I have just purchased PSE 3 and have been working on getting all of my photos into the Organizer. I am just beginning to dip my big toe in the Digital Scrapping waters and could use any advise on how to organize elements. I know that you can set up a separate Catalog in Elements... would this be worthwhile doing?

Any advice on what works best would be appreciated.... I'm afraid of being over run with files and not being able to find anything!

Thanks

I used the two catalog approach; one for photos and completed scrapbook pages and the second for elements. This works for me because I like the segregation but I think I could have integrated my tag sets just as easily. I will note one minor issue having 2 catalogs. For example, let's say I'm starting a new page. I select the photos from my photo catalog and then need switch to the elements catalog to select a background and embellishments. When I complete the page and save it, I have to make sure I uncheck the inlcude in organizer box (or change catalogs in organizer again) or it ends up in the wrong catalog. Would be nice if you could choose a catalog when you save.

When I purchse a CD, I import the elements into the catalog but keep the originals off-line to save disk. One thing to be aware of here.. when you go to use an element, it will prompt you to insert the disk and says that the item will no longer be off-line. It makes a full size copy to the hard drive. My workaround for this is to go back to organizer and undo the last command so that the catalog recognizes that the element is still off-line.

Good luck getting started.

-Barb

wow - I just save my elements to a folder that I have on my desktop with a bunch of subfolders. I just open them up as I use them. This sounds like a better way, although it really isn't much trouble to have them on my desktop either! Hmm! Dilemmas!