Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 296 pages
- Published by: O'Reilly Media, Inc. November 22, 2005
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0596100183
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0596100186
-
Book Dimensions:
9.7 x 8 x 0.6 inches
- Weighs: 1.8 pounds
Product Description
Can you find your digital photographs when you need them, or do you spend more time rifling through your hard drive and file cabinets than you'd like? Do you have a system for assigning and tracking content data on your photos? If you make a living as a photographer, do your images bear your copyright and contact information, or do they circulate in the marketplace unprotected?
As professional photographer and author Peter Krogh sees it, "your DAM system is fundamental to the way your images are known, both to you and to everyone else." DAM, or Digital Asset Management, in the world of digital photography refers to every part of the process that follows the taking of the picture, through final output and permanent storage. Anyone who shoots, scans or stores digital photographs, is practicing some form of digital asset management. Unfortunately, most of us don't yet know how to manage our files (and our time) very systematically, or efficiently.
In
The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers, Krogh brings clarity to the often overwhelming task of managing digital photographs, with a solid plan and practical advice for fellow photographers on how to file, find, protect and re-use photographs. Following a thorough overview of the DAM system and de-mystifications of metadata and digital archiving, Krogh focuses on best practices for digital photographers using Adobe Photoshop CS2. He explains how to use Adobe Bridge, the new CS2 navigational
software that replaces the File Browser introduced in Photoshop 7, with full details on integrating Bridge, Camera Raw and Digital Asset Management software.
Compellingly presented in four-color format,
The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers brings Krogh's award-winning creative approach to a subject that could have been technically intimidating. Instead, Krogh's twenty years of experience and instructive visual storytelling make this material not only accessible, but compulsory reading for serious digital photographers.
About The Author
Peter Krogh is a commercial photographer in the Washington DC area. He is an Alpha Tester for Adobe, helping with the development of workflow and asset management tools for Photoshop and Adobe Bridge. He is on the board of directors of ASMP, the American Society of Media Photographers, and speaks frequently on Digital Asset Management to photographers' groups and other computer users. You can see his photography work on his website, www.peterkrogh.com, and some of his work promoting digital standards at www.digitalphotographystandards.com
Reader ReviewsWhen I first became a serious photographer back in the days of film, I stored my negatives and pictures in a shoebox. As my collection grew, I switched to contact sheets and coded negative files. Afterwards I filled a closet with special filing boxes of negatives and prints. But it was hard for me to find an older picture. I tried cross-filing but it never really worked. Then came digital. By word of mouth, postings in on-line forums and an occasional magazine article I figured out that I'd better back up my photo files to non-erasable media and that I could more easily find old files by cataloging them with cataloging software. But I can't say that I developed a comprehensive system. The DAM Book does that. (I wish they had taken a different title; the pun soon becomes boring.) Krough presents a system for sorting, archiving and finding photographs using Adobe Bridge and cataloging software. After defining digital asset management (DAM) and metadata, he talks about creating the digital archive both as an information structure and as a hardware configuration. Because he presumes that serious photographers will be using Photoshop, he discusses the use of Adobe Bridge as an asset management tool and describes a DAM workflow. He then discusses cataloging software, what he calls derivative files (which are generally files derived from a master copy) and strategies for file migration, including computer upgrades, software changes and even film migration. The author's own system seems beyond the needs of most photographers. (He claims to catalog 135,000 pictures a year.) But even though his own system includes rack-mounted servers, raid configuration and multiple back-ups, he also suggests simpler systems that include a single computer, an external drive and DVD backups. But what is most important is not the description of systems but the presentation of concepts that most digital photographers can apply. For example, even though I could see the difference between browsers and cataloging software, articulating the distinction between the two makes it easier to analyze my own requirements. And understanding that for a digital cataloging system, that uses keywords, the title of a picture is not essential to finding it makes it easier to use titles that are system related rather then content related. Krough describes useful software that supplements Bridge that can be downloaded for free and will make DAM easier. (Unfortunately he hasn't found a way to make Bridge run any faster, but he does suggest time-saving procedures.) He also suggests procedures that some photographers will not need, like embedding a rating in every photograph, and other procedures that might be a little premature, like converting every file to Adobe's DNG format to better preserve metadata. On the other hand, before I even finished the book, I had made several changes in my own DAM system. For example, although he uses iView MediaPro as an example of cataloging software, he made me wonder if my cataloging software had the same capabilities that I had never used. A little time with my software manual and I now have a place to store external metadata that are not embedded in a picture file, but are associated with particular pictures. There are other books that discuss DAM but this is the first I've encountered aimed at photographers. I consider it essential reading for serious digital photographers.
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