Where to store you kits and photos

[branfam]

Hi Ladies!
I am kind of new here. I have been lurking around but I don't usually post that often... that said I am super excited because I got PSE 10 for Christmas! I have been using Creative Memories Storybook creator 3.0 and I wasn't happy with it...

But now that I have PSE I am TOTALLY overwhelmed! I have been looking at the new tutorials here so I can get started. If anyone knows of anymore great tutorials on learning how to scrapbook with PSE I would love any ideas!

My main question is where do you put your kits and photos? Do you use the organizer? Or do you just use folders in your computer?

I have creative memories memory manager where I organize my photos and enjoy it but I am just not sure if its the same as the organizer with PSE. I have also heard that the organizer was really slow, do you agree with this?

Oh, does anyone use an online back up? If so what do you use?

[nonnie]

Hi - I have been here a while and actually started digi scrapping after my hard drive failed and lost all my pictures. I store all my pictures on smug mug.com - I keep the ones I love on my EDH - I took all the pictures that were not digi and sent them to scan cafe to store them on line. All of my kits are on 2 hard drives just in case one of them dies. One hard drive is smaller and I put the zip files on that one - and the other is 2tb and that is where my kits are . But to be fair I'm a little crazy and hoard my kits - I have ones from 4 year ago!!! I really need to purge!!!

To organize my kits Depends on how you scrap - If you are a kit scrapper its easier. I tried all the software like ACD See but for me I just use folders by designer name. Works for me - There are all kinds of threads on organization and even tutorials and sites - If you search the forums you will some great links!

Glad to have you and what a cute family you have!!!

[isaacsmom]

Hi and welcome!

I just got PSE 10 for Christmas too -- but I previously have used earlier versions of PSE, so its not quite so overwhelming for me. But you will quickly get the hang of it! Misty Cato has some awesome tutorials for PSE - they were written for PSE 8, but I still think they could help you. Find them here.

For organizing, I use ACDSee. I was introduced to it a few years back, and I love it. You can tag things from your kits and then be able to sort by your tags. I am a kit scrapper, so I usually just tag the preview of the kit into one folder, and alphas into another. There are so many ways you can organize your stash within ACDSee. I NEVER use the organizer on PSE because I totally think it slows down the program and using it seemed like such a pain to me. But that is just my opinion! I don't use online backup, so I'm no help there.

Feel free to post specific questions about PSE too as there are quite a few gals here that use various versions of PSE. And everyone is always very helpful and will help you whenever they can!

[BrattyMeg]

Originally Posted by branfam

My main question is where do you put your kits and photos? Do you use the organizer? Or do you just use folders in your computer?


Oh, does anyone use an online back up? If so what do you use?

I just sort my kits and photos on my computer hard drive and back up to an external hard drive (which I don't have an EHD right now but I usually have one as a backup)

I also use an online backup Backblaze ($5/month) and it's really great peace of mind for me. It does back up your EHD and computer but the files must remain on your drive somewhere otherwise it will delete off backblaze after 30 days so it's not to be used as your only form of backup. When my hard drive starts to get full I just delete after I make sure it's backed up onto my EHD (when I have one..blech) and my photos are burned to DVD

[MamaBee]

All my kits and this year's photos are on my hard drive, everything (all photos, layouts, rest of the kits) are backed up on to a personal server (just like an EHD, but networked to all our computes), which is then backed up... Mozy finally came up for renewal - so we have switched to Crashed Plan (because of the server - blackblaze doesn't back up servers)... so now my laptop is also backed up on crashed plan, along with our EHD. (now I don't have to worry I don't have everything up on the server).

[julifish]

Welcome!!!
I used Photoshop Elements (for 6 years now) but I've never used the organizer to store things. We have a server in our house that I store all my pictures on. It has it's own back up server so I don't have to worry about losing anything (although I'm considering an external service). I have a folder for each year and in that folder is a folder for each month and then a folder by date or event. For my digital kits I have folders on my hard drive for each store and then for each month. For my Creative Teams I have a folder for each creative team by year. I only keep one year's worth of kits on my hard drive, Every 6 months or so I move the older kits I can't live without to the server the rest get deleted.

I needed to find pictures of my friend's daughter the other day and it made me realize that I wish I had tagged my pictures in Element's Organizer after I uploaded. Now, I'm sure it would be really time consuming but if I were starting from the beginning then I'd probably do that or something similar to make it easier to find a picture I'm looking for down the road.

Hope you get yourself set up soon and just give PSE a little time and you'll get the hang of it. When I was learning I would tackle a new thing to learn each week and then before I knew it I was able to do most things without having to look up a tutorial or refer to my notes. Have fun!