Links and photography

Do you know what the easiest part about digital photography is? The photography itself. Do you know what the hardest part is? For many it’s not Photoshop, it’s not figuring out the menus on digital cameras, it’s not even color management. The hardest part is managing all those digital files.
For me, managing my digital images has created somewhat of a roadblock to my productivity. I know how to optimize my images for many end uses. I know how to get great looking prints, and I’m good at using my digital camera. But naming, managing, backing up, finding and using all those images? If there is one least efficient way of doing all that I’ve probably already tried it.
Digital Asset Management (DAM) is the latest buzzword in a field that seems to be nothing but buzzwords. From the moment you bring your images in to the computer, you’re in the realm of Digital Asset Management.
In a way, Digital Asset Management is a lot like Photoshop or even photography itself: there’s no one right way to do it. Much of it is personal preference and what methods make sense to you. And like Photoshop and photography, there’s a lot of information to help guide you.
During the time I’ve been struggling with this issue, I’ve discovered some great resources. In the interest of saving someone else all that web surfing time, I’ve compiled a short list of some of the more useful resources I’ve come across.
For starters, I’d like to recommend a couple of books that have been of great help. The first one is The DAM Book by Peter Krogh. This book is by a photographer and written for photographers. Though it’s written from the point of view of an assignment/editorial photographer, Krogh’s advice and solutions are applicable to the outdoor and nature photographer. The other book is Real World Camera Raw for Adobe Photoshop CS2 by Bruce Fraser. It’s one of the best references around for using Camera Raw. Though Digital Asset Management is not the main subject of this book, it does have entire chapters about workflow, metadata, and automation.

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