A good Tip For Tagging Alphas

I was browsing through some blog links and I came across this post. It is from 2007 but the information is still perfect to use today. Here you go, Tagging Alphas in ACDSee.

It also includes some other ideas on how to make contact sheets for other elements to streamline and simplify your tagging and searching process. Thanks, Christine, for posting this.

3-1 Special at ACDSee

This is a great deal. You can get ACDSee Photo Editor and FotoSlate for free when you purchase ACDSee Photo Manager for $69.99. If you are already an ACDSee customer you can get additional discounts as well. Get all of the details at ACDSee’s Website.

Using Shortcuts in Photo Manager

I don’t know about any of you, but when I am tagging my scrap kits in Photo Manager, I tend to have my pen (from my Wacom tablet) in one hand, while I try to type and move around the screen. I love having shortcuts, so I am going to share some of my most used shortcuts in the newest version of Photo Manager, version 12.

There is a huge list of shortcuts that you can use, preset by ACDsee. The list is pretty long, but there are a few that I use quite often. Of course, I use Ctrl-C and Crtl-V when I am adding information to the Author and Caption boxes. I will use Esc. for exiting out of View Mode. Of course, these are most likely familiar to many of you already.

One of my favorite shortcuts us F2, which is to rename a folder or file. I use this one all of the time to rename folders of kit names so they are more uniform.

A new shortcut  in this version is \ (backslash) which tags or untags files in one step. This is not tagging with a Category tag, but is a one step way to “tag” photos or files that you want to be able to find easily later on. If you are working with a group of photos, you can \  to tag them then when you need to call them up, you go to the Organize Pane, select “Tagged,” located under “Special Items,” and any of the photos or files you selected will come up. I used to add photos to my “Favorites” but I find this to be a much faster and easier to manage process.

Another one I am using more is Alt-M which moved files without having to right-click or go through the Edit Menu.

These are just a few of the ones I use most often. In another blog post coming soon, I am going to show you how to customize your shortcuts to make it even easier to work in Photo Manager 12.

ACDSee Photo Manager- new version coming soon

I just got an email from ACDSee that they will be releasing the newest version of Photo Manager.  Scheduled for release in late April, Photo Manager 12 is going to be faster, and more efficient. Even though it doesn’t relate to me- I am on an old computer LOL- it is also going to be compatible with Windows 7. I know that is going to be a big plus for many people.

From the ACDSee Website:

What’s new in ACDSee 12

Take advantage of new features that make it a breeze to manage your growing collection of photos, get them looking their best, and share with friends, family and the world.

• The refined interface helps you easily navigate between organizing, viewing, editing and sharing your photos.
• Enjoy support for Windows® 7 and netbooks.
• Choose your best photos for further review, editing or sharing with one-click visual tagging.
• Identify your edited photos at a glance.
• Get the best color possible with the improved saturation tool for rich, true-to-life representation.
• Use the enhanced Selections tool to isolate a specific area for applying editing and creative touches.
• Add clarity to your images with the Noise Reduction tool. Fix luminance and color noise while preserving image sharpness.
• Share and protect your photos online. Simply drag and drop files from ACDSee 12 to your own web space on the ACDSee Online website.*
• Optimize and send photos to web spaces you manage through FTP, directly within ACDSee 12.

Right now, I learning Dreamweaver to revamp my Faery-Wings website, and I am looking forward to that last point. Being able to optimize photos and upload them through FTP is going to be a huge time saver for me.

Don’t forget, if you are already an ACDSee user, there are discounts available if you pre-order.

Textures in Photo Editor 2008

Last week I posted some ideas  on how to change the effects on photos using Photo Editor, since you can’t run actions in it:  Photo Editor and Some Cool Photo Effects. I was participating in a challenge at Oscraps about using actions. One of my online friends posted a photo and layout she did using Photo Editor. Instead of using actions, or adjustments, she used photo textures and blending modes to achieve her look.

Here is her original photo:

And here is her  blended photo:

She used PHOTOLOGY 2.0 by Emily Powers for her textures. I am going to use that kit too, which is available at Oscraps.

I love the way this came out, so I am going to try to recreate it -or something like it- here.

Here is my original photo:

Open your  photo in PE. Then, drag the JPG  file “sleet” into PE. Drag that file on top of you photo. Depending on the dimensions  of your photo and the texture file, you might need to resize the top layer. With the to player covering the photo completely, you can now play with the Transfer (Blend) Modes and Opacity to get different effects.

In this example, I used the Transfer Mode “Overlay” at 100% opacity.

I love the way the overlay brings color to parts of the photo, making the snow seem so dramatic against the flag.

I love the way that Laurie’s photo has the dark “burned” border. I am going to add another layer on top. I am going to use “Blueprint” from the same kit.  Drag that on top of the image.  Resize the file as needed. Then again- play with the Transfer Modes. Here I chose ” Burn” at 90% opacity.

These texture/color files and some different Transfer Modes take a decent picture and turn it into something dramatic and eye-catching.

Using ACDsee Photo Manger to find a specific designer

This is a great tip for anyone who is doing a designer specific challenge or doign CT work.

Right now I am working on a Challenge at Oscraps for Merkeley Designs. It is the October GOT IT Challenge. One of the requirements of this challenge is to use at least 50% or more Merkeley Designs products. I love Merkee’s designs and have a lot of them in my scrap stash.

When I organize my supplies, I use the Author Box to keep track of the designer’s name.  To easily find everything by her, I can go to the “Organize Pane” and click on the + sign next to Author.

When the Author List generates, click on the  designer’s name, in this case Merkeley Designs, and every file with that name will be brought up. If you have more than one name for the same Author, such as here with misspellings, select all  variations to get all of the files.

When the file list is complete, go back to the Properties Pane, Select All (Ctrl-A) and click in the Author Box. When the “Reset author for all selected files?” box pops up, click Yes. Type in the correctly spelled name. This will then apply the right name to all of the files.

For more information on using the Author property,  read:

• Customizing your thumbnails in ACDSee Photo Manager
• Auto Category Question: I have a misspelled author or designer name. How do I get rid of them?

Back to the Challenge….

Now that I have all of Merkeley Design’s supplies come up, I can now easily scroll through everything I have of her’s. I will Ctrl-click on each of the papers and elements I want to use in my layout, then drag them into ACDSee Photo Editor, Once I have them in the Image Basket, I can get right down to scrapping!

Making a Photo Disk in Photo Manager

I love being able to use ACDSee to make Photo Disks. It saves so much room on my hard drive, but is also keeps those photos accessible to me.

I just got a DVD full of pictures from my daughter’s birthday last week from the in-laws. I know I am going to want to scrap them and there are a lot of great shots to choose from. I don’t have lots of extra room on the hard drive (who does??) so right now, as I type, I am making a Photo Disk from the DVD.

To do this, I put the DVD in the drive. After Photo Manager is done reading it, I go to New| Photo Disk. I enter “Caitlyn Birthday 2009″ as the Photo Disk Name. Then I select the Folders that I want to have cataloged in the “Specify Folder DIaloge Box.” This is a nice feature if there is more than one Folder on your DVD/CD. For example, on this DVD, there are two Folders, one with photos of my daughter and nieces, the other … I don’t have clue! I only have to have the appropriate folder checked, and the other one will not be part of the Photo Disk.

When that is done, I can go back and tag my photos. I am tagging these with the Categories of “Caitlyn” and “Birthday.” Then I Embed the Metadata into these selected files.

To use these files, click on the Offline Media Folder in your Folder tree.

When you click on the folder it will bring up thumbnails of each photo. These are not the actual photo files, but an ACDSee generated thumbnail. The “real” files are still located on that DVD. Click on the photo that you want to use, and a box will pop up telling you the name of the CD or DVD that the file is located on. Insert that disk in the drive,  let ACDSee Photo Manager read the disk and there is the photo you want to use.

So cool! Digital Picture Frame Manager

You might remember a couple of months ago I blogged about wanting to get a digital picture frame and ACDSee’s software, Picture Frame Manager. For those of you who might not remember, or perhaps might have let that post slip on by , you can read about it here: I want this!

I got a Digital Spectrum Solutions Memory Frame. What did I need next? You got it! ACDSee Picture Frame Manager. I was able to get the frame displaying so many of my favorite pictures in no time. All it took was the opening the software, connecting the frame to my computer and dragging and dropping photos into a “Picture Frame Folder.” Then I disconnected the frame from the computer, and it had all of my photos on display. Here is a picture of it:

Right now, I have it set up in the “Clock/Calender” setting, since I am at my desk.

The software will really make it easy for me to set up different photos sets. I am thinking that it will be fun for the holidays to pull all of my Holiday-Specific pictures and use the frame as a decoration. I might even have to put some music and movies on it too!

Design Class Using Photo Editor

I was hanging out over at RAKScraps.com when I saw a designing Class being offered. It is a basic class, good to get your feet wet.

I know that I have a lot of great possibilities when I am using Photo Editor to scrap, but I was wondering how well I could do with the designing aspect.

So far, I have made a sheet of different brads and 4 sheets of plain paper. Not bad. I am looking forward to having more time to play around!

Paper Tutorial for Photo Editor 2008

Designing a Paper in Photo Editor

I am using a color scheme from http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/807471/girlfriendfactory

1. Open New Document (Ctrl-N). To Select the color, for the background, click on Custom in the drop down box. Click on the small box next to it to choose your color. You can either find a color using the cursor or you can enter a HEX code in the box on the bottom left. I have entered a HEX code from the color scheme I found on colourlovers.com. Click OK.

1. Make sure your settings are at 12 x12 and 300 dpi and click OK.
2. Now you need to save this as a jpg . Close the file. Double click on the paper that is in your Image Basket. This will open the jpg paper up as its own layer in your Object Palette.

1. Click on the paper and then go to Adjustments| Noise| Add Noise. Choose your settings that you want. Here I am selecting an Intensity of 50, Gaussian and Monochromatic.
2. I want a soft but splotchy feel to this paper, so next I am going to use Adjustments| Artistic| Oil Paint. Play around with the, Brush width, Variance and Vibrance until you get a look that you like.
   I used a Brush Width of 17, Variance of 40 and Vibrance of 3.
3. Now I want to add some interest to it. Using a Swirlie Q brush by Carla Gibson, I am going to stamp swirls onto the paper.
4. As I stamp the swirls, they can be rotated and resized just as a regular object can be. Click on the Navigation Tool (the arrow) then on the object layer. The stamp will have a bounding box that can be resized by dragging the corners.

1. I want to mirror these swirls in the opposite corner. To do this, Select all layers and Create Group. Click Ctrl-D to duplicate the layer. Then you rotate the layer and place it on the top right corner. Then I am going to resize by clicking on the layer and dragging on corner on, to make it smaller. I also added in a third color from this palette with some small swirls for additional depth.

1. Save your project as a jpg at 100 quality.

If anyone would like to downlaod the paper, use this link.