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How do you organize your screenshots?
Yautjagirl
Posts: 351 Member
I play rotationally, and I love to take pictures of my sims, so I have tons of various photos. Right now I have all of my photos in one folder, but it is getting tedious to go through it each time I want to find a specific screenshot, so I really want to put them in separate folders, but I don't know what could be the best way to organize them. By worlds? households? I think the households makes probably the most sense.
I am open to your ideas and tips
Thank you
I am open to your ideas and tips
Thank you
2
Comments
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
My gameplay blog - kindred sims
Ideally, I would organize mine by month, and then edited/posted and unedited/not posted. I took over 500 screenshots in December (I played 11 days this month). If I had different households, I would do it by households.
No, I play a legacy save so I save screenshots per generation there, otherwise I just put it all in one folder. I don't play rotationally so far, but otherwise I'd do it per save and household subfolders.
Too Good at Goodbyes forum thread
Too Good at Goodbyes blog
Gallery: Kathykins
AHQ - Game help and Bugs
Then, once a year I move the screenshots folder away from the game, it frees up hard drive space which helps on game performance. It also means I get a limited bunch of screenshots to work my way through, and it gets less overwhelming than to deal with all screens ever taken.
The "annual folder" I will then spread on misc folder, mostly based on households. Goal is to delete most, so I mainly keep typical portraits that it might be nice looking back on later - they are mostly portraits taken with camera or painted in game.
I already have my online Residents Registry where I save thumbs of each and every resident (C+T+YA+E), so I save only portraits with a certain value, such as those with a typical Photographer Studio setting, a tad more formal. I play nobility including a few dukedoms and baronies, so I mostly save formal portraits for those upper crust Houses. In addition I have a folder for Politicians and Celebrities. My long term archive doesn't include many pictures from regular households' everyday life. I think I have a folder for wedding pictures
In addition to this, I run a series of short videos on my Youtube channel. Each video is simply a series of screenshots - and once the video is produced it feels easier to let go of the pictures. If I need one of them in the future, which I doubt, I can always look at the video and even take a (lower quality) screen dump.
Video series is here. The first 20 vids are themed, but after that they will be quite random.
My gameplay blog - kindred sims
2. I cry
the photography thing be really messing my folder up and then i just leave it be until it makes absolute 0 sense
🏡 Gallery 📖 Stories 🌍 World Project 🥔 MOD/CC Free
For my decades challenge I have My Decades Challenge folder. Then in that each decade has it's own folder and the pictures are named by the year of which it was taken so that everything appears in periodical order.
Updated with Werewolf Diaries (1)
http://www.getfreeebooks.com/star-trek-original-series-fan-fiction-trilogy/
I have a main family though that I gravitate toward most of the time though. I play with aging off so it’s nice to play rotationally ri experiences all life stages
My gameplay blog - kindred sims
TINY HOUSE CHALLENGE
The May Family
Modeling Career?
For the screenshots I include on my blog, I use an external program called Skitch rather than the in-game screenshot feature. This lets me immediately drag the screenshot to the appropriate folder after I take it rather than having to organize them all after the fact. (It also lets me add text, as I label the pictures with the Sims' names.) These screenshots are sorted into folders first by household, then by round. Each one is named as a simple number, which automatically keeps them in order within the folder.
However, I do end up with a lot of screenshots in my game's folder as a result of taking pictures using the in-game photography options. Every so often, I have to whittle them down so they don't take up too much disc space but I don't typically organize them very much. By default, they're sorted by date created and I can generally remember when I took a specific picture if/when I want to access it, so that tends to be enough.
For example, my Westbrook family has several subfolders. There is a folder for each generation. Each generation folder has all the sims in that generation sorted by who their parents are. And inside that folder is the individual kids' folders. I hope that makes sense.
I don't keep them in my game's screeshots folder but in a folder on my desktop that I have for all my sims stuff (house ideas, challenges I want to play, custom saves, etc.)
On Imgur I have them sorted into albums by household for sharing.
For on-going challenges, such as the BuildNShare challenge, I keep a folder for each round I've entered in the main BuildNShare folder. Inside those folders will be a folder for the build tray files, a folder for any Sims created for that round and a screenshots folder, plus the rules/deadline for the round. Inside the screenshots folder is another folder for a slideshow created to present my entry for that round. Sometimes I'll even have folders inside that one for each room to better organize them for the best screenshot to include in the slideshow.
For my Drifter Challenge, I have a folder for each House in the challenge named after each House and the Sim for that House, for example; Drifter House 01 - Ella McDonough. The same as above, inside those folders is a copy of the House rules, a folder for screenshots, the Sim tray files, House tray files and one for the save game file, if it's been removed to play later or the House is finished.
In the case of the Legacy Bachelor/Bachelorette Challenge by Queenarella where I've entered several contestants, I have one main folder and inside are folders for each contestant I've entered named after the contestant and which generation they were entered for. Inside that will be a copy of their completed entry form, screenshots for their entry and a folder for the Sim tray files. Sometimes I will also have a folder for other Sims tray files associated with that round I've downloaded to put in my game.
I also have a House Plans folder. Inside are folders named after the type of build, for instance; Craftsman, Cottage, Farmhouse, Mid Century Modern, etc. Inside those are folders with blue prints for builds, any photos of the builds and sometimes photos of ideas on how to decorate it and information on typical architectural design elements. If I've actually built a house from blue prints saved in that folder, it will get a separate folder named after the in-game build. Inside that will be the original blue prints/photos, folders for the tray files and in-game screenshots.
Lastly, I have a Miscellaneous folder with folders for competition models and one-off challenges/contests, etc. and other important information such as cheat codes, photos of all the neighborhood lots with names/sizes, frog breeding chart, garden grafting combinations, all the plant types and what season they will grow, where to find them, etc., etc.
I absolutely love going back sometimes and looking at the screenshots in these folders to reminisce and/or see how much I've improved in my building skills over the years. I even have a folder with tray files for the Sims I created in the Demo before TS4 was officially released. The very first Sim I ever played in the game was ported over from that folder.
My folders are updated almost daily since I will remove screenshots and/or tray files to put in their respective folders after every play session and also clean up cache files, etc. Once a month or so, sometimes more frequently, I will copy this giant folder of folders to my external hard drive for safe keeping.
It sounds like a lot of work to do all this, but it really isn't if it's done consistently every time you play. The pay off is a more streamlined and lag free game, at least in my case. I started doing this when I still had my old toaster of a laptop out of necessity. I probably could get away with leaving screenshots and tray files in my game now since I have a gaming desktop. But it's become a habit and I like being able to find what I want in a snap from having everything organized in folders.
Happy Simming!
First, I have a folder with subfolders for each household. If the household is big, I might use more subfolders for each Sim. I try to sort and delete when I move pics from the screenshots folder to the proper household folder, because if I leave them all in it gets out of control.
I have a separate folder for all of my CAS shots. I take a lot of these, sometimes for posting, often times just because I like to have pics of all of the outfits I've chosen or various angles of their features. I make a fair share of fantastical "creatures" and odd Sims so I like to have some good shots of them.
Next, I have a "Special Collections" folder. Here is where I put my memorable gameplay stories. These collections can include Sims from various households getting together to have adventures or random events. I title the subfolders with something that will tell me what the happenstance was, like "Bella's Vampire Abduction" so I know exactly what's in it.
Then I have a folder called, "Edited Pics for Posting", where I keep subfolders of pics I've cropped, adjusted lighting, or collaged, etc and those are final edits that I put online. I even keep a subfolder for Avatar pics.
So, yeah, I have a lot of folders but it really helps me to be organized with my screenshots. I can do a household dump after playing and just throw pics into their household folder for sorting later, if I just want to keep my screenshot folder clean to free up the game. Videos, however, are another story. I keep those separate and don't have a system yet.