How to organize your tips

[ghoffman]

How do you organize your tips? i.e. How and where do you save the restoration, retouching and manipulation tips you want to keep handy for future reference?

You could search RP or other web pages to try to find the tip again. You could search through books and magazines to find the tip again.

I'm finding that I need some way to organize the tips I find, so that I'll have a chance of finding the tip later when I want to use it. So far, I'm thinking maybe a spreadsheet or a database would work. One column or field could be a brief description of what the tip helps you do (e.g. remove red eye). A second column or field could be the details of how to perform the tip. A third column or field could contain the names of images, saved on your computer, which illustrate the tip. A fourth column or field could contain a reference to the source of the tip (e.g. 5/19/2002 tip from RetouchPRO, Retouching Challenge #12, Lisa Peters' entry, tip by Doug Nelson).

Then when you want to find a tip, search your spreadsheet or database for the first column or field. You could also just put all of the info in a normal text file, but then when you searched, you could match on words that were not in the brief description of the tip.

What method(s) do you use?

Thx!

Gene

[Doug Nelson]

For my tips I started a website

But really, I don't store them or sort them. I just read them and file in my mental rolodex. Some I remember, most I don't, but I eventually re-read them somewhere and a larger percentage sticks.

And the best, seriously the most excellent, virtually foolproof, marvelous way to remember a tip is to teach it to someone else.

[Ed_L]

I'm kind of like Doug. No easy way to find a particular tip. Sometimes I think they get lost in the "tip heaven" folder, which is hidden. But Gene has some good suggestions. And of course, Doug's can't be beat for remembering them.

Ed

[Mike Needham]

To be honest, I also fall into the catagory of 1/2 remembered tips, only becoming fully lucid when I delve back and re-read them

However there are also a few other methods that I use, because the web is such a transitory medium. PDF documents are a great way of storing tips and tutorials and can be saved onto external media or on the hard-drive, also you can create your own PDF out of any web page. Perhaps the most common method I use to store tips and snippets I come acoss - the gool old 'cut n' paste'.

I also periodically save my favourites list to CD as I often come across links that would never be found again with my constant reformatting of my hard drive

[DJ Dubovsky]

I copy them into Word or save directly if they are a PDF format and then file them into a folder called Tutorial Documents. The trouble with saving the urls is that they tend to disappear down the road and your tutorials are lost to you. This way I can find them when I need to review a technique and I catagorize them by their particular techniques such as Layer, Selections, Tool tips etc.
DJ

[ghoffman]

Mike,

I like your idea of using PDFs to capture a tip from a web page.

DJ,

That's a great idea to categorize the tips by technique.

Thx!

Gene

[Ed_L]

I do have a folder strictly for quick-time movies. It's easy enough to find what you're looking for, and I find the movies very good teaching aids. Good idea to back them up too.

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

Ed,
Are you saving the URLs that have the quict time movies or are you able to save the movies themselves? Just curious. I didn't quite know how to save them to file.
DJ

[Ed_L]

Hi Deb,

I just right click on the link for the movie. This allows you to save it to your computer.

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

I never thought to do that Ed. Thanks. Usually I watch the movies and then looked for a way to save them but never thought I could do the same thing as I would for a photo. Boy I have alot of saving to do now.
DJ

[Ed_L]

You're welcome. Have fun.

Ed

[Mike Needham]

Dang Ed - I can feel my cd-burner will be getting a thorough workout with all those quicktime movies coming its way a simple idea but one I wouldnt have thought of in a million years.

[Doug Nelson]

Of course, you can always type your tips into our tips forum, that way you'll have a powerful SQL engine to search through them anytime you want

[DJ Dubovsky]

Are you refering to tips we get from other sites? Can't we get in trouble doing that?
DJ

[ghoffman]

Originally posted by Ed_L
I do have a folder strictly for quick-time movies. It's easy enough to find what you're looking for, and I find the movies very good teaching aids. Good idea to back them up too.

Ed

Ed,

I searched RP and found a few QuickTime tip links. I also searched on Google and found some, but they, of course, don't have any RP recommendations.

Perhaps you could start a thread that lists links to web pages which have tips with QuickTime movies that you liked.

Thx!

Gene

[Sharon Brunson]

Hi Greg,

I use a program called Vault that you can download here.

http://www.personalmicrocosms.com/html/32bit.html

It's incredibly easy to organize your tips with this program and the freeware version has always been enough for me.

Sharon

[jerry]

Hi Sharon

Thanks for the link to Vault program.. Could you please explain just how you use this program. For example:

If you see a post on the Retouchpro forum that is worth keeping, can you cut and paste it into the vault program.

Do you have to store your tips using Msword or some other text program and vault is used to open these documents..

If you could clear up the potential uses for this program It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Jerry

[Ron]

Use a search engine.

With a lot of tips and tutorials in html format you might look at Sleuthhound at http://www.isleuthhound.com/products/. This program lets you specify search areas (i.e. store your files in folders called Tips or Tutorials) then you can use Sleuthhound to search for key words just like a search engine (Google, AltaVista).

For example you could search for "layer mask" or "brushes" etc. and Sleuthhound will find and display all the files it found with those key words, complete with a header and some of the text from the file.

It supports Boolean and wild card searches and there's a free demo download. The regular program costs $20.00 US and the Pro version is $34.95

Ron

[Jakaleena]

Originally posted by DJ Dubovsky
Are you refering to tips we get from other sites? Can't we get in trouble doing that?
DJ

I wouldn't say one could copy and paste them verbatim from another website, but Photoshop techniques themselves aren't copyrighted. They are routinely passed along and shared, and that is the intention of tips in the first place. If you have a tip that you routinely use and just type it in your own words, I doubt that there is anything illegal about it.

[Doug Nelson]

Yes, the tip itself isn't copyrightable, only the wording and/or presentation used to describe it. So paraphrase away!

[DJ Dubovsky]

I have been getting tips mailed to me daily and have amassed quite an extensive collection. We're talking in the hundreds. I'll see what I can do but that sure is going to keep me at the top of the list of most talkative on the forum.
DJ

[Doug Nelson]

You'll always be tops on our list

[Sharon Brunson]

Jerry, I'm embarassed that I missed your previous questions.

Yes I just copy/paste directly into Vault from IE, Outlook and any other program. It organizes everything in Outline form.

I'm sorry for the delay in answering you.

Sharon

[DJ Dubovsky]

Instead of hogging the forum with them by listing each one per thread. Can't I just put them on a text or document file and maybe list them by catagory or something and then you put them in the tips area outside the forum? At any rate it will take me some time to compile all these and reword them so don't look for anything soon.
DJ

[Doug Nelson]

The tips area outside the forum is no longer updated. I moved all the tips to the forum and changed all the links. The physical page is still there, but only to keep from breaking any outside links that might have been made to it.

And the idea of one tip per thread is simply so they can be found and discussed easily and clearly.

[DJ Dubovsky]

I have so many of them. How about if I catagorize them for each thread. Say for instance a thread on Selection tips or Brush tips etc. and in the tread title page, list them all. Or would you prefere them listed one per thread? I'm working on the selection tips now.
DJ

[Doug Nelson]

However you'd like to do them is good