ACDSee Photo Manager | Digital Scrapbooking Info

Posted on : Mar 02 2009
Posted under ACDSee Photo Manager, Organization |

Organization Challenge: Week Five

Table of contents for Organization Challenge 2009

How are your digi-files coming along? I hope that you are finding these suggestions and steps to become better organized helpful. I know that since I did this last year, my files have become messier- with some shoved into folders where they didn’t belong. So even though I did all of this last year, I think my hard drive deserved a good clean-out again.

1. Did you Back up and Optimize? With all of the time and effort you are putting into this, you don’t want to lost any tagging so backing up and optimizing is very important. And I know I really see a difference after I optimize my database in how smoothly the program runs.

2.Â Work on those fonts, I am getting there. I found fonts stored in four, yes *four* different folders, so it is going to take a while. But I found a huge amount of duplicate files. Now that they are deleted off my computer, it is saving me a lot of room! I am also purging fonts I don’t like and know I will never use.

This week we are going on to another potentially difficult and messy category: Organizing your brushes. Abr brush files can only be seen in Photo Manager 10, 2009 and Pro Versions 2 and 2.5, so if you are using an older version of Photo Manager,you won’t be able to do this challenge. Or, you can download a free 30 day trial for Photo Manager here

You’ll be totally hooked, so be warned. smile_wink

This will be similar to how we organized out Fonts. However, I don’t tag my fonts, but for some reason I do tag brushes. I am not really sure why I do that. It could be that fonts can usually be put into one folder or category, but brushes, because of the way that there are usually several brushes in one file, fit into several categories. Looking more closely at what I do, I put the brush into broad folders: Collections by Designer, type of Brush (e.g. Stitches, Doodles).

From there, I will look at the brush files. To see all of the brushes in one files, double click the files, and it will open up into the Browse window. All of the individual brushes will show up on the left side. In looking at the files, I can tag the brush with multiple categories.

Tasks for this week’s challenge:
Steps:

Create a main folder for your brushes. I keep the default Photoshop brushes in the Adobe presets folder.Â All of my other brushes, I keep in my scrapbooking folder, just as I would keep my elements and papers.
Create Sub-Folders based on the system you want to use. You can either use Move To Folder (Alt M) or drag your brushes from the first folder to the new brushes folder.
Create categories and sub-categories in the Properties pane.

TIP: To do this, you Right Click on Categories, type Brushes, click enter. To create sub-categories, right click on Brushes, and type in your sub-category names.

Working through your files, tag the brushes with the sub-categories.

TIP:Â As you go through tagging your brushes, add in a designer name or credits if you have them.

If you want to make a contact sheet to see all of the individual brushes, select the files. Go to Print|Contact sheet. Adjust the thumbnail settings to fit as many thumbnails as you wish on one page.

To use brushes in Photoshop, drag the abr file onto your Photoshop workspace. Select the Brush tool, and they will load into the Brush Tool Box.

To use brushes in Photo Editor, Kristi put together an excellent series on the DigiScrapInfo Blog http://digiscrapinfo.com/wordpress/2008/02/02/define-a-brush-in-photo-editor/

For a great video tutorial on using brushes:
http://www.digiscrapinfo.com/joomla/acdsee-photo-manager/115-acdsee-10-new-features

Have fun!

Next in series

Change the Sample Text of Fonts

Posted on : Feb 17 2009
Posted under ACDSee Photo Manager, Organization |

Organization Challenge Week Four

Table of contents for Organization Challenge 2009

2/9/2009
How did everyone do with cleaning up all of those Duplicate Authors? I found quite a few that needed some work on them. One thing I would like to see in a future version of Photo Manager would be a Auto-Fill In for the Author, like they do for keywords. But for now, a little pruning here and there doesn’t hurt too much.
Did all of you remember to Back up and Optimize? I did both. In fact, I think I backed up about three times. I have been doing a lot of work on creating and updating Photo Disks and I don’t want to lose any of that hard work. And keep reading every week, because soon I am going to have a Challenge on clearing up hard drive space by making Photo Disks.
If you and your database are ready go, let’s move on to this week!

Today, we will be working on a task that I did last year, but am dreading at having to do it again.Â Organizing Fonts. I am a self-admitted Font-a-holic. I collect fonts like some people collect…. shoes. And they can make a mess of your computer- both in how it runs and on your organization if you don’t have a good system to work with.
I want to remind everyone of my disclaimer that I stated the first week of this challenge. This is only my way of doing things. It works for me; however, it might not work for you . And that is 100% OK. If you have a different way to do any of, and would like to share, you can post in the DigiScrapInfo Forum.

I do not keep many of my fonts installed on my computer. I really like to collect fonts and I have a lot- at least a few thousands. Keeping them all installed makes my computer extremely angry with me. The system I have devised is to keep most of my fun fonts onto my second hard drive.Â You may choose to do this in a separate folder, on an external hard drive or on a different drive. All of my scrapping supplies are on my second hard drive so that is where I keep my fonts.
So first, what I did is figure out which fonts had to stay installed.

TIP: For a list of Windows Fonts that should not be uninstalled, read this post .

Second, I needed to choose a few fonts that I use all of the time, is several different programs to keep installed. These are the ones that would be more inconvenient to had uninstalled than installed. I chose a couple of script, and a couple of handwriting style fonts that I really consider as my favorites. Now that I am looking back since last year, I know I want to change mine a bit. As all Font-a-holics know, your favorite fonts can change rapidly. Today I am going to go back through my list of “non-essential fonts” and choose the ones I want to keep, and uninstall the ones I don’t want at the moment. What is nice about this method, is that if I want that font, I can use Photo Manager to temporarily load certain fonts just for when I need them.
The rest of the fonts are then uninstalled. Some people use The Font Thing (TFT), which is what I had used for my font browsing before Photo Manager. Once I was done with TFT, I uninstalled it as there was no need for it any more. But if you have it, or need to use it, you can download and uninstall it when you are done.

TIP: You can find The Font Thing here.

I have found that I like to keep my Fonts in Sub-Folders in different Categories rather than having them in one folder and being tagged. Feel free to try it this way or by tagging and see which one makes more sense to you.
What I did next was create a folder tree in Photo Manager for my fonts.Â On my second hard drive, where I have all of my scrap supplies, I created a folder called Ta-da! …. Fonts.
Under that, I made new folders for the different style fonts I use. Here you can see how my folders are set up in Photo Manager.

You can make as few or as many folder as you wish. It all depends on how many and what style fonts you have.
TIP: If you need ideas for font styles dafont.com has a very good list of font styles.

From there, I dragged all of my uninstalled fonts from where they originally were located, right on into the new Fonts folder. From there, I just scrolled on down, Ctrl-Clicked similar fonts and then dragged them into the appropriate folder.
To use these fonts when scrapping is really easy, even though they are not installed. Before you open your editing program, open Photo Manager, select the fonts you wish to use, then go to DatabaseÂ | Rebuild Thumbnails and Metadata.

Open your editing program. When you are ready to work with the fonts, simply drag them from Photo Manager into the program. The fonts will be loaded onto your computer only while your editing program is open. When you close it, the fonts automatically unload.
For more details you can read here:

Using Uninstalled Fonts

Using Fonts

The other thing we are going toÂ work on this week is to remove extra back ups that are stored on your hard drive. ACDSee does not overwrite the back up data, it makes a new folder each time you back up. SoÂ if you back up a lot,. which is a very good idea, you may have a lot of back-ups on your hard drive that are taking up precious storage space.

To do this in Version 9, the default location is:

C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Local settings\Application Data\ACD Systems\Catalogs\90\ACDSeeBK

For Version 10, the default location is:

C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Local settings\Application Data\ACD Systems\Catalogs\100\ACDSeeBK

To do this in Version 2009 (11), the default location is:

C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Local Settings\Application Data\ACD Systems\Catalogs\110\ACDSeeBK

My Database is located on my EHD that floats between my laptop and my desktop. I wanted the Database to be accessible for both systems, so it is I:ACDSeeDatabase\ACDSeeBK

For a full explanation on how to see how many back ups you have, click here http://digiscrapinfo.com/wordpress/2007/11/16/you-can-learn-from-my-mistake/
Tasks for Week 4:
1. Back up and Optimize
2. If you use Photo Manager to view fonts, set up a system to keep you better organized.
3. If you find fonts that you know you will never use, have duplicate fonts or corrupted fonts, delete them and don’t look back!
4. If you have any credit information on these fonts, go ahead and put that information in the Caption or Notes section.
5. Check to see how many back- up files you have and delete as many as you feel comfortable.

Posted on : Feb 09 2009
Posted under ACDSee Photo Manager, Organization |

Organization Challenge Week 3.5

I need to apologize to all of you loyal readers. There will not be an Organization Challenge this week (2/2 – 2/11). Due to some health issues, I was not able to get this week’s post up in time.

So, lucky you- you all can take an extra week to get more organized and keep on tagging!

1 Comment »

Posted on : Feb 02 2009
Posted under ACDSee Photo Manager, Organization |

Organization Challenge Week Three

Table of contents for Organization Challenge 2009

Organization Challenge Week Three
1/26/2009
This week’s organizing challenge didn’t take me as long as I had thought. I was able to work through my Alpha Category quickly and clean up the way they were tagged. I was able to delete two sub-categories I didn’t use and added a new sub-category for Sticker Styled Alpha’s.

Another thing I was able to do during this organizing time was to further tag the alphas by color. The more details I have added to each alpha will make it easier to find them during a search.

Week Two Tasks:

Back Up and Optimize Database- this is so routine now for me that I didn’t even have to think twice about doing this. I made sure that I backed up after each of my big tagging and purging sessions, since I didn’t want to lose any of the new information I had entered.
Clean up at least two Categories. I kept on working on the Alphas, and was able to get a lot of that cleaned up. I found some that still needed designers names, so I added them. The other category I worked on was my Miscellaneous Category. I had gathered a lot of paint smears and glitter splats and most of them were under the general blanket Category of Misc. I realized I had plenty enough of them to give them their own category. To do this: In the Organize Pane, Right Click on the Parent Category, and click “New Category.” Add the new sub-category by typing in the new name. In this case, I clicked on “Types”Â as my parent category and then added “Paint and Splats.” You can also delete a category in the same manner. Lastly, you can also edit category names by right clicking on the Category you want to edit, then, Click on Edit Category. You can then rename that Category.
Delete any files that you know that you will never use. I did a search for “tou” and was able to delete a good quantity of Terms of Use files that were all duplicates. They went right into the Recycle Bin. You never have too much free disk space.
Continue to tag any files. Spend about 15 minutes a day doing this. I was pertty good about doing this most of the days this week.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Last week, I was able to get a lot of miscellaneous files better organized. I hate that feeling of “things stuck in the corners” either in my home or in my computer folders. Do you have a stack of papers that get shuffled from place to place or worse, simply ignored? That is what these files were like, so it felt refreshing to have them cleaned out and put in their proper place, even if it ended up being the recycle bin.

While I am sure we all have some more foldersÂ that can use some extra attention, but let’s move on to another problem that I have been ignoring: Duplicate Authors. In your Organize Pane, you will see a Section called Auto Categories.

Photo Manager comes with pre-installed categories for these that are not editable. However, there are two sub-categories, Commonly Used and Photo Properties and you can move them between these two sub-categories. To do this, right click on the category, and you can either “Add to Commonly Used” or “Remove from Commonly Used.”
To work in the Author Category, click on the on the +sign to the left of Author. This will drop down all of your author’s.
TIP: This will only work if you have been adding the designer to the Author Box in the Properties Pane.Â If you have not been adding the Designer’s name, you can read how to do it here:Â Easily add Designer and Kit Name
As I am scrolling down, I see lots of duplicate authors. Here is a sample of the different entries I have for Danielle Young.

I have one in lower case and one misspelled.To combine these into one category, select all variations of the author by checking the box next to the name. Make sure that you have “Match Any” selected.

Select AllÂ or Ctrl-A.

Go to the Properties Pane. Click in the Author Box, the program will ask you to Reset Author for all selected files? Click Yes. Then type the correct name into the Author Box and hit Enter. When you go back to the Organize Pane, you should only see the one, correct Author name. If not, refresh the page (F5) and that should do the trick.
TIP: Sometimes, you’ll get a “stubborn” author that doesn’t want to go away. So far, I have not been able to figure out how to get rid of them- so if you know, email me digiscrapinfo@gmail.com.
This task is somewhat time consuming, but it really helps to when you want to search for a product made by a certain designer. For people on CT’s , this is especially helpful when creating a layout for a specific designer. Say I am creating a layout for Nina Scraps and I want to only use her products. All I have to do is click the box next her name and it will bring up all of her designs. If I want to further refine my search and look only for frames by her, I switch the Match Any/All to “All” and select both her name and Frames.

Tasks for next week:

Back up and optimize your database.
Clean up duplicate or misspelled Authors.
Continue sorting out any other categories that you didn’t get to last week.
Continue tagging 15 minutes a day.

Posted on : Jan 27 2009
Posted under ACDSee Photo Manager, DigiScrapping, Organization |

Organization Challenge Week Two

Table of contents for Organization Challenge 2009

Organizational Challenge: Week Two

1/19/09

Did all of you get a chance to work on your databases and tagging this week? I had some issues when I lost my tagging, due to some EHD issues. The software was not finding the back ups because the locations had changed between the computer and laptop. To fix that, Heidi suggested that I:

Go to Tools | Option

Database tab and look at Database location..
These should point to the exact same location. (with the exception of the drive letter — that might be different but its fine.) It should point to the location of your Default folder on your EHD. (assuming that is how you are sharing the database) From your symptoms, I am guessing these 2 are pointing to different locations.

And then once I got that issue settled, I saw that I had lost all of my tagging, What a shock that was to me! I was able to recover most of my tagging by going to Database|Catalog. After a few tries when ADCSee shut itself down during the process, I remembered that when you catalog your folders, you need to do it in smaller sections. if you try to do many folders at once, the program will shut down. It is infinitely easier and less frustrating to catalog your folders in smaller batches.

Last week’s tasks focused on basic set up of your categories and keeping your database backed up and optimized. That is all well and good and very necessary. It is kind of like the foundation of your routine. And like a house’s foundation,Â it isn’t the most fun to work with, but you have to make sure it is sturdy and stable.
On the DigiScrapInfo website we have some pre-made organizing categories. For a full list of categories that range from simple to complex, you can visit this page.
There are also directions on how to install the pre-made categories onto your computer.
Speaking of foundations, Kristi has several blog posts on using a Foundations Style of Organization.
As of right now, she has a four-part series on using this style of organizing. I think that this is a must read!
With all of these variations, in addition to the flexibility of adding and deleting your own categories, there is bound to be a style that will work for you.

This week, let’s get more into the “meat” of the program.Â Let’s clean up some of our messy categories. When I first posted this article originally last year, I had a different set of categories. Over the past year, I can see how I have deleted some categories and sub categories. Additionally, I have added in a few, as well as refined a few. I love how this software grows and expands with you and your scrapping needs. Conversely, if you find it too difficult to search and tag with many categories, it is easy enough to streamline your categories by deleting what you do not use.

When I first started out with Photo Manager, I had all of my ribbons and fibers and yarn and stitches and bows and…well, you get the picture… all of those elements were lumped into one folder. It defeatedÂ the benefits of being able to search for a ribbon when all of those extra files came up as well. Later on, I decided to add a new category for just bows. However, I never found the bows that were originally in the Ribbons et al Folder, and they were still lurking around in there. Does this sound familiar?

My job to work on this week is going to be cleaning up some of these messy categories. Last year, my first priority was to clean up my Ribbons & Fibers and Bows Categories. This year I am going to work on my Alphas Folder. What I am going to do first is select my Alpha Category by selecting that Category in the Organize Pane. I want to be able to work with all of the sub-categories of Alphas that I have so I will check the box for Alpha. Then I will go to the top right part of my screen, click on blue circle next to “Category” and check Include Sub-Categories.

This will bring up every file that I have tagged as “Alpha” as well anything in a sub-categories of Alpha. So I can be able to fit as many files as possible on my monitor, I can either click on the Slider on the top right side of the screen.

Or you can Ctrl-Scroll to either reduce or enlarge the thumbnails. I want to be able to Select as many files at once so I want them pretty small. As I find the Alphas that I want moved, I Ctrl -Click to select multiple files. After I have the ones I want to move, I will switch from the Organize Pane to the Properties Pane by using the tabs at the bottom right of my screen. Open the tree for categories so you can see what is checked. If there is a category I want to remove from an alpha, I can click on that check mark to remove it. Then I want to add these files to a different sub-category, so I will can either check the appropriate box, or simply drag the files right over to it. Hit F5 to refresh your screen and the files will be removed from this category. You might even see some other files that don’t belong in this category and they can be moved to the appropriate category in the same way. You can tag one alpha with several sub-categories. For example, you could have one Alpha tagged with Holiday and Glitter if that is what best describes them and will help you to find them in a Category Search.

TIP: Approach this the same way you do (or should!) clean out closets or drawers. Only work on one category at a time or you will have a bigger and more complicated mess on your hands!

TIP: You might find TOU’s as you go through the categories. If there are duplicate and/or jpg TOU’s, you may wish to delete some of these files.

As I am going through, I am evaluating some of the categories that only have a few files in them. For example, I have eight files in “Felt” and just a few in “Fabric.” To keep my sub-categories under control, I am going to combine them into one file. In the Organize Pane, right click on your main category; in my case it would be “Alpha.” Click on New Category and enter a new name and icon, if desired. I would type “Fabric Felt” as my new sub-category. Then, select all images in those two old categories, remove them by unchecking them, then add them to the new category.

As I am working on these categories, I am wondering, why did I ever think that I would be able to make a element half as good as the designers? *shuddering at my early attempts at designing* Just like those bell bottoms in your closet from the 70’s, we hang onto scrap stuff because we wonder “what if I need this someday?” If you have had it longer than a year, and you haven’t used it yet…guess what? Chances are you won’t use it ever. Most of us started out digi -scrapping the same way. We would find all of the freebies we could collect, without truly considering if it was something we needed or would even use. Or perhaps our styles have changed as we develop our skills at scrapping. After a while, we lose track of what we have and buy more of the same stuff. (I promise, I won’t tell any of your husbands about that!!). As you are looking through your folders, if you haven’t used it, don’t think you will ever use or can’t see why you have twenty-five staples that look identical, it is time to purge.

TIP: I know, it really is hard to toss something out, in real life as well as in the digital realm. If you find that there are some files that you really don’t feel comfortable deleting, you can try this trick. Create a folder, make sure you do this in ACDSee) and name it something like “To be Deleted”. Or “This Folder will self destruct on (date.)”Â Â Drag any of those files you are unsure of into it. If after another month you find that you still haven’t used them, it is time to hit the Delete key. And if this is still too difficult, you can always make a Photo Disk in ACDSee and at least be able to get these files off of your hard drive. Here is how to Make a Photo Disk .
That seems like a good start for us to do this week.

Week Two Tasks:

Back Up and Optimize Database.
Clean up at least two Categories.
Delete any files that you know that you will never use.
Continue to tag any files. Spend about 15 minutes a day doing this.

Posted on : Jan 19 2009
Posted under ACDSee Photo Manager, Organization |

Foundations, part 4: Shopping Your Stash

Table of contents for Foundations Style

New Organizing Style called Foundations
Foundations, Part 2: Photos and Text
Foundations, Part 3: Artistic Elements and Previews
Foundations, part 4: Shopping Your Stash

Are you ready to go shopping? I know if you’re like me, your budgets are getting more of a thinning down this January than your waistlines. That’s ok, because we’re going to go shopping on your hard drive. We already tackled most of our supplies in the previous installments of the Foundations series and now we are going to tag previews.

My previews category is where I really put the power of cross-tagging to good use. I have sub-categories for tagging kit previews, template packs previews, font previews, etc. If you have a favorite store you love to shop at because it’s so easy to find what you’re looking for, consider mirroring their category list. Getting your previews tagged into these sub-categories makes it just like shopping at the store. You can see that my ‘element packs’ category needs it’s own sub-dividing to sort the brushes, word-art, and frames.

I also have a set of categories called Themes. This is where I have seasonal/holiday as well as season-of-life categories. Not every kit preview will get a theme tag but if something is particularly suited for doing teen pages I want to be able to just search for teen kits. But adding theme tags to the kit pieces is just too much. By using the previews to build my theme and type categories, just like at a store, I can shop my stash before getting online to look for just the right kit. I can also easily see when I don’t have what I’m looking for. I feel better when I shop now that I know I’m getting what I really need with my limited budget.

I hope you have enjoyed this journey through my Foundations organizing style. Every style here is a starting point. So think about how you like to search…and how you like to shop…and make ACDSee Photo Manager work for you. Happy Tagging!

Previous in series

Posted on : Jan 17 2009
Posted under ACDSee Photo Manager, DigiScrapping, Organization |

Organization Challenge: Week One

Table of contents for Organization Challenge 2009

Photo Manager 2009 Organizational Challenge: Week One
1/12/09

Last year, I ran a 10 week organizing challenge here at DigiScrapInfo, the New Year, New Comp-U-Ter Organization Challenge.
This turned out a very positive response among the members of DSI forums. I know that it made a huge difference in helping my computer get cleaned up, and I learned a few extra things about Photo Manager at the same time.

We have a new year and a new version of Photo Manager, so I have decided to re-run the challenge. Much of the challenges will be the same or very similar to the ones that were done last year. However I will be updating the information to reflect some of the changes in the new version of Photo Manager. Most of these challenges will work just as well if you are still using Photo Manager 10, or even any of the Pro versions.

Even if you did the challenge last year, follow along and get the last year’s worth of messy files and folders cleaned, organized, backed up and streamlined.

Just as I said last year, I want to make a disclaimer that what I am describing here is only my way of doing things. There maybe other and/or easier ways to do this. Kristi and Heidi have both posted some wonderful helpful tip and hints on the DSI Blog. One thing that I truly love about ACDSee Photo Manager is that is it so flexible so that each user can find several ways to achieve something, and can find the way that suits their needs best. I tend to be very non-techy, so I shoot straight for the most intuitive way of doing things. Heidi, being much more technologically minded, can most likely find a different way of doing things because she has a knack for seeing the “inner workings” of the software. And Kristi has wonderful and helpful tips on how to use Photo Manager and Photo Editor in connection with each other.

If you know of other ways or suggestions on how to do something being discussed, by all means, share it with us! The other point I cannot stress enough is back up your database often. I tend to back my database up every time I spend more than just a few minutes of tagging. So feel free to explore with this program, but make sure you back up, just in case things get funky on you. It is much miuch easier to restore your database and only lose a bit of tagging, than lose your entire database.

The other thing I want to mention is that I am using Photo Manager 2009. If you have Photo Manager 9 or 10, you can follow along as well, but there may be a few things that you can’t do with them. Feel free to go to the ACDsee Website and get a free 30 day trial of Photo Manager 2009.

What we need to do first is to make sure our database is backed up and optimized. For instructions on how to back up your database, click here: Backing Up Your ACDSee Database

One thing to keep in mind is that when you are backing up your database in this way, you are backing up the tagging and organizing you are doing within Photo Manager. You are not backing up your actual images. There are better and faster ways to do this, ie burning to CD/DVD, rather than using the ACDSee Back Up Wizard. Heidi has a blog post of this, Some more things to do in 2009, Backup! I will try to discuss this more later on in these challenges.

TIP: Either take a look at the location of the back up, take a screen shot, or write down the location. We’ll need this information in a later post.

After you are backed up, we are going to optimize your database. This will help Photo Manager run more smoothly and quickly. For instructions you can read here: Backing Up Your ACDSee Database.

I like to back up my database at least once week, although if I tag a kit or spend more than just a few minutes organizing , I will back up more often than that. Typically I will optimize my database once a week. If I move or delete a large amount of files, I will optimize afterwards.

Once we have this completed, we need to think about how we organize. We need to come up with a consistent way to to do this. Consistency is the key to organization, in real life, parenting, housekeeping and yes, in digi-scrapping., but I really notice a huge difference when I stay focused and keep a good routine.

The first part of this is to pick a Organizing Style. You can use the default one in Photo Manager, you can choose one of the ones provided by other Acdsee users, or use one of your own. Now this is important since it is easy to look at the styles shown and get overwhelmed. No need for that, at all! First, any categories you start with can be edited, deleted, combined, or new ones can be added. The amazing thing with Photo Manager is that you can really customize it to make it work best for you. I would bet that out of 100 ACDSee users, no two set-ups would be exactly alike. And that brings me to my second point; Feel free to make this program “yours.” Perhaps you know you’ll never use plaid paper (too many years in Catholic school perhaps *wink* ). Then there is no need to have a category or subcategory for Plaid Paper. On the other hand, perhaps you are a Doodle-A-Holic. You have doodle hearts, doodle borders, doodle swirls, fancy doodles, kid doodles– you get the picture. (I see some of you smiling – you can relate, right!?) . In that case you might like to break doodles down into subcategories.

TIP: In my experience, it is better to start with the basic categories at the start and create subcategories later on, as you see the need for them. I find that too many options, starting out, can get overwhelming.

The last thing I want to cover before we get busy tagging is to come up with a consistent routine (There that word again! LOL) for downloading, unzipping, tagging and moving new files. We all know it, we love to get new digital goodies and in our excitement to see what we got, we have zip files scattered all over our hard drive(s). Photo Manager 10 is wonderful because you can Extract right in the program. In PM 2009, you can Click on a zip file (Ctrl-Click for multiple files) and click on “Extract to Folder” to do the same. You can then use the folder history or browse to where you want the files to be extracted to in a snap.

TIP: I recommend only unzipping a few folders at a time. Every once in a while, a designer doesn’t pack the individual files into a “inner” folder and if you have too many loose files, it can get crazy trying to round them all up. Think of a 3 year old birthday party, after the cake….

Back to the routine of this- yes, it makes tagging so much easier if you know where all of your files are. What I have done is set up a folder _To Be Tagged. The underscore puts the folder near the top of my “tree.” When I download a file, I put it in this folder *every time.* And that zip will stay there until I can get around to unzipping it. When I am ready to unzip and tag, I select the zip file (Ctrl-Click to select multiple files), then click on Extract to Folder.

Make sure that your _To Be Tagged Folder or other destination folder is selected. Click OK.

After my files are extracted, I move my Zip file into a sub folder, called appropriately “Zips.” (I am so creative!) I like to hang onto my zips for a while, to make sure there were no corrupted files or I don’t accidentally delete something. Then I have unzipped files in its own folder, all ready to be tagged.

TIP: This is important! Once you tag your files, you should only move them within Photo Manager. If you move files outside of Photo Manager, you will lose the information tagged to that file.

OK- we could go on and on about how to best tag and organize your files, but if I tell you all that now, you won’t come back and read this next week

Here is the Challenge for Week One, and yes, I am going to be doing each of these too. If you need any help, just post a question at the DigiScrapInfo Forum, and I’ll do what I can to help. And if any of you have helpful hints or tips, please feel free to share.

Week One Tasks:

Back Up and Optimize Database.
Select an organizing style if you do not have one already. Once you have yours best style chosen, here are Directions to use the Organizing Style
Decide what procedure you want to use for unzipping and tagging your digital files. Set that up.
Spend 15 minutes a day unzipping and tagging files.