How do YOU organize?

[criostirado]

Ok...I have a question for everyone!!! I have been accumulating quite a few digital kits. Right now what I do is have a folder that is just for digi scrap..and I rename all the folders for each kit with the designer's name and the name of the kit. This was ok when I didnt have so many but now that I am getting more and more...I am finding it a big ole pain to search thru everything to find what I want.

So I am wondering how everyone else organizes their stuff. I dont really want to have just a folder with all papers...then ribbons...etc...I think that would be almost as bad as having to look thru individual kits...so I am open to any ideas anyone has to make it a bit easier!!

Thanks! and I hope everyone has a wonderful New year!

[Precepts and Promises]

Funny you should ask this right now, as I'm listening to some lovely music while I clean out some old digi scrap supplies! I just now made my poor PSE Organizer crash--I think I blew its little mind with all the deleting and moving and renaming and getting rid of folders within folders within folders (I never did that in the beginning and I wish I had!)...
I began organizing by separating kits, and now, a few years down the road, I'm cleaning up that mess! DON'T DO IT!!! Thankfully, I didn't do it for very long.
I have major categories in a main folder I named Digital Scrapbooking; Kits, Frames, Papers, etc. I always put kits together; the other categories are for individual types of items that come that way, ie, a collection of frames.
I think one modification I'm going to do is to break down my kits by theme, ie Vintage, Art Journaling, Birthday, Baby, etc. I have them now in one getting-too-large folder.
I use PSE Organizer for my supplies; I keep my photos in Lightroom.

[donakat]

I basically do the same as Barbara, though I also keep things separate by store as well. If you are on a CT for anyone, you need to keep the kits together and within the store(s) where it's sold for crediting. I try to stay with one kit at a time and only add items that I need to use from another kit (recoloring as needed), rather than just doing a mashup of disparate items. Generally, the kits will have a theme, so that's also important, or a "look" such as vintage, realistic, doodly, whimsical, etc. Not always a good idea to mix up the various looks, themes, and color schemes...

One thing that really helps is getting things orderly when you unzip and put away. Some designers fail to name their elements, so I go through and put the generic names on those (flower, ribbon, frame, etc.) wherever they're missing, making it easier to find a particular needed item when doing a layout. In Bridge you can search for "frame" for example, within a store or designer's kits to find all the frames with "frame" in their file name. You can also tag items with color and look or theme if you desire to go that direction. I find that too daunting, and just use the name for searching. Once you get a lot of kits in your stash, you definitely want to be able to find what you want.

Another thing that helps me is to make sure there is a preview in the root folder so that I can see the general look of the kit without delving into the papers folder, elements folder, etc. You can even give the folder icon the preview image itself so you see it in the Finder (Macintosh) or Explorer/whatever (PC).

[Precepts and Promises]

And, speaking of renaming files, always, always did I say always rename those files labeled "folder" to something specific, if that's the only preview you have. Trust me on this one!

[criostirado]

Very interesting I didnt know you could put the preview on the folder..that would help me out alot...Im going to have to figure out how to do that!!!!

I dont ever bust the kits apart, I figured that would be a huge mess to be able to give proper credit. But I do move everything into one folder and out of all the download folders...I also get rid of duplicates of any previews, TOU etc...the only things that I keep in seperate folders within the kit folder is alphas, glitters, gels or brushes...but I put all elements and papers in together. I am only on one CT...so I have a totally seperate folder for that! But thats a good idea to put the preview on the folder, that way I can atleast get an idea of what the kit is about and its colors!

[wanda]

I'm not really an organization queen, but here is what I have:

Folders for stores, with kits from that store inside. I usually name the folder : designer name_kit name.

I have a folder called Kit Previews and when I unzip I also put the kit preview (a copy) in this folder, renaming it store_designer_kitname so I can find the actual kit.

Now, I also have a few folders for individual designers (not that many) if I got their stuff without needing to remember the store where I purchased it. I don't do blog trains much, but they have separate folders also.

I have a big folder called Kits by Season and I arrange my mini kits/freebie kits in there. I don't get into that one often. But it's there.

After I unzip, if I have time, I go in and take everything out of all the subfolders within a kit, and use just three folders: elements, papers, alphas. THAT is a pain, especially with a blog train or store mega, but I can't STAND all the little folders.

I scrap within a kit, so I don't really feel a need to organize any other way, or to tag in an organizer for easier searching.

Having said all of that, designers move around in real life, but on my hard drive, they stay with the store I originally put them with.

[wanda]

For CT work I have been thinking about making a folder for CT WORK THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE, and then moving stuff out of that folder once the work is done. Does anyone do something like this?

[elenasworld]

I am an organizer -- at least on my computer.
I used to have folders separated by store, but designers move around a lot and it got hard to keep track. I started to keep my files separated by Designer, and within that folder by kit. I don't like to separate my elements/papers either. Since I like to scrap with mostly one kit,this method works pretty well for me.
I also keep my CU goodies and my Collab Kits separate.

I dont like to purge anything, so that is really hard for me to do with my digi-supplies. I tend to save my photos and digi-stash to DVD several times a year, and when I do that, I clean out space for my computer's hard drive. I still have the hard copy to go back to, so it isn't really tossing out the files.

My husband just got some time of blue ray burner for work, so if we can use that, my dozens of DVDs will be on just a few blue rays -- and we'll make a second copy of all our photos to store in another location. Some day I will get around to going through the photos and purging, but the thought just makes me tired.

[criostirado]

Originally Posted by elenasworld

I am an organizer -- at least on my computer.
I used to have folders separated by store, but designers move around a lot and it got hard to keep track. I started to keep my files separated by Designer, and within that folder by kit. I don't like to separate my elements/papers either. Since I like to scrap with mostly one kit,this method works pretty well for me.
I also keep my CU goodies and my Collab Kits separate.

I dont like to purge anything, so that is really hard for me to do with my digi-supplies. I tend to save my photos and digi-stash to DVD several times a year, and when I do that, I clean out space for my computer's hard drive. I still have the hard copy to go back to, so it isn't really tossing out the files.

My husband just got some time of blue ray burner for work, so if we can use that, my dozens of DVDs will be on just a few blue rays -- and we'll make a second copy of all our photos to store in another location. Some day I will get around to going through the photos and purging, but the thought just makes me tired.

Just a suggestion...instead of using CDs...have you seen the small passport hard drives? they are for pictures and stuff. I actually have three of them. I am so paranoid about loosin my pics...they are of my kid's lives..and cant be replaced...I have one that I use all the time and keep stuff on...and then one I back up to just in case!!! I just bought one (they are pricey about 70-120 bucks depending on brand and amount of space....) specifically for my digi stuff. It has 500 gig on it. and I got it from QVC for like 80 bucks. I am a huge collector of old photos as well...so I figured I could put all the stuff I "collect" on there! I used to do it all on CDs but I had a million of them...still do...because I still need to move them over to my passport. Anyway just a suggestion!!!

[elenasworld]

Originally Posted by criostirado

Just a suggestion...instead of using CDs...have you seen the small passport hard drives? they are for pictures and stuff. I actually have three of them. I am so paranoid about loosin my pics...they are of my kid's lives..and cant be replaced...I have one that I use all the time and keep stuff on...and then one I back up to just in case!!! I just bought one (they are pricey about 70-120 bucks depending on brand and amount of space....) specifically for my digi stuff. It has 500 gig on it. and I got it from QVC for like 80 bucks. I am a huge collector of old photos as well...so I figured I could put all the stuff I "collect" on there! I used to do it all on CDs but I had a million of them...still do...because I still need to move them over to my passport. Anyway just a suggestion!!!

I have not heard of those. Sounds perfect for me, since I generally have to go search out photos on my external hard drive (it has 3 terabytes of space) for specific things.
I actually have two backups on external hard drives (just in case) and
use DVD's as a third back up -- those are time consuming and I have hundreds of DVD's just for my photos. I remember when I first started digi-scrapping, all we had to back up was CD's and thankfully technology caught up. DVD's were amazing then. Now the blue rays can hold 50Gb of data. I am pretty excited about that.