Organizer Clear As Mud? Maybe This Will Help!

[Patty D]

I get a lot of requests for help with the Organizer from people all over. For some reason it's probably the most misunderstood and under utilized part of Photoshop Elements. While I'm listed as a helper on the Organizer section of this forum I apologize that I haven't visited much since I finished my book. Hopefully the information below will help you figure it all out.

It's a new year and time to get organized, so go forth and conquer that mess in your computer!

I used to organize my scrapbook supplies and photos just in folders. However...once you acquire more than 30,000 pieces of digital scrapbooking art (it's very easy to do, so don't laugh!) a normal person can't remember which folder had the perfect piece of digital paper in it that you need right this second.

Tagging does take time, but in the long run it pays off. Many of my students have discovered that they have purchased the same kit more than once because they couldn't locate it on their computer. When you finally sit down to scrap and you can't find your supplies it's a very frustrating experience. With your digital supplies tagged it's like opening up a well organized scrapbook store and walking down the aisles to pick up the supplies you want to use. How great would it be to instantly find that red, white, and blue striped paper that you downloaded 3 years ago? With the Organizer it's easy...and No, Adobe doesn't pay me to say this!

I don't recommend sitting down and trying to tag everything at once because you'll probably drive yourself nuts. Set aside just 15 minutes a day or set a goal to tag a kit a day. Be sure to still have time to srap or you'll be miserable! Before you import your photos into the Organizer have them organized in folders. I have a folder called Scrapbook Supplies, in that folder I have sub-folders for each of the sites where I purchase or download supplies. Then I download my kits into the appropriate store folder. A sample path would be like this:
C:\Documents and Settings\PattyDebowski\My Documents\ScrapbookSupplies\Polka Dot Potato.com\Mr_Scrap_Drop_Shadow_Pop_Actions_for_PS E4.0

I don't keep completed scrapbook pages or 24 x 12 layered templates in my Organizer because it seems to bog it down. You may not have this experiece, but if your Organizer is running slowly try removing them and see if this helps.

I keep a different catalog for my photos and scrapbook supplies and it's easy to switch between them.

If your Organizer slows down use the Recover feature, in PSE 6 it's called Optimize or Repair.

The biggest rule with the Organizer is that you can't move your files around in your folders unless you do it within the Organizer. This is why I recommend getting them set first. You can move them within the Organizer.

If you have moved your files after importing them into the Organizer try going to File>Reconnect and let it run all night before you go to bed. If you're lucky it will find everything for you and you won't have to watch it try to reconnect everything.

If you install a new version of PSE you will need to convert your catalog. When you do this you now have two different catalogs. For example If I use PSE 5 and have upgraded to PSE6 and I converted my catalog. I can use PSE 5 and save images to the catalog but they will not be in the PSE 6 catalog and vice versa.

I hope this helps. The Organizer is really worth taking the time to master, and like everything else with digital scrapbooking it just takes practice!

Patty Debowski

[SharLamb]

Patty, I'm a Believer! Fortunately, I found out about your system before I got too far into scrapping, so tagging all my stuff only took a couple days of several 1-hour sessions. And you are right. It's worth it.

The big, SAD lesson I learned the hard way, is that the PSE Organizer does not actually store your photos or scrapping supplies, but rather is a link to them where they are stored on your C (hard) Drive. I found some awesome digi paper that had soft writing all over it...some in English, some in French, Italian, even some Asian languages. It was a freebie that I thought I was downloading, but I put it directly in the organizer instead of in my C-drive folder for scrapping supplies. When the organizer put one of those little red rectangles with the zig-zag "broken" symbols on it and searched for it, I couldn't figure out what happened. All I thought I could do was delete it. Well, for 4 days I have been searching for that freebie, all over the internet. No luck. I even went thru my internet history, going back to all the sites I visited during the time I thought I'd downloaded it. I ran across several sites that had shut down in the meantime, and can only think it must have been one of them. So of course, I've been obsessed with finding this paper, and can't even find it anywhere to purchase.

The other problem I always have now, is remembering which catalog I'm in. For instance. Today I made a Thank-You card using papers and elements from that catalog. I meant to save the card in my other catalog, but forgot to switch after bringing all the goodies into the editor. Not a big deal, but I haven't figured out a way, in PSE5, to move something from one catalog to another. I'll keep reading your (AWESOME) book, and find an answer if there is one. In the meantime, I just made a new catagory in the Scrapping Catalog: Digi-Cards.

Thanks so much for all your help. Between you, Linda, Jan, Wendy, and several others, this is starting to make sense to me, and I'm having a blast.

Shar

[Marcie]

Patty I have a questions for you. I do not save any of my layouts into my scrapbooking catalog. In fact I don't think I have any of them in any catalog. I have a catalog for pictures and one for scrapbooking supplies. I also turned off the organizer to go and get the pictures/layouts/supplies by itself. I must import it all. Why is it that every layout I do ends up in the scrapbooking catalog. I even close out of organizer once I upload what Iwant to use for my page. THe next time I open it, there it is. The folder where I save to is not in the same path as all the organizer stuff. (G:Scrapbooking\designer\kits versus G:Scrap projects\Year\my layouts.) Can you shed some light on this?

Thanks,
Marcie

[troush]

Marcie,

When you save a layout in PSE, there is a checkbox toward the bottom of the save dialog that says "Include in Organizer" - you have to UNCHECK that box or it will put it in whatever catalog was last opened, even if you close the organizer.

-Trish

[Marcie]

Thanks. That's what's doing it.

Marcie

[Patty D]

I have on my PSE 7 wish list for them to take off automatically saving to the Organizer. I find it aggravating too!

[Marcie]

One time it's nice and another time it's not. I just saved a bunch of stuff and realized I forgot to uncheck it. At least it's easy to delete it from the catalog!

Marcie

[troush]

Patty, in PSE 6.0, if you uncheck it once, it stays unchecked!

-Trish

[Marcie]

Now that is nice. You have to do all the importing yourself, but as far as layouts go, I don't want them in there anyways. THey take up so much space and I have those bound anyways so I might as well move them to a disk or two or three rathering than my hard drive!

Marcie

[snowrider82]

Patty, I have your book, and it's so helpful; and, like you, say, follow the instructions. My main problem is that I started with 10,668 photos and was compulsive and bought probably 100+kits. Way too much to start with. So I'm just leaving some of the kits in their files and will work with just a few kits.
My problem is that I want to use your tags, sub-categories, etc that are on your CD that came with the book. It is written for PSE 5, and I now have
PSE6. I don't even understand how to use the CD; mine comes up with files.
Can anyone help me? Learning this program and digital scrapbooking is hard. I'm spending too much time on it, and I'm about ready to stop it and go back to my paper scrapping. All you have to do there is put things where you want to, and with the computer, you're having to learn so much about how to operate the program, keeping up with everything --oh, I'm just in a bad mood because I've spent so much time on it and the other part of my life is getting out of control because I stay on this computer so much. But wouldn't it be nice if I finally learned it and made all these beautiful pages. Thanks.
Anne M.

[Patty D]

With that many photos and kits no wonder you feel overwhelmed! My suggestion is to set a limit on how much time a day (or week) you'll spend organizing. You didn't acquire all of those images overnight so it will take some time to organize them all. Remember this is supposed to be fun!

Digital kits and freebies are very enticing but I suggest making a simple page to start with to have some success. A simple colored background and a few pictures and text is ideal for a first digital page.

I'm not understanding your question about only seeing files on a CD but I've emailed you (I think) and I sent you a PM. Please contact me directly.

I have updates for PSE 6 on my website for anyone who's interested.

Don't give up! It took me a couple of years to finally figure it out but in the end you'll be happy you did it! Everone on this board will tell you that they love digi-scrapping. For those of us who aren't trained graphic artists and designers (like me) they'll tell you that there is a learning curve involved. Just remember to start simple!
Patty

[Marcie]

I have a question. I've been debating about starting a new catalog for my layouts and then using the organizer to copy those to CD. I'd need to make at least three copies of them, but then I'd be able to remove those from my computer. I realize that these are space hogs and I have a printed version of them also. When I do the backup, I noticed that organizer does not keep the file name. It gives it a generic name. I have named with a bit information about what in the layout. Shoud I jsut do it through windows? I thought the fact the organizer kept a thumbnail of it would come in handy later on.

Marcie

[troush]

Marcie,

I think what you want to do is move them to a CD. I'm not sure how that is done in Organizer, but don't use the "backup." You want to burn the images to a CD and have the organizer move them "offline." It will keep a thumbnail in the Organizer, and should keep track of which CD it is in. Check the help.

(I forget, are you using 5.0 or 6.0. I know there have been some messages over at the Adobe support forums about long CD names used in 5.0 and that 6.0 doesn't seem to read them.)

-Trish

[Marcie]

I'm using pse 5. Okay so if I make 2 backups and then do the move offline, the move offline will keep the file name with a thumbnail in Organizer? I know I had scanned a bunch of older pics in. Since I did not personally know the people in the photos I named them in the file name. I then backed them up. Then I did move offline, but I'm not sure I did it to cd. I believe I just did three backups. This was back when I first got PSE 5 so I wasn't as wise as I am now. :) Now when I look at those cd's my file names are not there.

Thanks Trish,
Marcie

[troush]

I believe the "move offline" will keep the file name. The backup program in PSE renames the files to something it understands when it does the backup. It probably has a means (when you restore from the backup) of going through the catalog and making the names back to the originals.

-Trish

[Marcie]

great Thanks so much Trish.

Marcie