I have been busy over the last week preparing my digi files for LOAD - Layout a Day by Lain Ehmann. LOAD is where we complete a layout a day for a whole month. This LOAD will take place for the month of February 2012.
* Please note this is NOT a sponsored post. This is just the process I use that works for me.
Organizing Photos
I am a Mac girl so I have all my photos stored in iPhoto. I used to have all my photos sorted by Events, but I am in the process of re-organizing all my photos chronologically by quarter. This is a tip I gained from Stacey Julian's Library of Memories class.
The easiest way to do this is to set up "smart albums". Go to File, then select New Smart Album.
Enter the album name you desire (I've used Q1-4 and the year). In the drop downs select "Date" then "is in the range" and key in the dates you require for your album. Then click on OK.
Your smart albums will now appear in the album list to the left as above. You can reorder them by clicking and dragging into the desired order in the list. I've ordered mine from newest to oldest.
All your photos will now automatically appear in each album according to the date they were taken or scanned (eg for your historical photos).
The next step is rating each photo by selecting 1 to 5 stars. This way I know which ones I want to scrapbook. This is a very time consuming process but makes choosing the photos so much easier. It's also a perfect time to delete duplicates or the blurry ones that you don't want to keep.
Organizing Digital Scrapbooking Files
There are many ways you can organize your digi files. Some people just keep them in folders. Some use Adobe Organizer. I use an application called Media Pro which is available for both Mac and Windows. It is a little pricey at EUR 139.00 (approx USD 180.00) however I think the long term ease and time save is worth it.
(I was using this for my photos too but decided it was easier to just use iPhoto as they were already in there when I upload them.)
First thing I do when I purchase digi files is save them in folders on my mac by designer.
The Phase One/Media Pro website has great tutorials to show you how to get started. Once I've loaded the files into Media Pro - which is really just telling Media Pro where the files are located rather than duplicating the files, then I put them into categories so I can easily search for whatever paper or embellishment etc that I'm looking for.
Here I have "paper" selected. The thumbnail preview is great for searching colors.
Or looking for a flower?
Once I've decided on which I want to use I just select them all by holding down the Command key while clicking on them. Then right click, select "Open With" and the program you want to use.. eg Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.
Now I can go ahead with my digi scrapbooking. Easy!
All of this does take a lot of time initially to organize but I think the end benefit is so worth it.
How do you organize your files?
Scrapenny Designs x
* Please note this is NOT a sponsored post. This is just the process I use that works for me.
