Sunday, May 11, 2014

Progress towards Getting Back to It: Scrapbooking, that is

My focus word is: LIMITS.

When I establish limits on the number of steps, photos, keywords, kits, etc. I am more motivated to get started.

I figured something out about my work habits. Recently I was listening to somebody talk about how overwhelming stuff can be and how it will totally block creative flow if allowed. I have come to realize that my habit of consumption has been a major block in my scrapbooking life. I want to scrapbook again. I want to share my pictures, fill my Project Life album, and document this wonderful life. I realize that I have allowed the bazillion choices that I have to take over and inhibit my creativity. Today I took a step forward.

I have been working on getting my photo system - computer, external hard drives, iphones, ipads - all feeding their pictures into Lightroom. I think I have that figured out by using Dropbox. I have not figured out the dSLR. That is a separate endeavor trying to figure out my EyeFi card. Hmmm . . . can I move my EyeFi directly into Lightroom's Watched Folder? I think Lightroom can only watch one folder though, so I have to think about this for now. I am fine just sticking my card in my computer once a month and uploading that way. That was a great relief to get that going. I still have to figure out the backup of my hard drives. I have all photos and digistuff on one ehd now, but I have to set up my second local copy back up using SyncBack. That's another story altogether.

Another thing that I have set up is my digi-download flow. I have been a member of the DigiFiles for years. Each month I receive at least 7 kits. Some I like, some I don't. I have developed a workflow for those using ExtractNow, a free unzipper that puts the unzipped files where I need them and the zip files where I need them and all out of my Downloads folder. Pretty nifty.

Today I fixed Keywords in Lightroom. I have been really bugged by the disarray of keywords that appear in LR after an import. I have also been dissatisfied that LR doesn't have facial recognition. I figured out that I can set up Picasa to scan only the folder of the month I am working on and as long as I use the exact same keyword tag, the tag will be read by LR. In my current system, I am always working on last month's photos. If I have all the photos in LR then I can view them in Picasa, face tag them, then synchronize the files in LR. It's working pretty good so far!

What I haven't figured out is where to start telling my stories. I have to get rating my photos now.

Off to listen to Kayla Lamoreaux in the "Finding Photo Flow" class at Jessica Sprague. I find that when I hear it again, it reminds me of how I used to love this hobby.

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