Organizing Downloads

[dottieg]

Does anyone have suggestions on how to organize the downloads from Scrappers Guide? When I download and "save as", the name given means nothing to me. Any suggestions on how to "save as" something meaningful so one will know what is what later on? Appreciate responses. Thanks.

[Laura Jean]

I made a folder that I call Scrapper-Guides... I save each mo’s download to a folder inside this folder, say Oct. and inside the Oct is the folders I downloaded. Then I go to properties and set a photo on the folder like the Pin folder it has a picture of the pin I made on it. This helps me fine the folder I am looking for faster; I sometimes will put a photo on the Mo's folder too, so I know what is inside. Say for Oct, I might put the Pin on the folder, just what ever helps you to member what is in the folder. hope this helps

[Priss]

What a great suggestion, Laura Jean! I'm going to try that right away! (Having a photo on each folder would be a TERRIFIC way to immediately see what the contents are about!) Super TIP --TYFS!

Dottie, controlling your folder structure will be the key to your quick access to all the Scrapper's Guide materials. However you structure this, will be a folder system that will reflect your personal preferences (but whatever you do--always be sure to save the Premier and the WBWT files to CD right away. These master files will become very large.)

Here is an attachment for you to check out that shows you a little outline of how I, personally, organize my Scrapper's Guide Files and how I manage my (many gigabytes of) scrapping files from other websites where I post and play. One thing that the little pdf file doesn't state clearly, is that you end up with a duplicate of a 'prepped-for-web resized jpg' in both your Scrapper's Guide folder, and also in a "4Web" folder where you put copies of every resized for e-mail/web picture you want to share. It's duplicated, but it's worth the double save right from the git go.

Hope this helps.

[letdolphin]

I do something very similar to Priss on this. I have a main folder in my documents named Scrapbook then I have the website (Scrapper's Guide), under scrappers guide I have the name of the video for that week, so mine looks like

Custom Shadows 01 (this is Shadow Maker)
Custom Shadows 02 (this is Painting Shadows)
Emboss
Artisan Frames
Photo Type
Pins
Premier Newsletters (saved in PDF with the month and year)
Recipe Book
Then a subfolder with the name of the book.

As far as other downloads it is similar, I have the name of the website, then the artist, then the separate files usually grouped together by the name of the file.

I hope this makes sense, but if not let me know.

Laura

[dottieg]

Thanks for the replies. I am sorry that I haven't gotten back to the Forum for a while. I will try to do a better job of organizing in the future with your responses in mind. Now if I can only figure out what to do with all the download I have done so far!!!! I guess I will have to open everything and find out what is what so that I can organize the files.

[Priss]

You might be interested in reviewing:

The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management For Photographers by Peter Krogh, O Reilly Press ISBN# 0596100183

The term digital asset management refers to the protocols for downloading, renaming, backing up, rating, grouping, archiving, optimizing, maintaining, thinning and exporting files.

If you are scanning or shooting digital---you are doing something with digital asset management already—some use the help of Element's Organizer, some do it with CS's Bridge, some with 3rd party software that some threads here are working over--- and some just come up with a satisfactory workflow that works for them! Are you using your time and your resources up to their highest and best possibilities? Sometimes I think I'm great at this and other times I look forever for a particular file and think I don't know anything about organization!

[mom2maddy]

I have over 30 gigs of scrapbook supplies that I wasn't using because I didn't know where they were. I had them saved under the designer and kit name, but that means nothing to me when I want to use something on a LO and I don't know where I got it or even that I HAVE it! I tried the Digital Scraproom and I love it! You can drag and drop your supplies into broad categories such as paper, embellishments, kits, etc. and you can also drag and drop the individual supplies into my defined categories such as stitches, staples, striped paper, stamps, etc. (whatever you want). You can also assign keywords to the files and do a search. It's quite an investment in time at first, but you save a tremendous amount of time later on when you are scrapping. It also has a handy feature where it keeps track of the items you used while creating a LO, although I haven't tried that yet. Also, it doesn't SAVE the items again on your hard drive, it just keeps little "pointers" to where the file is located and thumbnails of the items for quick searching. Hope this makes sense. I believe the program is under $25 too.

Don't do what I did though! I spent an hour or two a day for about a month organizing my 30 gigs of stuff, but did not back it up. Just a few days after finishing and enjoying all the hard work I put in, my hard drive failed and I am starting again! Ooops! Lucky for me, I DID have all my kits backed up though so I lost no supplies...just the organization.

That's just my 2 cents. I hope it helps someone.

Paula

[tioko]

thanks for the files management pdf... now I can fine tune my filing. I had several things going on, but nothing so tidy!

[digigal]

I have mine filed under "Scrappers Guide" then:

October_kit
October_premiere_pins (name of subject for month)
October_type (name of subject for month)

I download both pse and ps so I put everything under the premiere folder and weekly folder. Then the kit is separate. After month's end, I will just make an OCTOBER file to hold all. It works for me

[bunny]

Paula,
Where did you get the Digital Scraproom program?
Thanks,
Beth