ACDSee Pro 3

Can I rename categories?

• 

  Shabbadang
  Member

  I am just starting out with ACDSee and want to do it right from the start. I haven't settled exactly what my categories will look like, and if they can't be renamed I must think hard before tagging a lot of images.

  The thing is I think I succeeded in renaming some categories earlier today, but now it seems like it's not possible. Am I mistaken, or is this really possible? In a database I suppose the categories will get an ID number that keeps track of the category, so it really should be possible if the database is done right.

  Also, I would like to know if it is possible to move categories around? That would also be great if, at some point, you'll have to reconsider the structure, if it gets impractical. And, if categories have ID:s, moving categories around should be possible too, but is it and how do I do it?

  Posted On October 5, 2009 - 03:11 PM (1 month ago) (Permalink to this post)
• 

  Shabbadang
  Member

  OK. I got it, I was in the wrong pane. I must be in the Organize pane and I was in the Properties-Database pane, and it can not be done there.

  Posted On October 5, 2009 - 03:16 PM (1 month ago) (Permalink to this post)
• 

  Marc Sabatella
  Moderator

  I would suggest before you get too deep into this that you give serious though to whether you should be using Keywords or Categories for whatever it is you are trying to do.  There are plenty of tradeoffs, and if you search these forums, as well as my series of blog articles on DAM (digitla asset management) at blog.acdsee.com, you'll find a lot of things to think about.  Some of the tradeoffs include

  - keywords are far faster to enter - typing with autocomplete beats selecting from a list any day of the week

  - keywords can be stored (via batch set information) safely and reliably in a dedicated IPTC keywords field, which all other photo management programs and online services know about and can access; with categories, it's hard to get the info into the file in a way that any program will be able to access

  - categories have the advantage of being able to be hierarchically organized.  certain other programs allow hierarchical organization of keywords as well, but there is no standardized way to store this info in the files

  - it can be nice to have two different ways to organize photo.  i use keywords to organize based on content.  things you can tell about the picture by looking at it, like that it contains "dogs" or "roses" or depicts "laughing".  I use categories to organize based on things that matter to me an me only, like the fact that these are pictures that I intend to display in one of zenfolio galleries, or these are pictures I need to get prints made of, or these are pictures I want to burn to a disc to send to a given client/friend/relative.

  - some people use categories to allow them to organize their info hierarchically, but still write it out to IPTC keywords in a flat list where other programs can access it.  that approach works well, to be sure, but I still find it more cumbersome to enter the info that way, especially since to take advantage of it, you have to check all the boxes higher up in the hierarchy any time time you assign a picture to a subcategory

  Anyhow, there are lots of ways to do this, and the good news is you can pretty easily change things around after you've started - but better to think through at least a bit how you think you might want to do it, especially when it comes to writing the info out to the files, since oyu don't really want to have to keep redoing that.

  Posted On October 7, 2009 - 07:07 PM (1 month ago) (Permalink to this post)

Subscribe to this topic via RSS

Reply

You must log in to post.