Well I have tried a few and found for me the best one is a good Genealogy program. I am able to link photos and copy and paste any and all information. I just change some information but I am able to keep everything on one program and have it set up so I can find anything with ease. Some of a few of these programs are free and will accomplish as much as most will need, I did buy mine and if I do not want to update it I do not need to as for me it has all I need. I also use it for my recipes also. I just give each one a different file. There is lots of room for notes and different ways you can create information for easy location anything. If you would like to try a genealogy program to see how well it will work for your needs you can just type free genealogy software and it should bring up a few. My suggestion would be if you would like the RootsMagic essentials would be a good free version, myself I use the full version. Paul

Oh, You are not anal at all--LOL--I'm an electronics engineer by trade and software engineering manager in practice. That makes me really, really anal about data. Many fields in my db are drop-down or checkbox type. When I upgrade to the next version of base db software it will also handle attaching photos and export to HTML web page. Like Excel, it is very easy to add/subtract fields with this program and easy to sort on any field. Here are the fields my db has for each cultivar: 1. drop down for: want/really want/no thanks/have/ordered/auction bid/auction won 2. variety name 3. hybridizer 4. year registered 5. scape height 6. bloom size 7. foliage type 8. bloom season 9. bloom description bloom form nocturnal rebloom extended fragrant awards tet/diploid pollen fertile pod fertile 1st yr grown source property where grown (I've moved and not all plants I've grown came with me but still want to track my experience with them) landscape location (drop down that can be easily customized) additional notes (degree of info here varies by my interest/use of the plant. It might include: parentage, offspring, $ paid, when I expect order to arrive, etc) I'm trying to see if there is a way to link db's with this program so that I could use this initial data as the base for a hybridizer's tool that would link seedlings listed to the parents in the original list. It exports in a standard format so I was thinking about making my data available in exchange for DL trades sometime in the future as I get more of the data verified and/or importing data from other's Excel files to customize a db for them in exchange for DL trades if they were interested in purchasing the base program from Illium (I use the db tool for a lot more than DL too. I use it to keep all my shopping lists, recipes, inventories (books, reading lists, movies, collectibles, etc), to do lists, medical and perscription histories for my family, household/auto maintenance, special quotes, and much more- just about anything you want to organize in a list or small db format and carry with you on your pda. You can password protect any sensitive lists. So its a handy tool anyway. In fact I was already using it for all this other stuff before I decided to use it for DL & plants. LOL- adding plants was just another extension of my already over the top data obsessions...

Some people will print to an image file and then color it in photoshop. Some will then use one of the effects such as "watercolor" to loosen the rendering up a bit. I don't color render very often. When I do it is usually for a commercial project that is not overly detailed with landscape plants. What I do is to take my plant blocks used in the drawing and re-insert them into the drawing at a scale of one. I snap a line to the insertiom point of the block and then explode the block. Then I draw a circle around the outline of the plant on its own layer. I copy the circle twice, placing one so the center is slightly up to the left of the center of the original and one slightly down to the right. I trim the part of the upper right circle which goes outside of the one that fits the plant symbol. I also trim the part of the lower right circle that is inside of the plant circle. That gives me three areas to color with solid hatching. I do light, shade,& shadow. Then use the drawing order command to push them behind the linework of the symbol. Then I redefine the block and it changes all of them in the drawing to have the color.You can freeze the color layers if you want to print just the line work. Then I solid hatch other areas being careful to manage the drawing order to keep linework on top. (sorry about the blue linework, it is usually black, but I was in a hurry - this one is also done with the shadow to the lower left and I described it to the lower right)

Count me in as another Family Tree Maker user. I love this software! I have a World Deluxe account (the highest access available) with Ancestry.com (and have had a full account with them for more years than I care to remember). I also have a Gold account (the highest access available) with Genealogy.com (and I had the account with Genealogy.com prior to my account with Ancestry.com!). The two sites are both part of The Generations Network, but they each have some records that the other doesn't, and some records are searched more easily on one site than the other, so I keep both accounts. When you have an annual account with either site, you get a free copy of the Family Tree Maker software. I get the new version every year. I have several USB jump drives onto which I copy EVERYTHING. I also have a full backup copy on my laptop. That way, if my desktop pc fails, I can resort to my laptop. If both desktop and laptop fail, I can turn to a jump drive. If it fails, I can go through at least six more jump drives before I'd have to consider the data to be lost. But... one cool thing about my Ancestry.com membership is that I was able to export my Family Tree Maker data to a gedcom file, then upload it to Ancestry.com. I was then able to take all of the supporting electronic documentation (e.g., Census records, Draft Registration Cards, immigration and naturalization records, Social Security Death Index, marriage/birth/death records from various states, etc.) and "save them to" folks in my online tree. I can also add notes to the info for the folks. I also have my own web site with our genealogy information, photos, etc. Bottom line is that there would have to be one heck of an information technology failure for me to lose everything!