Speed Tagging with Kristi

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!

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Organizational Challenge: Week Three

OK, I admit it, I was really really bad about doing 15 minutes a day. The early part of the week I was actually quite busy. If you haven’t seen, The ACDSee Team and I were planning a big birthday celebration. That ended up being priority for a few days. However, what I did was work for 15 minutes each on Monday and Thursday and 30 minutes on Friday. The rest of the weekend, I was able to get in at least 15 minutes each day. So it works out ok, right?

My 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 Ribbons and Fibers and the Bow Categories. I really got so much of that cleaned up. I found some that still needed designers names, so I added them. The other category I worked on was Frames- I wanted to have better sub-categories. I added Wrapped Frames to the Cluster Sub-category. To do this: In the Organize Pane, Right Click on the Category you want to edit, then, Click on Edit Category. You can then rename that Category. When you right Click, you can also delete or add a new category.

Delete any files that you know that you will never use: Oh boy, I went through my Templates Folder. I guess when I first started digi-scrapping, templates were one of the big, hot items that were given out as freebies. I had a lot-lot-LOT of templates. A lot of them, I would never use, and some I could never use. Why was I saving PSP Templates? I don’t have PSP! I also has tiffs and psds of the same template. I was able to really toss out quite a bit of stuff. And you know what? It actually felt good!

• Continue to tag any files. Spend about 15 minutes a day doing this: Well, I did my best!

As you see, 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 pf 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 folder that can use some extra attention, but let’s move on to another problem that I know 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 authors.
TIP: This will only work if you have been adding the designer to the Author Box in the Properties Pane. If you have not been adding the Designer’s name, you can read how to do it here: 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 All 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 or post in this thread.

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:

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

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Organizational Challenge: Week Two

Organizational Challenge: Week Two
I had a very productive week. Really being committed to even just 15 minutes a day of getting organized really helped me out. Here is a run down of what I was able to accomplish:

Day One.

1. I was able to get my data base backed up and optimized.
2. Tomorrow when I have a bit more time, I am going to look over my categories and see what needs to be refined.
3. I already have my Unzip Routine all set and I am happy with the way it works for me so that is good to go.
4. I didn’t have all that much time to work on the actual organizing part. I did have a few paper packs that needed some attention and I did that.

Day Two.
It feels really good to be home from work and simply “have to” sit for 15 minutes with Photo Manager. For people who are dreading the organizing part of digi-scrapping, I have to be honest and tell you that it is actually fun! I put on some music and just go along with it. I really enjoy seeing all of the papers and elements that I get in a kit. It even helps me to remember which designer has something really neat that I want to play with or I make connections- for example I’ll see a great word art and know exactly which picture I want use it with on a Layout.

Day Three.
I had some CT kits to download and tag today. But I didn’t have time to do it all at once. I was able to get them downloaded into my _To Be Tagged Folder and was able to unzip and tag over the course of the day. And, while I was looking at the amazing word art, I realized I had a new picture of my and my hubby that would work perfect for them. Can’t wait to scrap it!

Day Four.
I was able to work on some more tagging today. I cleaned up some folders and got my _To Be Tagged folder just about empty. Tomorrow I am going to sort through the Zips Sub-Folder and get rid of the zip files that I have had for a while.

Day Five.
Wow, today was a really busy day for me, I didn’t have time to work on what I wanted to accomplish. I did have a few minutes to tag a new element pack. I was really happy however, even though I only worked on organizing for about 10 minutes today, I really don’t feel like I am all that far behind. And tomorrow is Saturday so I will hopefully have a bit of extra time to work.

Day Six.
Why do I always think that I’ll have extra time on the weekends? I never do- LOL But it is 3 pm and I have about 20-30 minutes of some quiet time where hopefully no one needs me and the phone doesn’t ring I have several kits to unzip for some CT work and I want to get rid of those older zip files. But no worries, I’ll do what I can. Everything will be right where I can find it when I am ready to get back to work.

Day Seven.
I am out of town, so no time to work on this. But no worries~ everything is under control!
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, it isn’t the most fun to work with, but you have to make sure it is sturdy and stable. This week, let’s get more into the “meat” of the program. Let’s clean up some of our messy categories.

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 defeated 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.

My job to work on this week is going to be cleaning up some of these messy categories. My first priority is going to be to clean up my Ribbons & Fibers and Bows Categories. What I am going to do first is select my Ribbons Category by selecting that Category in the Organize Pane. This will bring up every file that I have tagged as “Ribbons & Fibers.” 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 Bows 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. In this case I want to remove the “Ribbons & Fibers” category so I click n that check mark to remove it. Then I want to add these files to the Bow Category, so I will can either check the Bows box, or simply drag the files right over to it. Hit F5 to refresh your screen and the bows 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.

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 “Tiles.” and just a few in Zippers, and I don’t think I have ever used them. I am not sure what I want to do with them yet. However, I am making a note to myself so if I find a more appropriate category to move them to, I can do that.

As I am working on these categories, I am wondering, why did I ever think that I would be able to make a ribbon 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 ever use it. 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.)” 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 are directions on how to Make a Photo Disk .

That seems like a good start for us to do this week, don’t you?

Week Two Tasks:

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

If you have any questions or comments, you can post them at Photo Manager Challenges with Chris

See you next week!

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You Can Learn from My Mistake

Well, maybe “mistake” is too a harsh word. How about an “Airhead Moment?”

The other day, I was working on my computer and I was trying to save something to my C:\ drive. I got the little pop-up telling me that I had low disk space. So I try to clean up, compress and defrag my drive. Not happening. I only had 1% free space, way less than the 15% recommended for defragging.

I started deleted old documents, photos and so on, but it didn’t free up any significant amount of space. I am not sure what made me think about the back ups of ACDSee, but I am glad it occurred to me at one point. I went into my Local Setting Folder, and found man, many backups for ACDSee- over a year’s worth! I looked in my Version 9 Folder, and deleted all but the last four back ups. Then I went into Version 10 and did the same thing. I was able to free up over 25% of disk space, which has made my computer much happier!

What happens is that because ACDSee does not overwrite the back up data, it makes a new folder each time you back up. And since I am a compulsive backer-upper (Is that a word? ha ha!), I had lots and lots of folders.

From ACDSee’s Help File:

Backup location

It’s a good idea to consider where you back up your data, as well as how often. If you’re backing up to your hard drive, ACDSee creates a new folder for each day. This helps to avoid overwriting your backup, and gives you several increments from which you can restore. Backing up the database to a CD or DVD once a week will help protect you in case of hard drive failure. Also helpful is a monthly backup that is stored in a different physical location than your computer, such as a network drive.

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

Here is a screen shot of where my folder is located:

Be careful that you only delete backup files. You do not want to delete the Default folder. This folder contains all your organizing information.

You should only delete as many back up folders as you feel comfortable with. I felt that four back ups was “safe” for me. ANd don’t forget it is a good idea to back up your database to a CD or DVD as well.

For more information of backing up your data, click here.

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Want to share your suggestions to improve ACDSee Photo Manager?

What can ACDSee do to make this a better digital scrapbooking tool for you? We have so many users out there and I bet you have some opinions. So feel free come to this forum and post Suggestions for ACDSee Photo Manager!

I will gather up the information and forward it onto ACDSee. And some things you may find out that you can already do in ACDSee Photo Manager and just didn’t know it!

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Life without Photo Manager!

I was away this weekend, and I didn’t think I was going to make it through. I went to visit my parents who own a lake house in Northeast Pennsylvania. It is nice and relaxing. There is not much to do but sit in front of the fireplace when the weather isn’t too nice. My husband had been working on my mother-in-law’s laptop at out home, so I had asked her if I could borrow it so I could get some scrapping done. I usually bring our ancient laptop that has Photo Manager on it, but it is so old it takes hours to even simply boot up. (Ok, that is an exaggeration, but not by much!)

I settle down in front of my mother-in-law’s zippy new laptop, and opened up her Photoshop CS2 program (shhh- but I sometimes scrap with that in addition to Photo Editor.) Would you believe that it was harder to scrap using MIL’s fast computer than it is to use my old slowpoke one, that at least has Photo Manager on it? In the last year of being an ACDSee user, I never, ever scrap without Photo Manager. Now I can see why! It took me forever to find elements, photos, papers- just about everything. I had to use Windows to preview an element, then drag it into my workspace. Then go back and do it all over again. And I had a hard time figuring out the credits on what I was using, because that information was not there, at my fingertips like I am used too. And when I wanted to look for something as simple as “Stitches” it was next to impossible to find them, as they were all scattered in different folders and kits. I really, really missed my Photo Manager.

But all was not lost. I was able to scrap the “skeleton version” of four different layouts. Just a background paper, a title, some simple journaling (because I couldn’t preview fonts easily, I just typed everything In Times New Roman– Bo-ring! LOL) and that was about it. But when I got home, I opened the layouts on my computer, booted up Photo Manager and was able to finish all four layouts in no time. I found the perfect stitches, the best fonts, all of the credits– everything I needed, and I did it in no time at all, and best of all– no frustrations!

Have any of you tried to scrap without Photo Manager? Was your experience similar to mine? Be sure to post a comment- I’d love to hear about it!

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How to view PDF files in ACDSee Photo Manager

Did you know that you could view PDF’s right inside ACDSee Photo Manager?

Here’s what they look in the file list section in ACDSee Photo Manager:

And when I double click on one to view it in the ACDSee Viewer, it looks like this:

To get this to work, you need to install a simple pdf viewer called Ghostscript:

Visit Ghostscript for more information and to read about it. I suggest downloading the latest one, GPL Ghostscript 8.60 released 2007-08-01. To save you time, I will link you to the exact latest exe to download: gs860w32.exe The link is from this page: Ghostscript at Sourceforge but sourceforge isn’t the easiest place to maneuver.  Updated!!  One user informed me that latest ghostscript didn’t work.  You may want to try this version instead if you have problems:  gs854w32.exe

• Once you download ghostscript run it and let it install.
• Then go into Tools | Plug-ins | Plug-in settings
• 
• Find the ID_PS.apl plug in and select it.
• Click on Properties and you should see that GhostScript has been detected on your system if all went well.
• Click OK
• Then make sure the ID_PS.apl plug-in is checked.
• Click OK

You should now be able to see pdf’s inside ACDSee Photo Manager.

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Multiple Windows of ACDSee Photo Manager.

How many of you know that you can have multiple windows of ACDSee Photo Manager?

Just go to File | New Window and another window popups up.

Why would you want to do this?

When I scrap, I have 2 windows up:

• One with window showing my photos
• Second window for showing/searching on digital kits.

Another use:

• You may have a window up showing the digital kit you are using
• Second window searching for items that go with that digital kit

Or another:

• I have a window up of searched results and I want to copy them to another folder
• Second window is where I want them to copy to. Then I just drag from my first window to my second window.

If you drag and drop files from one ACDSee Window to another, this is considered “within” ACDSee Photo Manager so your categories and organizing follow.

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More Organizing Categories for Digital Scrapbooking

We had 2 more users share their categories they use to organize their digital scrapbooking kits. The Organizing Styles list is getting large!

Liz’s are very detailed and can be found here in Liz’s column: Organizing Styles

Here are Liz’s comment on her organizing:

As far as how I tag, I have the kit name, the designer, and the store listed on each element so I can see it easily. Every preview gets tagged- I used to seperate them into categories, but don’t anymore. Every paper and element goes into their appropriate category(ies) and EVERYTHING gets a color assigned. Alphabets I just do the first 3 letters/numbers of each set, instead of each one. It lets me see if the alpha is multicolored, etc.
My favorite features are right click, go to file, and CTRL-G for the Image basket- use that constantly.

When she is discussing features, Ctrl-G generates a file listing of all images in your basket for credits.

Janie’s are very detailed:

I remember working & answering questions with Janie sometime last winter. In the past month, she started over and this is the set of categories she is currently running, see Janie’s column on this page: Organizing Styles. I though her story would be good advice for those that think organizing is too overwhelming and a solution to it.

Well, my ACDSee adventure has turned out quite well. I have significantly simplified my categories from my earlier system. Tagging a kit now takes just a minute or two, vs. the 20 or so I used to take in tagging every single item.

It took me a few times to figure out how I wanted to do this, but here’s what I’ve set on: I tag the preview by color and theme, so if I want to scrap a page I can pull up all my kits with orange and brown, or all those about autumn or Christmas or whatever. I tag all background papers that are solids (by color) or certain types (text/script, notebook/ledger, overlays, etc.) I tag things that could be used on many different layouts — not just with the other kit items they came with, so that’s templates, frames, brushes, some word art, journaling labels, date stamps, tags, tabs, etc.

Here’s the key for me: If the item is so well coordinated to the kit it came in, I don’t tag it, figuring I’ll only use it when I’m using that particular kit.

That is a huge change in thinking for me, and I am loving it!

It’s funny since I had just emailed this to another user feeling overwhelmed at organizing all her digital kits at about the same time:

A lot of elements (ribbons & such) really go with the kit and would look odd without being with that digital kit. So like I said above, only organize the things that you think you would love to use out of a kit (Like a flower, or great bow, etc.)

That was one of the rules that Janie has chosen to use!

So what do you think, is their getting to be too many choices for organizing styles??? I think we need more. Why? Because truly and honestly, everyone thinks and organizes differently just like they scrap differently. I know I have shared this before but my organizing style doesn’t work for Connie and hers doesn’t work for me. We think differently!

I have now started to get asked, well which one do you think is best? Again that depends. The simpler categories are easy to start out with and organize with. But many find out they want to search for that special ribbon or staple or button and need more in-depth categories. What to do??

Here is one solution if you are getting started. If you want to start simpler but think you might want a more in-depth later. Pick the more in-depth category styles. Then don’t expand out all the categories. For example, if you pick Pam’s categories. assign all your borders to the border category and don’t worry about what type of border they are. Later, if you want to break down that category, search for all your borders and then split them up. And also, don’t feel the need to organize everything! If you think that you would never use an element by itself (without the rest of the coordinating kit) then don’t tag it.

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Undock your panes to see more in ACDSee Photo Manager

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”

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