[Lunatique]

Here's how I'm structuring mine. I'm not sure if it's the most efficient.

[Anthony]

Umm..I have a folder named CG. Below that I have 2d and 3d. And that's about it. I have some artist-specific ones, like Craig Mullins, or Loki, or mine, but mostly its all a jumble.

[RoadMaster]

I have a folder named "My Documents"... and that's about it... everything goes in there... certain projects I have sub-folders for, but I lot of it just stays in there.

[Vhy]

That's more organized compared to me, but I just started archiving images. I think the hard part will be sorting photographs.

BTW has anyone else had a problem saving jpegs from IE? ( also I can't see filesize anymore )

[antx]

That�s how I have it at the moment. As you can see I didn�t unfold all of them but in most cases there are just project or version specific subfolders in there.
Where the big black bar is, that is actually my library with reference stuff and such. The whole structure is already messed up again and the "cleanme" dir is growing bigger and bigger ;-)



Vhy: what is exactly your problem with saving jpeg�s? Can you only save as BMP? If yes, then try cleaning up your temporary internet files. (go to Tools menu, internet options and press the delete files button) And maybe restart your browser after that. In my case it did help.

[Torstein Nordstrand]

I sort my imagery into Personal, Resource and Art. Subfolders underneath.

On a related note, what programs (if any) do you use to archive your reference pictures for quick locating and browsing? Right now I just use AcdSee Classic and a lot of subfolders. Does anyone know of a decent substitute that can do searches/listing by category, thumbnails, previews, etc? My 'Resource' directory contains 39.901 files, that's 4.08 gb. I need some way to catalouge and quickly retrieve appropriate files. What do you prefer?

Thanks,

[Vhy]

Thanks antx, that worked.

[HawkOne]

I have similar filestructures as you guys seem to have, except mine also includes folders named "Cameltoes" and "EbonyA$$" and suchlike, all in the name of anatomical references of course , I wonder how Dr.Bang organizes his folders ... heheh ...

I keep dumping out stuff to CDs every now and then, because I'm paranoid about suddenly loosing my "ArtDrive" to some freak occurrence. I use a software called Cumulus from Canto http://www.canto.com
It came with my CorelDraw pack ... It allows me to index and catalogue CDs and otherwise organize my stuff ... it's pretty neat stuff ... here's the blurb ...

Cumulus 5 Single User Edition
The Professional Way to Organize the Imagination

Cumulus 5 Single User is the unique digital asset management tool for creative professionals who need to find, create, and share digital assets such as images, layouts, multimedia, video, audio, and text.

It includes powerful search capabilities, multiple-size thumbnail previews, and comprehensive customizing options.

Supporting both MacOS and Windows platforms, Cumulus makes it easy to track assets, no matter where they are...in your computer, across the room, or down the hall...so you can spend your valuable time creating, not searching.

Product Highlights
Customize previews, records and categories
Attach voice annotation to assets
Create multimedia slide shows
Publish assets to HTML
On the fly e-mail assets and slide shows
Cumulus 5 offers more than 85 new features including multi-media, communication, internet and presentation capabilities . It supports drag & drop with popular graphics applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Quark Xpress, and CorelDRAW. Using a new modular architecture, the Single User Edition supports the new Cumulus Options, Web Publisher, and Browser, allowing users to make catalogs available on the Web or on removable media such as CDs and DVDs.

A version 5.5 12.5 MB demo can be downloaded, a 6MB PDF manual too, the catch is :
- It will create a maximum of 2 catalogs.
- Each catalog may contain a maximum of 50 records each.

There are some other alternatives, like the ridiculously overpriced 5000$-36,000$ (depending on how many pictures you want to catalogue) CONTENTdm http://contentdm.com/ and the more reasonably priced 60$ Anokee http://www.anokee.com/mcplus.html both available for download, but I have not tried them out ...

Anyone else using this kind of stuff ?

[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: HawkOne ]

[Svanur]

structure? huh? I just use "My Documents" because I am an ignorant bastard. Then I dump some of it on a cd now and then.

Maybe if I was better I would structure it more... hehe

[pixelsoldier]

lol

[Lunatique]

antx- wow, your personal project area is very confusing to me.

Torstein Nordstrand- Advanced Disk Catologue is the shiznazz. You'll dig it.

Agrajag- I see a red x, dude. Doubt the problem is on your end. I'm in a weird country that's got media blackout up the ass, so it's mostly likely my problem.

Basse_Ex- dude, your pOrn needs more structure.

Okay, how about your personal work directory?

[Basse_Ex]

What do you mean my "porn needs more structure"?!? I get off on numbers....

Ummh.... on a more serious note... what program, or what magic tricks have you done, to display your folders in such an easy and orderly manner, with the fancy +'s and all?

Is it this Advanced Disk Catalogue?

Where can one aquire one of those?

[Lunatique]

wahahahah! It's just windows explorer, dude.

But Advanced Disk Catalogue looks very similar to Windows Explorer. It lists all the CD's you've catalogued like drives, and you can browse all the folders(except you can't access the files, since those are on CD's).

[Basse_Ex]

But, how, how, how do you get the fancy +'s, and the ability to see the contents of many folders at the same time?

(Edit: Branching folders? Is that the name for it?)

I've tried clicking on every button in the whole Windows explorer it seems... but nothing seems to work...

Hmmm... maybe this is a question for some Windows support thingie, not an art forum....

... ach.... the pain....

[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: Basse_Ex ]

[Lunatique]

er.... I just click all the +'s and they all expand when I do that?

Is your explorer broken or something?

[HawkOne]

I'll take a wild guess and guess that Basse-boy has been using the individual windows as opened under the My Computer from the desktop.

From your Startbutton -> Programs -> choose icon Windoze Explorer ... a folder with a magnifying glass on it ...
Try the shortcut Windows-key + e to launch windows explorer instead ... it's nice and fast ...

It sounds crazy, but it seems the only reasonable explanation for Basses lack of +es ...

[Liser Studios]

i just have a folder in my C drive named (gasp)
C:/art

i have all my art in there... then I have a subfolder named "reference" which I put all my reference pics in. There's tons of folders in there, like "waves," "trains," "sijun" etc (the sijun one is the pages with advice/"tutorials" on them like the "perspective with a calculator" tutorial

[Agrajag]

Woah, Lunatique, that is one elaborate folder tree you have there...
You must have an insane number of images in your collection.
I remade my entire structure only a couple months ago, and I chose to go for a less detailed tree. I prefer to get the "initial direction" out of my structure, and then I use some fast graphic viewer which is capable of thumbnails (ACDSee, IrfanView, XnView or whatever) to find the image I am looking for (or to get inspired). I've found that to be quite efficient, I always know where to look for something.

It's really interesting to see the approach of you guys. Maybe I have to put some more work in my folders... nah, too much effort!

[Basse_Ex]

[Torstein Nordstrand]

Thanks all for the suggestions.

Basse, if you still can't find the folder tree, this is were it is in w2k at least:

Open Explorer, then click "View -> Explorer Bar -> Folders". That should do the trick.

Can't believe you've been without it for so long... Are you an exiled Mac user or something?

[Basse_Ex]

Ahhh... silly Basse...... Silly, silly Basse.....

I just realised that I action hadn't used Windows Explorer a single time since getting XP. I clicked My Computer AND just thought the new XP interface was slightly sucky in parts.

Thanks for all the help...

Uff... jeez...

Luckily I will be exiled to a Mac soon...

(Edit: Silly, silly, silly Basse... Just found out that you can of course just click Folders when on My Computer also.... since it's the same damned program... ach... the pain).

[ June 20, 2002: Message edited by: Basse_Ex ]

[Basse_Ex]

Anyway... here's the image... with fancy plusses and all... I'm no where near you guys in amounts references and work, I'm just starting out.... so this is all:


I do have some CD's of work here and there, but no more references.

[Lunatique]

ah, but you have the most interesting collection. I didn't think I'd see Steranko, Manara, LOvecraft, and Kurosawa in the same directory!

[Basse_Ex]

Oh, but it's perfectly natural and rational.... don't you see the connection?

Really.... I'm shocked!

[Lee Yiankun]

I burned mine into CDs as soon as the Pic folder hit 600MB. Sort the pics out by authors. The ones I don't know,I just pile them up.

Not efficient , but at least it's something when my HDD go crashing. ^_^

Maybe I'll sort them by "date of acquirement" next

[ June 21, 2002: Message edited by: Lee Yiankun ]

[zak]

heres mine. most of it is on the other pc thou

[Hyperi0n]

Files----Photoshop
|----Lightwave
|----webdetailing

and I sometimes just dump the stuff in the file folder that doesnt belong in the above 2.

[Starseed]

Lunatique - I think you have your archive organized well. If I had the time, I would do something along the lines of what you've got. What is the size of all of your art archive?

[Lunatique]

It's only 1.3 gigs. My photo archive is about 3 times that size.