To the lady that asked about the png files. If you haven't already figured it out, it's under tools>options. Then you check the png box and your set. I had the same problem starting with picasa and another member told me how to change that. BUT- I didn't realize that I don't have to put keywords on everything to find stuff. That is what is so time consuming. I don't have time for that. I spend more time downloading kits and organzing files than I do making pages . So, you're saying that just by my file names it knows what to find?? What if the name of the kit is Very Pink, but it has a tag in the kit that I want. How does it find the tag?? Maybe I'm not understanding that part.

I have some questions regarding Picasa and I thought maybe some you who use it regularly could answer them for me. I went to the download site and it talks about organizing and editing your photos and I thought you all were talking about organizing your SB papers and elements. I already have Paint Shop Album 5 and I have PSP and PS CS for editing my photos, but I must say I am not real happy with Album for organizing my elements, etc. Also, what about when you burn the SB stuff to CD's to make room on your hard drive.......does it make it easy to find the items on the CD?

Sorry to be so much trouble, but I really would like a better alternative. Any help you can give in this matter is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!!!

I am new to digital scrapbooking, so yesterday when I downloaded my kits I just started organizing them the way I did my normal supplies (i.e. paper - separated into colors, embellishments - separated into the type of emebllishment, alphabets, etc.). I am not sure if this system will work, but it seemed to me to be the easiest way. I can still tell who did the element by the file name and if I am not sure, I have the information on disks since I downloaded at my FIL comp and had to upload it to mine. Of course they are zipped right now so that might be a problem. I don't know, maybe it isn't the best way. What do others here think about the ability to credit people if I organize my kits this way?

Hey again Shawnery...........for right now, I have created a folder in My Documents called Scrapbook Stuff and a sub-folder called Scrapbook-Bytes Downloads and there is a folder in that one for each kit. I place the "kit name" and the "designer's name" on each of those folders. I have Paint Shop Album 5 and I am labeling each element and then when I do a seach for 12 x 12 background papers, it pulls up all of the 12 x12's. Same for eyelets, fibers, borders, brads, alphabets, etc. I think it is going to work pretty good........but it sure is taking me forever to go back and label everything!

I am also purchasing (hopefully tomorrow) an external hard drive and I plan to store all of my scrapbooking stuff on it, so that I won't have to go through so many CDs to pull up what I want.

By the way, when I label an element, etc., I include the designer's name.

Being that I am new at this too, I don't know if this is best way or not!

Pam

Reelynn,
I have thought about trying your system but decided against it because many times kits include BG, elements and alphas that were specifically designed for that kit. If you leave all of the items for the kit in the same folder, you won’t have to search around trying to find items that go PERFECTLY with that kit. That way you don't have to sift through all of your "supplies" to find the right alpha and eyelet to go on your page. All of the ones that match are together.

When I burn things off on CD, I do it kinda like the pros do. I have CDs labeled for Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, Occasions (Birthday, Wedding, Baby, etc), Retro, Heritage, etc. That way I know just by the way the CD is labeled what kind of kits it will contain. I hope this helps.

I found this article after I replied today. Scrappers quide also has a newsletter that you can subscribe to and get tutorials emailed to you. Anway, I hope this helps. This article is more about organizning photos, but I think some of it will apply to elements too.
http://www.scrappersguide.com/tutorial_035.html

Thanks everybody.
I'm pretty new at this too. With your comments I looked at my own picture-viewing program. I allways use ACDSee. And of course there is the possibillity to tag everything or in this case categorise them or put them in albums.
Don't forget the keywords that go with it.
This way it doesn't really matter how you save it (I like to keep them together in a folder with the creators name but I don't for a kit) you can find them together anyway within the program.

I allways learned: It doesn't really matter which system you use (all have (dis)advantages) as long as you use a system it should be allright.

__________________
Love to scrap

I started using a program to tag things, then stopped cause I couldn't open the file directly to photoshop and I had a hard time finding the file that the element was in, but I find I really need a program to be able to search through all my stuff, so I am using it again. I have to say that I found the easiest way for me was to sort it on my computer the way that I would if I were sorting my paper scrapping supplies. Since I have already done this and have no way to turn back now (I don't know how I would get all of these files back in the kits that they came in) I figure I might as well keep going, but I am finding it might be hard to credit all the people and sites I got the elements from, so I need to figure out something, but once again, how am I supposed to go back to how I started after dowloading so many files. Oh well, I guess I will figure it out somehow.
Oh, I just thought of something, maybe I could tag things with the kit and author name, that might work! Okay, I think I will try that tonight, if I can remember the kit name that is