What Are You Always Searching For?

[kathleen08]

I just finished tagging all my ribbons in ACDSee (way quicker than I expected, using the this AWESOME reference: Speed Tagging with Kristi (http://digiscrapinfo.com/wordpress/2008/01/22/speed-tagging-with-kristi/) ).

So here is my question ... what do you always find yourself looking for? I'm trying to decide what other types of elements are worth tagging to this degree. I think for me frames are next, then maybe journal papers/strips, and then tags.

Thoughts?

~ Kathleen

P.S. I have way too many ribbons.

[shazzt]

Frames, backgrounds, stitching, photo corners, date stamps, stamps (all kinds), doodles; torn and curled edges, flowers, hearts, stars, tags, journalling mats & stamps, swirls, arrows ......

Can you ever have too many ribbons?

[Abby]

bows, frames, pins/beaded pretties, journal things (mats,strips,etc.) all the 'decorative' stuff :)

[krys2280]

Flowers, journal mats, frames, groupies, alphas, ....so really agree with above. I just go through every kit and tag every element...so whatever element is in the kit will get a tag. It takes ages..but is so worth it.

[Cathiemarie]

Ditto what Shazz said, also bg's by colour would be a good one to tag

[sabina_canada]

I have used ACDSee but my laptop did not like it. I got all my money back, and now I am trying to organize everything in PSE 5. Is anyone here using the PSE 5 Organizer? do you have any slowing down? I have 1GB RAM and 90GB memory....but it seems to slow my pc down. Reading all your postings, I am once more tempted to try ACDSee again.......AGAIN.

Another question: when you are actually looking for all your bits to make a new LO, how do you transfer them into your Photo Editor?

Hugs,
Sabina.

[nkeevers]

I agree with all of the above. I just got thru tagging everything in my ACDSee and I have a huge list. It took me a while but I can find anything in seconds now.

[shazzt]

When I did my initial tagging in ACDSee, I had many more tags and also did backgrounds by colour and pattern. Then I had issues with deciding what colour some backgrounds were, how to classify many of the patterns and I also found a long list of tags both hard to keep up with and hard to search. So I deleted my database and started again, trying to keep things simpler. I haven't categorised backgrounds as anything other than backgrounds, although I think I might consider tagging patterns vs solids. I think tagging is quite a personal thing and one person's system doesn't always work for another person. I think that using the search feature in ACDSee for a while and noting down what you search for over a length of time, might be quite helpful to work out what things YOU like to use the most and make categories for those things first.

[sabina_canada]

that makes total sense, because also I have been trying to organize my backgrounds and had trouble deciding which is what color. Maybe solids versus pattern is a good idea. Had not thought of that.

[sunhappy]

I'm going through my kits a few at a time, tagging all of the elements in some manner. I'm starting to realize that I probably have too many separate categories and that I may end up making sub-categories for some things. For example, there are all kinds of "metal" items--brads, eyelets, staples, etc., so rather than having a separate category for each of those, I will probably have a "metal" category with these items as a sub-categories. I suppose one could also do that for colors of ribbons, etc. I also realize that when I'm done I'll find I haven't been consistent throughout and may end up switching some things from one category to another. Fortunately it doesn't take as long to do this as I thought it might and, even tho I'm only about halfway through my kits, it's already paying benefits. It is so great to just click on a category and have all the associated items pop up. And the "go to file" feature is wonderful, especially if you've forgotten what kit an item came from, to help with properly crediting elements.

[sunhappy]

I don't bother categorizing papers. I just have a previews category showing the store view of the kit. I've found that's sufficient to help me decide which kits I'm interested in looking at in more detail. (I usually keep a list on scratch paper of the ones I'm considering and then go look at each one in more detail after my initial search.)

[maryjos]

I've not made it through all my old kits, but I have a category system set up for tagging everything and when I have free time, I work on doing some old kits as well. I use keywords to add additional stuff (generally colors and to mark special kits like club digital). I do constantly seem to add new sub-categories as it makes things easier to find versus using keywords.

I did suggest to the folks that write ACDsee that it would be *really* nice to save custom searches. For instance, I used to tag ALL of the files for each alpha, and then just keyword 3-4 with the word "preview" so I could do a search and quickly view all my alphas without having to view the entire alphabet for each. But this just is really tedious to do *everytime* I want to see my alphas, so I ended up just tagging the preview items and the rest of the alphas separately.

[Meryl]

I have used ACDSee but my laptop did not like it. I got all my money back, and now I am trying to organize everything in PSE 5. Is anyone here using the PSE 5 Organizer? do you have any slowing down? I have 1GB RAM and 90GB memory....but it seems to slow my pc down. Reading all your postings, I am once more tempted to try ACDSee again.......AGAIN.

Another question: when you are actually looking for all your bits to make a new LO, how do you transfer them into your Photo Editor?

Hugs,
Sabina.

Sabiona it really IS worth the effort - ACDSee is fantastic :)

Once you have found what you are looking for, click on tools > open in editor. If you have not used this previously though, you will first have to Tools > Configure Editors

[Meryl]

I have all my backgrounds categorized - funny thats probably one the the items I look for most often! Just shows how different we all are.
I have a Backgrounds category - this is split into solids and patterned. Then another is colours - if something is greeny blue I will put it into the blue and the green, works for me!

[sabina_canada]

Well, I just got a new computer with much more Ram and memory and a large HD so once more I am going to try the organizer in PSE 5. I think if I am using PSE 5 for photo editing, I should really try and keep it all together.
I have worked on categories too, like BG paper: colors and patterned is a great idea. Then I use frames a lot, and I am going to combine frames with corner elements and circles because all of those can be used as frames.
However, I am finding it tough to actually get a clear picture in the Overlay section and I think I am just going to leave the overlays in a folder and when I want it, go into that particular folder on the pc. Ribbons: I added chains, and anything that resembles a ribbon to the ribbon category.
Accessories: includes furniture, lamps, etc.
I have another category: garden stuff, then subcategory: plants, trees, garden accessories.....

I haven't started using the new computer yet, but shall see what the speed is. If PSE organizer is still slowing everything down, I will try and switch to ACDC once more.

[Lauren]

Ive been using bridge lately - Its quite intuitive and relatively easy to tag with - nothing beats picasa for searching though ( guess thats the google behind it) tried ACDSee - and various others - bridge is looking ok in its latter versions - much quicker than before