Mix & Match

49 posts / 0 new
Last post

Funny thing is, I almost NEVER credit a kit, only designers by name. Been doing that since I started in 2006, unless I was on the designer's CT then I'd link the kit. I guess everyone really is different.

I literally have about 90% of everything I've every bought or been given in a CT since 2006. Most of which would be retired by now, and I really do have quite a few pieces I use over and over and over again that are 10 years old.

Rachel Martin wrote:
...I almost NEVER credit a kit, only designers by name.

That's interesting, Rachel; I've really old stuff too that I reuse but some designers indicate within their TOU that they want to have their kit name also referenced while crediting their design name (not the link, just the product name). I find it amazing that you haven't come across this over the years!

@Jessica Dunn - yes, collections! Another fabulous thing about Adobe Bridge is that it will show you previews of PDF, PSD and several other file formats without having to open the files. That alone makes it worth using!

I'll have to check out Adobe Bridge. Sounds like a useful tool.

Most galleries require you to post designer and kit name when posting layouts. Each gallery has it's own rules but that is usually the norm.

I've tried Bridge in the past and even spent a long time tagging things, but then found it was so memory-intensive my computer would slow and freeze if I had Bridge and Photoshop open at the same time. Which was kind of the point of Bridge, so I had to stop using it. I'm on a laptop though, I wonder if those having good success with it are on more powerful desktops?

Yes probably so Violet...my VM [virtual machine for those who don't know] can handle it because I have enough ram but because I don't have enough processor power I can only handle 2 of the adobe programs at a time. After that my VM is worse than a snail's pace. My desktop has plenty of processor power but not enough ram so I cannot even run Adobe well enough. I am getting ram in soon to fix this problem. So yes you really have to be running on a beefy machine to enjoy the range of Adobe products. Right now I have to close Illustrator to open Adobe in my VM. I can't wait for my ram to come in to not have this problem..or at least I hope I don't. smiley

[quoteMost galleries require you to post designer and kit name when posting layouts.

What happens when you just use individual elements and not a kit, like the ones you can just download from the gallery at Pixelscrapper?

Violet I used to use Bridge on my laptop (but I have a desktop now so I don't anymore)

Jill Morgenstern wrote:
What happens when you just use individual elements and not a kit, like the ones you can just download from the gallery at Pixelscrapper?

In those cases, you just mention the designer and, if you know from what kit it came, mention that, or if, for instance, it was a blog freebie or something like that, mention it.

Here's a link to a page did with some serious "Mix and Match" which shows how I did the credits; if I had used a random freebie, I would have said something like: 'item x' is a freebie from the blog of 'designer name'.

5 Things I Love About My Kitchen

I've just been giving a mention to the designers included in a page. See here for an example. Professional designers will always include their name in the file, so I just open up my layout in Photoshop and scroll through the layers adding the names to a list as I go.

Same here. Bridge slowed down my entire system. smiley

I am constantly mixing and matching. Since 99% of the time I am just making things for my own joy, I don't have to worry about citing stuff too much.

I have blog trains in their own designer folders in a main folder with all of the previews, and that's easy to "switch" since the colours are always the same.

Today especially I've been doing a lot of search-by-element x, to find exactly the right piece (glitter, flower, heart, button, whatever) because I remember vaguely what it is I am looking for but not where t find it. That I vaguely remember it exists is already a victory, I have 700 folders and who knows how many subfolders in my scrapstash.

That is a really fun idea and I think it's a great way to make use of older kits!! I rarely use my older stuff as well and I have so much of it! smiley

I have to look into adobe bridge. Thank you for sharing.

I am a BIG mixer-upper. I unzip and break apart literally every kit that I get and organize it in folders by theme. I NEVER rename the file. I currently have 66 folders for embellishments, and some have sub-folders. For example, my folders are titled: arrows, borders, overlays .jpg, overlays .png, creatures, holidays, ribbons, sports, transportation, etc. For "biggie" kits or themed blog trains with a set color palette, I will keep the elements together as a collection as well. This means I am double-storing some items, but this is what works for me. I tend to fill embellishments with new papers quite a lot, so the shape is maybe more important to me than the color story. I also recolor papers. I keep the unzipped original folders in a master folder and that is what I use to identify designers. I do a search in the master folder for the filename and one to several folders will pop up if generic names are used (i.e. "ribbon2"). It usually doesn't take much effort to match the embellishment with its original in the folder(s) and look up the kit name (which is almost always the folder name), along with the designer's marketing or terms of use info. Of course, I love it when designers use their names or initials in the file name. I really wish all would do that.

I have an absolute ton of old kits, I sometimes like to scrap with someone else's than my own. So I look through just about every kit I have and am never happy with the elements in the kits, usually because they don't have enough flowers and foliage. That is my thing, I love to have at least 10 flowers in a kit, and not ones that are the same but just a different colour. I want variety.

So, I too, will be mixing them all up and creating same colours so I can use as one big kit. I find that a lot of my older ones are usually discontinued anyway, so giving credits isn't necessary.

I use Picasa. That way I can just label things, but keep them in their own kit. So, if I want something "pink", I just search for it. If I want something "happy", I search for it. As long as the file name has it or I have a tag for it, it is searchable. Also, I can quickly scroll through my elements and kits.

I do mix and match a lot when I use digital scrapbooking things, though I keep the kits in one piece for the most part since they're (hopefully) designed to work cohesively (blog train kits get combined into one folder per train). If I find I need, say, another flower and the kit I'm using as a base lacks one, I'll go digging through other kits until I find one that will work, recolor if necessary, and use it. Also sometimes I get paper packs that don't have anything aside from the papers themselves, so if I want to use any non-paper-based elements with them, I'll need to mix and match anyway.

I do frequently add tag words to the front of file names as part of sorting a new kit (or especially blog trains), which not only helps group the files within the folder logically (like starting off all papers with "paper-" or frames with "frame-"), it also gives me something I can use the File Explorer search feature to find. So all paper clips, binder clips, and staples get tagged with "fasteners-" in the file name, and tape and stitching get "tape-" and "stitches-" respectively. If I decide what my page really needs is some stitching, I can search "stitches" and see all the files I've tagged accordingly and select one from there. This way the file name itself is also still intact if it contains designer credit.

Pages