How Do You Organize Templates?

19 posts / 0 new
Last post
How Do You Organize Templates?

Hello all! I have been trying to take some time this summer to organize my digital files (I'll ignore the real mess in my craft room for as long as possible lol!). How do you organize your layout templates?

I have all my files organized by store then designer name, but since I grab templates from all over to create pages, I also copied all of my template files into one folder (so I still have original tied to designer) so I can just go to one place to grab templates. But I seem to have amassed almost 700 templates (yes, I realize I may have a virtual hoarding problem haha!).

With this many, I am torn as to how to further organize them. By style? By number of pictures? Other? Any suggestions would be extremely helpful!

Thanks in advance!

Laurel

I've been using the tagging feature in Windows to organize mine... I add tags for number of photos, designer, layout size (12x12, 8.5x11, etc.), theme or major element if there is one ("Christmas", "parrot", "Easter eggs", etc.), heavy journaling, whitespace, pocket layout, etc. It takes a bit of time to add the tags to each, but it's pretty simple once you've got them tagged. My stash of journal card and brag book templates also gets tagged similarly.

If you use Photoshop, I'll also highly recommend converting your templates to layered TIFF format--they'll take up less space, still be able to be used the same way, and you don't need a preview next to it in the folder to see what it looks like! I made a quick Photoshop action to save a file as layered TIFF using its existing filename and then close the PSD, so I can open a stack of about 15-20 templates at once, click play on the action once for each of them, and just have to click play again for the next file. As you can guess, converting them over took very little time at that point!

Thanks, Holly! Now I need to investigate this tagging feature a bit more! I'll also have to investigate if you can add a layered TIFF as a library item in Photoshop, like you could a regular TIFF- because that would SURELY be a time-saver for me! I like to set up libraries so I have everything at-a-glance when I am working in Photoshop smiley

Good Luck to you I have probably more then 700 layout templates and even thinking about organizing them makes my head hurt, LOL! I'll check this thread often maybe I'll pick up a few tips! Sorry I wasn't any help!

Thanks guys for the tips. Now I'll be able to organize my layout templates smiley

@Melanie: I hear you on that; I was at about 800 when I started organizing them, and I'm not going to kid you that tagging them all was a pain, but I tag them as I extract them now...and it's SO easy to type in something like "2 photos whitespace" and knock the choices down to something I can look through in a couple of minutes rather than spending half an hour trying to choose a template, or just building a page from scratch. I've found that "whitespace", "heavy journaling", "minimalist", "pocket layout", and "heavy clustering" are the ones I use most beyond the number of photos. I've also got squares, circles, triangles, and hexagons tagged when they're a major part of a layout, and leaves, snowflakes, evergreens, stars, pumpkins, etc., to help find templates for specific seasons.

Wow. This thread is eye opening. I usually somewhat randomly choose a template....and just make it work.

I've never tried tagging, but this is what I do: Firstly, I keep the original kit together, but I then copy each template to its own "category" sub-folder, like this:

Designing | Paper Templates | Stripes | filename
Designing | Element Templates | Buttons | filename

I do the same thing with scrapbooking supplies:

Scrapbooking | Papers | Christmas | filename
Scrapbooking | Elements | Beads | filename

Mind you, I say "this is what I do", when I should really say "these are the folders I had set up on my old computer, but I am so far behind with sorting out on my new computer..." !!!!! smiley

Anyway, it probably doesn't matter how you do it, as long as it makes sense to you, and helps you find things when you need them!

Thanks for your input, Robyn! I ended up keeping all files in a kit or collab together under the website/store/designer etc. name. Then for the layout templates, I made copies of the .psd and .tif (or .jpg) files and put them in a folder labeled "Layout Templates," which is further divided into folders based on how many photos go on a layout. What I've noticed is that if I am doing a scrapbook and get drawn to a certain designer's templates when I look by number of photos, I tend to go back directly to the designer's folder and grab the rest of the templates there. So I am sure I have too many copies of things, but, hey, it's working so far!!

Laurel, as long as it's working! That's the whole point, isn't it?

Actually, what you do for your layout templates is exactly how I've sorted mine, too, by number of photos.

I use Adobe Bridge. It's time consuming to start up, especially when you have LOTS of files, but it's worth the effort IMO. I use a combination of collections and tags to help me sort.

I do have a file system but Bridge lets me see everything that fits the tag or the collection type, regardless of where it's located on the network. My file system is more loosely organized because I rely more on Bridge.

I'm with Melanie - Organizing makes my head hurt. I don't do more than this - I have a directory called "templates". Within that directory I have folders named "Tags", "Flowers", "Buttons", "Frames", "Papers", etc. That's the limit of my template organization.

I organized my layout templates by number: I ussually know how many photo's I want to scrap, so that is my starting point. I have purged all my scrapbook files immensly a year ago, so I don't have tons of files to go through. I just open the folder with the appropriate number and scroll through until something catches my fancy!

Great discussion.
I dont have many templates but those I do have in their file name I include no pics, size and name of creator.

I tend to organize mine by the designer... I tag them or change the name to show the # and then I can just do a search through windows explorer to find what I need but have it available for giving proper credit to the designer.

I started out organizing templates one way, then changed to another way. I'm still half and half. The random free templates I got off the internet, I organized by # of pics, and a separate category for double-pagers. But, increasingly, I'm finding that I like to organize my templates based upon /whose/ templates they are. I've noticed that people who tend to create templates tend to have their own schtick about them. I have my blendits (created by jill) in one folder, where I have my DFD (dear friends designs) in another, fdd in their own folder, and so on. So that way if I want to go with a certain look, i.e. clean with lots of pics, versus something that is super-grungy and maybe 2-3 pics, I can figure out where I'm headed.

So far I haven't really found a system I like. Most of what I was doing before I started buying more scrappy packs was broke me downloading freebies would organize the freebies by type (especially helpful for those websites that give you bits and pieces freebies like scrapgirls for instance, and I also have a separate folder for my downloaded pieces from ps as well). Then I bought Hazel for my mac and had it tossing things in folders based upon certain attributes (mac users, that is an excellent app, I recommend it!). Certainly useful, except when things go awry like with it tossing 12x12 pieces of PNG format templates in the "overlays" folder and so on (and don't get me started on that time it exploded everything in the washi tape folder because I accidentally did a "meets any of these attributes" with a .png extension, alphas included, that was pretty hideous to clean up lol).

Now I'm not so sure though, and Try to keep everything together, like all of the goodies that each go with their respective blogtrain or pack in their own folder, and use the color labels in that downloads folder on my backup SSD. Everything that is a "pack" is labeled with green. Everything that is coordinating with what I am currently working on is also labeled with gray (especially useful if there is a website that uses the same color palates for their monthly specials so I can mix and match with different packs). I labeled blog trains that I don't have all the pieces into with red. If I find something free floating in the folder that belongs to something else (like, this newsletter download, part #3 or whatever), then I label it orange and I have my mac organize by label, so it'll bounce whatever color labeled items to the top of the list with all the other items of that label. I'm pretty sure my description is clear as mud, as I'm still trying to figure out what works for me.

Layered TIFFS - why didn't I think of that! I have been saving a jpg next to the PSD but saving as a Layered TIFF takes less room without the need for the jpg!!

I save mine as layered Tiffs, and put the name and designer etc, so that I know who's it is. Took me months to sort mine out and now got new ones waiting to be done.

Julie, I've thought about using Adobe Bridge too. Do you have any tips for someone who wants to start but hasn't used it before?