Organization and storage of files (photos, elements, videos, fonts)

[lagtn]

What method do you use to organize and store photo, element, video, and font files?

ELEMENTS: I have my own manual filing system that has umpteen main groupings with lotsa subfiles. There must be a better and more effective way that maybe isn't as cumbersome as mine. EX: I would have: -- elements>papers>patterns>stripes>maybe another subfile if there are many of a dominant color

PHOTOS: Essentially the same as elements, but identified to people. EX: photos>family>individual>event.
With some members, I have subcategorized by year.

I haven't really used PSE Organizer, but perhaps need to do that for photos. I think some use it also for elements which I was not too clear about?

BRUSHES: I don't store brushes, etc on PSE because I have had issues with the previous program versions and was told that this could slow down the program, etc. I have a separate brush program (similar to the font manager program). Brushes are still relatively new to me.FONTS: Same goes for fonts re storage on PSE. I have a separate font manager for that and install temporarily any I use although I eventually will put favorites permanently (once I decide what those might be). I am trying to be selective as there are so many available -- and so many alike of the same kind. I am going to need to learn which ones are absolutely necessary or applicable for scrapbooking --- and that will reduce the inventory by thousands no doubt.

Any recommendations or advice would be welcomed.

[troush]

Lin,

The Get Organized Now class that Linda offers has some great suggestions on organizing supplies and photos. I use a photo manager called IMatch. It is more for the "professional" photographer, but I bought it before PSE came out with the organizer. I use a combination of a file structure and IMatch.

For photos I organize like this:

Photos
  +- Year
        +-01 January
        + 02 February
            ...
        + 12 December

Then for supplies, I organize by website, then designer. Except for Premier. For Digital Scrapper Premier, I have a "Digital Scrapper" folder, and then I have a folder for each Premier issue, I do ds_year_mo and then keep everything from that issue in that folder. But that's just the way my mind works.

Then, in IMatch, I tag my photos with people names and events or locations. Works pretty well most of the time.

-Trish