Help with scrapping on a Mac

mscrafts8

New member
After way too many issues with Windows computers, I broke down and made the switch to a Mac. I have a couple of questions that I haven't been able to find answers to from googling and was wondering if any of the Mac users can help...

Is there a way to view photos one after another when they are in the same folder? Windows had a viewer that could go from one to another just by pressing the arrows at the bottom of the page. For the Mac - it opens the Previewer but you can only see the one item you open and have to close and click the next item if you want to see it. Aside from looking at my photos, it is annoying trying to look at my scrapping stash this way and I don't want to make the thumbnails huge. Finder also doesn't show you the list of folders within a folder so you can easily hop from one folder to the next when you are scrapping within a kit that has folders for elements, papers, alpha, etc. Is there a way to have the folder structure shown so you don't have to always go back?

Also, has anyone used ACDSee Mac Pro for organizing their stash? I have almost 10 years worth of tagging from the window side and according to their help, if I embed my tags in the metadata (somehow - I have the instructions just haven't done it yet) I can then use the new Mac version and it will be able to build the structure I had for organizing.

I am sure I will come up with lots more as I go - just starting to get this set up and fixed a few things to my liking already but google can't help as easily with these.

In PSE (I have PSE13) is there a way to zoom in and out with your mouse - I have a windows mouse with a scroll wheel and will eventually switch to the mac mouse I bought after I get used to the computer and need the USB port back. On the windows side you used to be able to edit>preferences or something like that and set that in there. I don't see that option under there.

Thanks!
 
For viewing photos in Finder in sequence . . . pressing the space bar will bring up the quick look window. You can then use the arrow keys to move from photo to photo.

The Finder window has several viewing options: Icon, List, Columns, or Cover Flow.
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In Column view, you can see the entire folder structure and move around within nested folders a little easier.

I have not used ACDSee, even though I own it. But, I would think that your keywords would transfer over if you have a database file or something like that. You might want to ask ACDSee customer service about that. I'm sure they know what you need to do to transfer.

I use the scroll wheel on my Mac mouse to zoom in as well. In PSE on a Mac, the Preferences are under the Photoshop Elements Editor menu, not the Edit menu. So, you go to Photoshop Elements Editor > Preferences > General and there's a box in there to check for Zoom with Scroll Wheel.

Hope that was helpful. There are quite a few Mac girls around here, so feel free to ask all your questions. :)
 
Lydia - thank you for telling me where the scroll option was - I missed that spot. That helped a lot. The Finder is still giving me issues though getting to my stash easily. This seems to take so much longer. I downloaded the trial for ACDSee and the folder structure there is exactly what I was hoping to find with Finder. I hooked my EHD to my dinosaur windows laptop (the other is in the shop that I was using and might not be fixable) and started the metadata "process" but so far it has failed twice after writing about 9000 files out of 405000 - nah I don't have a scrapping issue - and that was with what I got tagged, once I started having computer issues, I stopped tagging so all my stuff from the past few months hasn't been touched (and the Believe In Magic series has lots and lots of goodies in there too. :)) I am praying that even if it takes a few tries, the metadata thing works and I can then use it on the Mac easily - otherwise I have to start tagging from scratch - which gives me twitches just thinking about it.
 
Have you tried looking at all your images using the Coverflow view setting? Because that will allow you to flip through the images quickly. I don't use it though - I make the thumbnails large enough I can see what they are for the most part (like kit elements) and then quick view (hit the spacebar) if I need to view it bigger.

You also mentioned wanting a file tree view option and I'll say, when I first switched to a Mac that was one of the features I missed the most so I downloaded the free trial of Pathfinder (http://www.cocoatech.com/pathfinder/) which will give you that option. I found by the time the 30-day trial ended I was comfortable enough with how Finder worked that I didn't need it anymore but it was super helpful when I made the switch. ETA: I'd also recommend looking up Mac shortcuts because there's a shortcut that will move you up in the file tree (like from an elements folder back to the kit folder) which is what I use now instead. I think it's Command+up maybe? I'm not at my computer or I'd check, haha.
 
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Thank you for all the suggestions! After a week of frustration and then to find that my brand new (took a month to transfer all files from old EHDs) EHDs were read only due to being in a Windows format, I brought the Mac back and bought a windows computer. My husband was saying with all the frustration and lack of easy to scrap to just give in and take it back - so after a lot of thought and sadness, that is what I did.
 
I've found a way to view all images in a folder:
select all the files, right-click and choose open with Preview -- and voila! then you use the arrows for up/down instead of left/right on Win to go from one image to the next.
Hope this helps!
 
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