Getting Control of your Digital Photo Library

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Getting Control of your Digital Photo Library

• By Renee Rosensteel

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Say Thanks upfront

• Pittsburgh Filmmakers
• Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council

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Its all about Darwin

• 20 years ago
• no line items for personal computers.
• Few orgs had in-house photography
• Library management 3 ring binders
• Expectations lower, timelines longer

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Those who adapt survive

• High Expectations
• media delivery on demand
• Pressure and possibility of handling media
  in-house writing, photo, video, design
• high quality
• New costs
• Equipment (computers, software, servers)
• Resources (human, space)
• More pressure to creatively use resources

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Those who adapt survive

• Digital Asset Management
• Response to the flood of digital media that
  cannot be tracked with conventional methods
• New, essential business process.
• Challenge is to communicate the need to
  stakeholders before the issue hurts the org.

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Welcome to DAMDigital Asset Management

• Photos
• But also Videos, PDFs, Illustrations

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Welcome to DAMDigital Asset Management

• Old methods dont work.
• A new business issue has emerged.

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In a perfect world

• What functions do you want your DAM system to
  have? (Wishlist)

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The reality is

• What are the problems with the way you currently
  do DAM?
• What are your current worst case scenarios?

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Who is involved?

• Creators- Staff, freelance pros, clients,
  partners
• Managers
• Digital Asset Mngrs, Editors, Dev. Director
• Consumers
• Media outlets, clients, funders, public,
  in-house clients
• What priorities and needs does each group have?

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Who pays the bills

• Who signs the requisition sheet, not necessarily
  who you submit the request to.
• Be ready to defend your ideas in ways that are
  valuable to top management
• Write down that persons values (at the end of
  the process map back to manager values and
  mission values.)

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Power of human relations in digital systems

• Must start with credibility
• Must achieve buy in
• Practices must be clear and easy to use.
• Must be able to source tools

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Roles, Responsibilities, Resources

• Formality of a plan legitimizes DAM
• Pay now or pay later
• Leadership buy-in

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Image Lifecycle

• Is an image used more than once?
• What are the legal issues associated with an
  image?
• Eg documentation of damage
• Specific rights limitations
• Do you retire images?
• Renovation projects

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What are the business functions for images

• Branding
• Promotion
• Program documentation
• Funding appeals
• Training
• Enhance partnerships
• Income
• Consider these functions when you budget

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Process over product

• Develop a plan based on workflow that meets needs
  rather than mastery of a specific software.
• Plan should be scaleable
• Written plan makes it easier to handle new
  challenges.

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Map current workflow

• Initiate, Ingest, Annotate, Catalog, Store,
  Disperse

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Initiate

• Who wants photos?
• What are the uses?
• New or existing work?

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Initiate

• Legacy work
• Lifespan
• Cost to organize
• Consider partial organization (or prioritize)

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Initiate The paperwork

• Model or property releases
• Logistics sheet

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Initiate RAW

• Max image quality
• Image quality of legacy files can be improved
  over time as parametric image editors improve.
• White balance can be applied
• Output can be 16-bit depth, advantage for post
  processing.
• flexibility in adjusting exposure and brightness
  values.
• Adjustments are non-destructive
• Source dpBestflow.org

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Initiate RAW

• Bigger than JPEG (but smaller than TIFF).
• Proprietary raw formats may become unreadable at
  some point in the future. (Canon did this once
  and found out it was a bad idea.)
• Processing raw files requires a computer, special
  software and time.
• Proprietary raw files can take a while to be
  supported by third-party processors.
• Proprietary raw files are not good candidates for
  storing custom metadata. In fact, most software
  applications refuse to embed any type of metadata
  in them, forcing the use of sidecar files or
  storage of the information in a database or
  folder.
• The only standardized raw file format, DNG, is
  not supported by all raw processing software.
• Source dpBestflow.org

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Initiate RAW/DNG

• Adobes answer to the RAW problem
• Publicly documented, royalty free, open standard
  file format
• Standardized alternative to proprietary camera
  raw files.
• The DNG specification incorporates rich metadata
  support along with imbedded previews, camera
  profiles, and maker notes (private or proprietary
  metadata).
• DNG can employ lossless compression that can
  result in a significant file size reduction over
  the original proprietary raw.
• It is also being promoted as an archival image
  format since it is fully documented and has been
  submitted to the ISO.
• Source dpBestflow.org

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Initiate File format/ Tif

• Tiff
• Not compressed
• Able to make a greater range of changes
• Big files
• Slow

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Initiate File format/ Tif

• Tiff
• Not compressed
• Able to make a greater range of changes
• Big files
• Slow

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Initiate File format/ Tif

• Tiff
• Not compressed
• Able to make a greater range of changes
• Big files
• Slow

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Initiate File format/ Tif

• Tiff
• Not compressed
• Able to make a greater range of changes
• Big files
• Slow

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Initiate File Format/JPG

• Compressed
• Not much room for manipulation
• Small file size
• Very fast workflow
• Most versatile in use
• When compressed at Max QualityTif

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Initiate File Format/JPG

• Compressed
• Not much room for manipulation
• Small file size
• Very fast workflow
• Most versatile in use
• When compressed at Max QualityTif

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Annotate Metadata

• Metadata can be defined as information regarding
  the characteristics of any object, such as its
  name, location, importance, quality and
  relationship to other objects in the collection.
  In other words, it's structured information about
  resources.
• Cataloging is the act of adding an image to an
  image database.Source ControlledVocabulary.com

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Annotate Naming Conventions

• Dont rely on a descriptive name as your primary
  method to find photos.
• Identifier_YYYYMMDD_IMG1234.tif
• Keep the image number that the photographer
  assigned.
• Keep names under 32 characters including the dot
  and the suffix.

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Annotate Naming Conventions

• Dont use spaces in names. UseCapitalizationIfNeed
  ed.
• Dont use special characters ()./\
• Use only letters, numbers, dashes and
  underscores Source ControlledVocabulary.com

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Annotate Keywords

• Captions are fully searchable, so create keywords
  for words in the caption that also need plurals,
  variants and synonyms.
• Use plural spelling only, unless the spelling is
  different than just adding an "s."
• Use gerunds not verbs.
• Do not capitalize unless it's proper noun
• List alt. spellings for international audience
  Source ControlledVocabulary.com

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Annotate Keywords

• Limit keywords to those that express or describe
  the visual content of the image.
• Apply attribute / concept words very selectively
• Cut/paste into Photoshop CS field, use a comma
  and then a space between terms. Source
  ControlledVocabulary.com

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Catalog

• Lightroom
• Aperture
• Extensis Portfolio

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Catalog Hierarchies

• Top level is organized by date
• Take some time to figure out how you look for
  images
• Client, annual event, department, issue
• Can have several paths to find the same image
• Ability to create the SLAM DUNK
• Favorites, annual report, media ready

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CATCH UP

• 5 minutes to talk, phone, text and generate ideas.

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Store

• Two back ups plus write once
• Conform with your overall system backup protocol
• If you dont have a system backup protocol .

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Store

• ESATA Drives

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Disperse

• Free image downloads
• End-user pays for print or download
• What are your obligations as a steward of the
  image?

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Disperse

• Photoshelter
• Extensis Portfolio (enterprise)
• ZenFolio.com
• Online filefolder
• YouSendIt.com

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Disperse Photoshelter.com

• Heavy SEO and viral marketing
• Strong web presentation
• Flexible still image files RAW TIFF JPG PSD
• Sell or allow free download
• Tout security capabilities
• Video not available yet--but soon

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Disperse Extensis Portfolio

• Only free downloads available now
• Lots of flexibility in permissions

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Disperse Zenfolio.com

• Flexible E-commerce
• Took two tries on the MOM test
• GREAT prints
• Extension to upload fr Lightroom
• Can do free downloads, but clunky

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Disperse YouSendIt.com

• Free or paid subscriptions
• Works similar to Online Filefolder
• No e-commerce, just large file sharing

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Disperse GoDaddy Online Filefolder

• Web-based.
• Really easy to use once set up.
• Upload and download
• No e-commerce
• Very secure
• Customer cant see images beforehand (I use a
  Lightroom workaround.)

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Disperse (Print)

• Tom Underiner pixel.river_at_gmail.com
• Modern Reprographics [phone]
• Mpix.com
• Scanning (low-end) Costco