Thursday, November 24, 2011

ACDSee: Assigning Kit Name and Designer


How to assign the Kit Name & Designer

Written by Heidi Vanyo

  • Adding the kit name or designer name can be done at anytime. Before you assign categories to images in your kit or after.
  • Once you follow the instructions in this tutorial, every element/image in the kit will contain the designer's name and kit name.
  • Select a digital kit you want to work with. In my example I am using Toni Berman's, Crushed Banana kit.
  • The process to select all images in the digital kit can be done in several ways. I provide 2 options below on how to do this quickly and efficiently.
    1. Option 1 using Search Feature
      • Right click on the folder of the digital kit and choose Search.rokbox
      • Accept the default options that come up and click Start.
    2. Option 2 using the folders pane will be covered in a future blog post. 
      1. Now all elements in this kit and its subfolders come up. Edit | Select all or Ctrl-A to select all the images. Verify that all your thumbnails are highlighted.
      2. Bring up your View | Properties window by View | Properties, make sure you click in the database tab
      3. Type in author and kit name. If it says Multiple Values, just erase over it and type in author & kit name
        .

      How to Search using Designer Name

      1. To search for a particular designer, bring up the organize pane View | Organize
      2. In the Organize pane, find the Auto Categories section,
        1. click on Photo Properties to expand,
      3. click on Author to expand
      4. Select desired designer
       

      How to Search using Designer Name & Category

      1. To search for a particular designer, bring up the organize pane View | Organize
      2. In the Organize pane, find the Auto Categories section,
        1. click on Photo Properties to expand,
      3. click on Author to expand
      4. select desired designer
      5. select the desired category. For example, I have a category called paper. So in this example, it will bring back all my Toni Berman Paper
      . 


      How to Search using Kit Name

      In this example, I will search for my kit "Crushed Banana"
      1. Open your search pane View | Search
      2. Click on Add... in the Properties section.
      3. Expand ACD Database and Select Caption
      4. Now click in the , type in the name of your kit. In my example, I type "Crushed Banana".
      5. Now click Start at the bottom and it will show you your kit.
      Note: The obvious drawback is you need to remember the name of the kit and spell it exactly right. It is useful if you remember the kit name and don't know where you saved it
      .


      How to customize your thumbnails to show designer and kit name:

      1. Go under Tools | Options,
      2. expand File List,
      3. click Thumbnail Info,
      4. click Choose Thumbnail Info.
      5. In this first example I have added Author. Click on ACDDatabase on the left to expand it out, click in theAuthor box, and click Add.
      6. Click OK, and OK again. And this is what you see:
         
      If you want to see Kit Name & Author and no filename.
      First I removed the file name. (Not sure if you will like this. I use my images by dragging and dropping into my editor so I rarely refer to filename.)
      1. Go to Tools | Options,
      2. expand File List,
      3. Click Thumbnail Info.
      4. Uncheck the box that says File name.
      5. Last, repeat the steps from customizing your thumbnail and add Caption in addition to Author. 
      6. You will get this:
         
      Now that you know how to customize your thumbnails, you can make them how you want to!
      If you are wondering about what Choose Tiles Info, its the same thing except its for the Tile view. To switch to the tile view, choose View & select Tiles (right above your thumbnails and images) I don't like this view as much but maybe you will.

      Organizing your Alphabets with ACDSee Photo Manager

      There are 2 methods available for organizing your alphabets. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. Use the one you feel most comfortable with

      Why not treat them like any other element?


      The main reason is this: when searching for alphabets you only really want to see a sample of the alphabet instead of the whole alphabet. If you get back 26 alphabet letters times the number of alphabets you have, you have bunches and bunches of images to look through.

      Using Categories

      If you use categories, you can place a category tag on select letters of the alphabet.
      With categories, we recommend assigning the alphabet category to the uppercase A, lowercase A and number 1 or to alpha preview if there is one. This way you can easily tell if you have an uppercase, lowercase or numbers for that alphabet.

      Using Keywords

      Or you can use keywords and assign a keyword to the folder containing the alphabet. With categories, you are not allowed to categorize a folder.
      With keywords, we recommend placing your alphabet in a folder and typically the designer has already done this for you already. Once you have the alphabet images placed in the folder, apply the "alpha" keyword to it. You can also apply an "alpha" keyword to the first few alphabet letters if they aren't in a separate folder. Or you can apply the "alpha" keyword to an entire file if the whole alphabet is one image.

      How to assign & search with Categories:

      Assigning and searching is the same for any other elements.

      How to assign with Keywords:

      1. Open the Properties Pane, View | Properties (Keyboard shortcut to flip between Organize Pane & Properties Pane: Alt - Enter)
      2. Select the folder of alpha's
      3. In Keyword box in the Properties Pane - type 'alpha'
      4. For next folder of alpha's, just type an 'a' and alpha will autofill in and press enter.
         

      How to use quick search with Keywords:

      The easiest way to search for alpha's is to use the Quick Search in the toolbar.
      1. If you don't see it, go to View | Toolbars | Quick Search Toolbar or keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+S.
      2. In the quick search window, type "alpha" and press Quick Search
       
      Note: If you are getting more than expected, go to the quick search options. Change the Quick Search Options:
      Click on the down arrow next to Quick Search
      and this will bring up the Quick Search Options: 
      • Include file names: This will return an results with "alpha" in the name. Uncheck or check as you prefer.
      • Include categories: Since you put alphabet's as a keyword uncheck this as it not needed.
      • Include contents of folders: This will return any images that have alpha in their folder names. This will return many of your alphabet's including the ones that aren't keyworded yet. This may or may not be useful to you.

      A more in-depth search of alphabets:

      Why use this method over the Quick Search method? It gives you more control on your search. The main reasons why I like this search is if you only want alphabets back from certain directories, I would suggest using the more in-depth search.
        1. In the Search Pane, (View | Search)
        2. In the Properties Box, Click on Add.
        3. Click on ACD Database and choose Keywords. You should now see this:
        4. Now click on  and alpha, then click Assign, then OK 
        5. Click on Start
        By default you will search your entire database. You can narrow your search, if you choose Specific folders and categories and set specific categories or folders.

        Wednesday, November 23, 2011

        ACDSee for Digital Scrapbookers


        I’ve been a digital artist and scrapbooker for almost 5 years  and I love the way computer software allows me to create and keeps me organized. For creating and editing I  use Photoshop CS5 but there’s another program that I use almost every day that is just as important and that’s ACDSee. As soon as I began  digital scrapbooking and started collecting supplies I realized I needed a way to catalog and organize the supplies. Fortunately one of my favorite online learning sites offered an online ACDsee class (sadly no longer available) so I signed up and started using the software. The class was taught by Heidi Vanyo and she did a great job tailoring ACDSee usage to scrapbooking supplies. ACDSee is a Digital Asset Management Program similar to Adobe Bridge and Adobe Lightroom but it has a couple of features that make it a better choice for organizing digital scrapbooking supplies. Heidi also hosted a website called DigiScrapInfo that was home to a wealth of ACDSee information that was specific to digital scrapbooking. Heidi is going to close the website but she has graciously allowed me to host her content on my blog. Most of the material refers to older versions of ACDSee but is still applicable to digital scrapbookers.

        I’ll be posting some of the most useful FAQ’s and Hints and Tips on my blog over the next couple of months. Note that I am going to focus on the ACDSee Photo Manager only since I have never used the Photo Editor.  Please email me if you have questions. I’m not as proficient as Heidi but I’ll help if possible.

        Marcie

        For more information visit the ACDSee website.

        Here is Heidi’s goodbye post which includes her contact information.
        October 26th, 2011 by Heidi
        I have decided that when the domain and hosting expire at the end of the year, to not renew them. Which means DigiScrapInfo.com And DigiScrapFinder.com will disappear…
        It was great providing information to everyone but I haven’t been doing so lately. These 2 sites have been neglected for a while. I also haven’t even tried out the latest version of ACDSee 14 to see if anything has improved for digital scrapbooking organization.
        I have decided to make a digital scrapbooking just a hobby when time permits. I spend a majority of my time developing websites and very little time in the digital scrapbooking community. I do wonder where did all the people go at DigiShopTalk? It’s a very quite place.
        Thanks to all that were passionate about organizing their digital scrapbook supplies.
        I can still be found at at solutionsbyheidi.com

        Tuesday, May 17, 2011

        Terrific Tuesday Photoshop Tip: Auto-Selecting A Layer


        May 17, 2011

        Note: starting today “Manic Monday Photoshop Tips” is moving to Tuesdays and will now be called “Terrific Tuesday Photoshop Tips”.

        Hello! Today’s tip features a quick way to auto select a layer: with the Move tool (V) selected, click-and-hold the Control (Mac: Cmd) key and click on that layer in the image. And yes, it’s just that easy!
        Marcie

        Monday, May 9, 2011

        Manic Monday Photoshop Tips: Fonts


        May 9, 2011

        Manic Monday Photoshop Tips: Fonts!

        Today’s Photoshop tip is about fonts. I love fonts and I’m like a kid in a candy store when I start browsing through font sites. Fortunately for me there are lots of free font sites to use.  A couple of my favorites are www.dafont.com, www.urbanfonts.com, and  www.fontsquirel.com. Professional fonts can be expensive and I can usually find a free alternative but if I need to buy a premium font I use www.myfonts.com. Here’s my tip for finding fonts that look similar to professional fonts: go to a free font site that has a space to let you enter sample text and enter a few letters or numbers that are unique to the font.  Select the category or theme for the font you are looking for. In the example below I’m looking for a font similar to Bodoni (I’m obsessed with those cool numbers) so I start with the serif category, type in the numbers 123 as my example and click the search button. As I scroll through I’m quickly able to spot the font John Hancock as a very close match to what I’m looking for so I download it  and I’m done.


        Here’s a list of some of my current favorite fonts…
        Typewriter font: VT Portable Remington
        Script: Honey Script (it has a cool retro feel)
        Serif Font: John Hancock
        Dingbat:  WC Rhesus (cool splats!!)

        Fonts are great tools to use in digital scrapbooking. What are your favorite fonts? 
        See you next week,
        Marcie

        Monday, May 2, 2011

        Manic Monday Photoshop Tips: Type Tip—Visually Adjust Kerning


        May 2, 2011

        Manic Monday Photoshop Tips: Type Tip—Visually Adjust Kerning

        Sorry PSE users but this tip will only work in the full version of Photoshop. Today we’re going to look at keyboard shortcuts that will let you visually control the spacing of the letters in your type. To set the tracking tighter (decrease the space between letters in a word or group) highlight the type with the Type Tool (T), then press Alt-Left Arrow (Mac Opt-Left Arrow) to tighten. Press Alt-Right Arrow (Mac Opt-Right Arrow)  to increase or add more space between a selected group or letters or words. To adjust the space between two individual letters (this is called kerning) click your cursor between the two letters and use the same keyboard shortcuts as mentioned above.

        Now I want you to go type a word in Photoshop and use the shortcut to track an entire word and then use the shortcut again to kern the space between two letters. Go on…I’ll wait. Back? Good! I realized that I know a lot of shortcuts but if I don’t use them I forget them so I’ve made an effort to use them every day and I’ve noticed I’m working much more efficiently by using the keyboard shortcuts. Try adding one or two shortcuts a day into your workflow and before you know it you’ll be a pro at it!

        Marcie