Organizing Artwork Files on Your PC

[Scott Winstead]

Any good tips on organizing your artwork files (.eps, .cdr, etc.)? It seems that everything that I find is only a partial solution (i.e., it will handle .jpg, .tiff, .gif, etc.) but won't handle other file formats.

I've also purchased various vector art packages but no description is attached so you either have to look at 100s of thumbnails to find the picture you're looking for or manually create some form of catalog to record it.

Ideally, I could have something to capture/catalog my CorelDRAW X3 artwork and other seperately purchased artwork in a common catalog with subfolders and descriptions. Does something like this exist?

Thanks!

[Dave Jones]

I use ThumbsPlus http://www.cerious.com/

It supports most file formats. I have an old version (from 2001) which seems to handle X3 fine, but not the latest Adobe Illustrator format. I assume a newer version of ThumbsPlus does.

[Bruce Volden]

My artwork is basically identified with my clients. If I have to scan something it is temp'd in a "junk" folder til laser ready, then saved to a customers file. If more stuff is included I also add that to the file. For various clipart~that too is only saved to a clients file. Organizing a customers file is relatively easy since they have a name/company and can be referenced when needed. I have ALL laser ready files in a "Graphics" folder. Sounds easy??? well try that under WIN 3.1 with limited file extensions, thanks Bill Gates, for WIN 98 on up:)


Bruce

[Scott Winstead]

The problem is being able to view all file formats with thumbnails. It seems to me that most of the file catalog utility software handles bitmap files fine and some vector images but can't handle .eps files.

I use a lot of wildlife and outdoor sports images (some are many different views of the same animal or fish) with my laser engraving - unfortunately many of them don't have descriptive file names and can't be viewed in mass. Looking for some type of software "tool" that will allow me to create subfolders and/or view with thumbnails for all file vector and bitmap images. Is this possible?

[Dave Jones]

Here's the supported formats for ThumbsPlus:

http://www.cerious.com/formats.shtml

It includes all common raster formats plus EPS, CDR, WMF, etc... The Pro version also supports DXF.

[Scott Winstead]

Thanks Dave - I will look into this further. When I first looked at ThumbsPlus I didn't see the capability for .eps files. This looks very promising!

[Dave Jones]

There's a demo version, but I don't know what restrictions it has.

[Frank Corker]

Thumbs plus is a really good software but keeping the small thumbnails takes up a huge amount of disc - for my mind a big failing as I have a 80GB hard disk packed with just EPS and graphics - it doesn't 'do' ai but does do eps. I use xnview from xnview.com that does eps but no thumbnails but it's pretty quick