Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The neverending archive debacle.

Just when I get all chuffed that I have finally freed 6 GIG from the overloaded hard drive of my computer, all the designers seem to get all generous and creative at the same time, and in one foul swoop, it was all gone. Not that I am complaining, I love what I got, but I cannot even use it as my Photoshop won't let me work without at least 3 GIG for scratch discs or something.
Understandable, I guess, it is a magical program.. What am I going to do? I cannot afford a dedicated drive, I could stop collecting.. but how do I know if what I have is actually what
I think I have..

http://jen-at-chaos-lounge.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-love-reading.html
That is an amazing colour challenge entry if I have ever seen one.. beautiful doodle work and expoxy layers, how can I possibly turn a blind eye to that kind of thing.
Sigh. Maybe, I should store things online, but then I am worried that I won't be able to see them all, and will need to download them just to see the file. I am using picassa, so I could make contact sheets... (thinking aloud here) Oh yeah, this is my third week with Picassa and I
am going to stick with it, it is simply the fastest and most intuitive application (meaning it can keep up with me changing my folder structure endlessly and moving things from section to section, without me having to tell it anything - take note elements organizer humrumph!)
I have a wonderful system in windows alone, but as we know you can only tag jpegs in windows 7 and not tiff, png or psd - not a fault of Microsoft, blame the actual makers of those formats.
Picasa solves this issue by adding your own tags to any file used in scrapping (just not brushes, styles and specific photoshop or psp file formats) to the exif data.
It allows you to batch edit, and to attach as many tags as you like.
I think I am getting too nitty gritty with the organisation part.
I have papers by colour and one of the colours is mixture (which means I could use it a variety of matching papers) which divides them into themes (like hearts, seaside, kiddies, yuppie mod)
and then I have got each colour sorted into best of, general, pattern dots and squares, flowery/planty/girly, geometric, grunge, stripy, ultra-rich, (i have an entire pastel range in the colours as well as a central grunge folder for grunge that is just a hodge podge of colour)
My favorite folder to fill is geo/mod/posh as I love those designs and I also love filling the fabric designs for each colour into which I place all gingham, paisley, plaid and any wool or silk papers for that colour. Is this too wierd and obsessive - I have no idea.
I don't know any real life digi scrappers to compare with. I know I am proud of my collection and the orderlyness of it, I know I can find a paper in mind rather quickly, as I am also tagging each item with the folder name it is in (all tags replicate the windows folder they are in) I am sure if anyone looked at how many hours I have spent making it all just work, they would think it is a waste of time. However, I really want to be designing and getting to work with quality colours and finishes is important to my layouts. I have been very dissapointed
with a few of the european freebie kits that I could have sworn looked so good on the preview, and I have also discovered a bit of copycat freebie sharing, which is a little annoying.
Why bother recolouring a feature element that a lot of people already have - and it was better the first time, no offense.. I am hoping that I am just going through a bad patch of the archives, as I know when I began I didn't really know much, and PSP kits are just not for me.
I nearly get hives, I don't know why as it is very colorful and some of the PSP work is very well done, but most of it, especially 3D stuff, makes my skin crawl.
I think it is because I love minimalistic as a core design, but then again I do like a good cluster and I go ga ga over doodling, when it is done very well.

So, I better get back to the grindstone.
I have no idea if anyone is reading these posts, so I am just journaling all my emotions here, why not! Get it all out, so I can handle the tedium of unzipping infinite files :)

Hope you all are well,
I have twitter and things, but no idea how to make a blinkie.
But I am going to have a go! EEK!

3 comments:

KelliesKreations said...

I like reading your rant :) Ive had PC and net issues so i've missed it lol.

Anonymous said...

I love your ranting also, and totally understand about how do you choose, and how can you know and remember everything you already have. Love it :)

Miss Behaving [badly] said...

Thank you ladies, I really needed that. I thought I was bonkers talking to myself (I am only legally half-bonkers you see, lol)
My blogs always end up being about all kinds of things, I actually was a bit scared to check the two comments, in case some PSP lovers were coming to get me.

It is so wierd how I can recall each freebie, but moreso I know my own tastes, so if it's decent and in the last seven months, I know I have it too. But I have too much, a few too many caroline blogspot files, considering she has the biggest online archive- I am letting it sit on her hard drive if I ever need a teddy bear or lace hanky, she is good for it.
lol