? for Studio Photogs about metadata

[jeffrey_douglas]

OK here's the deal. Hopefully this is the correct forum for this question.

 

In my day job I am a Digital Assets Manager for a very large cosmetics company.

My job is to keep track of all company images and artwork. This means getting

images into our DAM (digital asset management) system with keywords and usage

information and such.

 

I am in the process of trying to sreamline our workflow with outside

photographers, we don't have inhouse photography.

 

I am thinking about asking photographers to start putting certain information

about the shoot in PS metada fields. The information would be like model name,

product name, usage info and such.

 

I'm just wondering if this is common practice these days or would I be breaking

new ground here. Would this be benificial to the Studio or just additional work?

 

Any knowlegeable info from studio photographers appreciated.

[aeaster]

Sure, in a very real way it would make perfect sense for the photographers to metatag their own contributions Is your company going to pay the licencsing fees for every photographer you use to have the neccessary version of your DAM system on their home computer? Like a lot of other good ideas, this one would probably get sunk by your accounting people after a very brief cost/benefit analysis. To the budget-balancers, it would leave more beans at the end of the year to hire a DAM code-monkey for the least wage they will accept.

 

Such is modern business.

[jeffrey_douglas]

Usage is purchased on all photography, otherwise there would be no point in having the

pictures taken if the company could not use them.

 

As for the rest of your post I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

I do appreciate you helpful intentions though.

[aeaster]

Jeff, sorry for the corporate babble-speak. I will attempt to clarify it a bit. I am an editor (press/wire and multimedia) for a very large industrial publisher in Washington DC. Our work is probably not THAT dissimilar when you get right down to it; perhaps the product vocabulary and subject matter are the biggest differences.

 

If I read you correctly, you are asking about getting the photographers themselves to insert the metadata (tags) into their own work -- bypassing or eleminating someone on your end from having to do it for them. Would this be for search-engine use or just for your own database management? Not that it really matters. I may be wrong, but I think that the current version of CS2 allows just such a thing.

 

It is that DAM thing of yours (ah, the rich irony of it all) that has me puzzled. To me it sounds like a Content Management System (CMS) under a different name. Am I correct in assuming that it is your job, or someone's, to take the metadata and enter it into your DAM system? What I wonder about is, are you going to give the photographers the access to the DAM (possibly a very expensive move) or will their metatagging in the PS be recognised by the DAM system. Are you still following me? If your DAM is anything like the CMS I use -- and I bet you T-bone steak to a knockwurst they are essentially similar -- then it is exceedingly picky about the code and metatagging that it will accept. If it has no problem recognising the CS2 tags it would make good sense to have the photographers do it themselves, but only if every one of your outside photographers do it correctly. If not; then you might be creating a complete clusterphuque for yourself.

[jeffrey_douglas]

OK, now I'm with you.

 

With the digital asset management system that we use I am able to map certain fields from

Photoshop directly into our system as files are loaded in, so if they enter it I won't have to.

 

Getting basic info from our art buyers and art directors after the shoot ends is very

challenging. If I can get the information that I need placed in PS metadata fields at the shoot,

such as model/product names and usage info, that would cut a big chunk of time out of my

workflow.

[john_macpherson]

Jeffrey - have a look at iView MediaPro's Alamy Wizard. Just as an example of something that does what you want to get you thinking...

 

I dont know what budget you have, and how big your company, but iView have collaborated with Alamy to solve just such a problem as you have described.

 

Their 'Wizard', a free download for photogs allows the photog to prepare their images in whatever programme to add metadata, then run the Wizard which checks that all the correct fields are filled with the correct data. If the images are ok and fields are filled, the images are passed as ready, if not properly filled they are flagged up in a list and the photog can go back and effect a remedy. It's simple and fairly elegant, and very practical.

 

Something like this written for you by a coder might cost a bit, but downstream savings for your company might be considerable.

 

However all this is academic as the REAL problem is not a storage or field-mapping solution I fear....but actually getting contributors to spend the time actually doing the work for you!

 

Are they prepared to so this for you? Would you pay a slightly enhanced fee for contributors prepared to do this work and to your strict requirements? And a lesser fee for those not thus prepared?