convert or Save As) like png, but unfortunately, the transparency is lost. So the brush has the dreaded white background. For some brushes, I can easily select the background with my magic wand/selection tool and get rid of it and for some it doesn’t work. ACDSee is working on getting this functionality fixed so we can easily convert the brushes.