Customer Reviews

The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers (O'Reilly Digital Studio)

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When 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.

The DAM Book was probably much needed when it was first published - its publication coincided with a realization by many professional and serious amateur photographers that handling the quickly growing digital photo collections required a sound organizing approach and dedicated software tools. The book aptly points out that dealing with digital image workflow and the resulting file archives is in many significant ways different than dealing with film-based archives. Based on this initial premise, the book offers recommendations on how to organize digital photo studio workflow and filing / archive system.

Alas, the author chose to tie VERY CLOSELY his mostly sensible conceptual framework (i.e., HOW to organize) with very specific software and hardware. Often, more general advice is difficult or impossible to separate from his step-by-step, software-specific recipes. So, unless you use exactly the same software and hardware configuration as the author, much, if not most of this information will be of little use.

Since the book was first published, new, DAM- and photographic workflow-oriented software has become available (Adobe CS3, including the new Bridge is now in public beta nearing its release; and Apple Aperture 1.5 and Adobe PS Ligtroom 1.0 are the new, more workflow-focused tools), and more up-to-date (although dispersed) discussion of problems in question can be found in numerous articles on the web. This makes large portions of the book obsolete, as new tools enable different workflows that may be better suited to many photographers' preferences.

The book has other issues.

First, the author LOVES using technical jargon. While technical vocabulary is appropriate in discussing technical issues, creating new terms and elaborate taxonomies for everything is an overkill. The author's misguided argument for using "controlled vocabularies" (a common term, which he uses in his own, very peculiar way - p. 47) is a good case in point. As Eric Abrahamson (Columbia Business School) aptly points out in his excellent book "A Perfect Mess," organizing is always good in principle, but OVER ORGANIZING by creating systems more complex than it is necessary to get the job done, comes at a very steep price in time and resources needed to maintain the system. Enough said.

Secondly, since this is a workflow book (not a coffee-table book), the full color print is totally unnecessary, and the price point is consequently too high. This should have been one of those $9.95 O'Reilly quick-guide booklets. Most photos reproduced in the book are simply decorative, or used as examples for things that are obvious (e.g. an example of a "group shot" - duh!; or a photo of wine barrels in a cellar as a metaphor for file storage system). Photos are not interesting on their own merit; screen captures and simple diagrams would be just as effective in greyscale.

In summary, you may want to flip through the pages of the book at a local library or bookstore - what's really useful and noteworthy here, can be easily grasped in less than 15 minutes; otherwise, your money may be better spent on a good book focused on the actual software tools YOU are committed to using.

I am a fairly serious photographer- with over 5000 cataloged images stored in iViewPro. I also use Photoshop CS2- so I have pretty much the same setup as Peter Krogh uses for his book. I probably shoot a couple hundred images a month, of which maybe 5% get archived and saved.

The best thing about this book is it describes, in detail, one whole methodology for setting up a reasonable system for storing, naming, cataloging, backing-up, rating, and organizing photos. I would much rather a book that describes one method, rather than trying to describe every possible methods and the tradeoffs of each. Krogh describes how he does it, why he did it that way, and what the advantages an disadvantages were. You may object to some of his choices- (I am not a fan of digital negatives), but opinions are like you know what...everybody has one.

If you use the same software that Krough uses, you will be very satisfied with his book. If you use others (Photoshop downrevs, ACDSEE, etc), I can see the book being a bit of a disappointment. However, since I use the same tools (and these probably cost close to $1000 to duplicate), the price of the book was easily made up in just a couple of the hints.

I do have one complaint. The interface between CS2 and iVIEW is clunky in that it doesn't point to the same metadata for some fields- specifically the star rankings. Krogh suggests a number of work-arounds, none of which I really liked. None of that is Krogh's fault- Microsoft and Adobe need to have a meeting. However the one thing that really annoyed me was that Krogh offered one script to address the problem, which is offered on his website for a fee- don't remember the exact amount- $20 seems to ring a bell.

If there is one thing I hate, it is laying out cash for a methodology book, only to be hit up again for downloading a script.

If stuff like that doesn't bother you- I wholeheartedly recommend the book, subject to your having the same toolset. If stuff like that bothers you- hold your nose and buy it anyway.

"Workflow" is the popular buzzword when it comes to digital photography, and no wonder: workflow is critical! We all need help controlling our ever-growing digital photo collection. Peter Krogh is also an active commercial photographer and that's a big factor in this book's success. Armed with real-world experience, he shares his tips and tricks for processing, organizing, keywording, and protecting your images in an efficient way.

Krogh's system combines Photoshop CS2's Bridge with separate cataloging software (he uses IView Media Pro, but points out that Extensis Portfolio and others work just fine too). He also makes a persuasive case for using Adobe's DNG format in your Raw file workflow - i.e., for archiving your images.

The DAM Book covers everything - from setting up to backing up. But the best "advertisement" for Krogh's system? He uses these techniques to maintain his own digital file - one that grew by more than 135,000 images in the past three years alone!

Krough has written a book that deals with a need that many photographers have ignored as they have made the transition from film to digital. How do you keep track of all those thousands of files?

The most important contributions of this book are it's clear explanation of the big picture of the cataloging process. He suggests developing a systematic way to name, store, and archive each file.

He answers important questions such as: How does Browsing software (like Bridge) differ from cataloging software (like iView MediaPro). Where in the work flow should metadata be added. Why convert all your RAW files to DNG? What are all those confusing IPTC panels used for?

I suspect he suffers from an Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. Instead of being satisfied with a 5-star rating system, he pulls in color labels to pull out the nuances of images that are in some way flawed. This is simply overkill for those of us that need to be out taking pictures. If one fully embraced his meticulous file management practices, there would be no time to shoot pictures.

His naming system is baffling to me. He proposes naming all of the files with names like: "Krough_010501-1234.dng". Personally for me using some descriptive language that others may be able to understand is useful, so my naming convention would be: "Tiger "Swallowtail_1234.dng"

Hardware for storage is discussed at some length and is quite helpful. I do disagree with his statement that " buying expensive RAID setups for archive files doesn't make sense for most photographers." In the past I used his proposed method of multiple external hard drives, but two years ago, after I had two LaCie hard drives fail, I made the jump to Apple's Xserve RAID. Now my data is fully backed up at all times. It has performed flawlessly and does not have to be much more expensive than multiple hard drives.

He is enamored of using Scripts with Bridge. Most users (including me) find Scrips confusing and simply ignore them. However, his descriptions are clear and I'm tempted to try them.

Despite the negative comments I do recommend this book. Nowhere else have I seen these topics covered in such detail. For Professional or serious amateur photographers, keeping track of your files is a growing problem. This book shows you how to structure your images so that in the future you can find that needle in the haystack.

Some books are different - they make you understand concepts through experiences, rather than theory. This book is one of them, although the first chapter is a little dry. Read through the first chapter, and you won't want to keep the book down for the rest of the book. Although the book is written from a professional photographer's point of view, it has tons of ideas and "organization-tips" for every person who uses a digital camera and wants to better arrange their collection.

And yes, the book is certainly specific to Adobe Bridge, and IView Media Pro - and the author does assume that everyone uses Apple OS X, but only 5% of the book is specific to users of these programs and OS - even if you don't use these applications, you'll benefit from the book. You'll learn how to develop your photo-rating system. Peter Krogh even attempts to make the entire system future proof with a look at how many photographs you might have 10 years from today. He discusses Adobe's DNG format in detail, and provides significant info about metadata. All put together, this is "the book" to buy if you are even remotely interested in DAM.

Geetesh Bajaj/Indezine.com

Very compreshensive. From how to name and label photos as you import them to what type of disks to use for backups. He covers thousands of details that i would not have thought about. Is clearly geared toward professional level of photo indexing. However, he offers helpful suggestions for any level of digital photographer.

The viewpoint is specifically from one of a MAC user with iView and Photoshop CS2. He says his concepts apply to any software of this type. But, his examples are all with these packages. Great if you plan on using these packages, annoying if you are not.

Very well written and a bargain for all the information you get.

I've been struggling with digital workflow, more storage and management than post-processing, for a long time. I take a lot of digital images, and so this is always an in-my-face problem. This book provided good ideas and a fully working example of a process that works. Is it perfect, meaning did I use the author's process w/o change? No. But his thinking gave me the solid foundation to finish developing my own ideas and actually put in place an effective storage and management workflow. Partly, the world is changing, with for instance the introduction of Adobe Lightroom since this was published. That product and Apple Aperture both fill the void somewhat differently than the Bridge/ACR/Photoshop/iView based workflow outlined in the DAM book. Also, since publication, iView has been purchased by Microsoft and the effects that will have are still unknown. But tools will always change. At least this book outlines what you need to consider else you get mired down and possibly worse, lose photos because you don't have adequate safeguards in your process.

Does Lightroom replace this workflow? No. The author doesn't think so, and neither do I. But I am using Lightroom for the initial import phase, and like it better than Bridge by a lot. Also, I don't use iView, as I was already using iMatch, which fills the same void, about as well as iView. iMatch is a little bit rougher around the edges, is MS Windows only, and probably a bit slower as a browser, but it has great functionality as a cataloging application. Just to point out, there are a few other tools that fill the same voids as those the author uses.

This book also fully covers the RAW image manipulation part of the workflow. I was more in tune with that part already, but still learned a lot from the book.

If you even remotely think you need this book, you do. You owe it to yourself to read it. And if you don't want to think about it, you can even today adopt the authors process completely and get up to speed quickly, and have an effective and efficient process within a few days (if you own the required products). That's probably the best way to use the book. Just do what he says. Then, as you use the workflow day to day, you'll find the areas you might want to change and you can do that. But in the meantime, you'll be adding value to your collection and spending a lot less time in the process while you're making those decisions.

For someone who used to store all there metadata in html files, this book gave some much needed information.
For those who look to this book to answer all their questions, it won't. You need some actual logic and photographic knowledge to make use of this book.
I've seen complaints about the file structure recommendations this book pushes, but some people obviously didn't read the book, just skimmed. The main premise of this book is to stop relying on where the file is stored on what drive and puts importance on what the file actually IS. This makes finding the right needle in a smaller haystack of images that can span a decade. By assigning time, keywords, ratings, and other metadata to your images they are actually usable.
Over the last 3 weeks I moved over a database of film (240 rolls, about 8000 images) and am finally making sense of the last 4 years of shooting because of this book.
Krogh's preference for DNG is well justified, as is his use of Adobe Bridge/Camera RAW. AFAIK there is no other solution that properly catalogs raw files after exposure/color modifications. NONE. Get over it. XMP and DNG is why I think its outright stupid to use any other raw converter.
Hardware choices are generally correct, especially the distaste of RAID. I'd rather have four indipendent backed up disks than 5 disks running in one box that I can't turn on/off individually (wearing the disk down) with a common failure point PSU that I can't remove from the failed case and put into another if everything falls apart at the last moment. RAID is very risky.
Ignore part of the Camera RAW chapter, read Bruce Fraser's book instead.
Read the iView manual, because this is not an iView guide, just an explaination of logical concepts.
This has been the best book for the continuing usefulness of my digital archives. Buy it, steal it, just read it.

I was deeply impressed by Krogh's book, I'm a professional landscape photographer and got quite a number of ideas for improving my own workflow and productivity from the book. The book is detailed, describes general principles starting from easy-to-follow examples, and is clear and complete. I put together a somewhat longer review of the book on PhotograBlog, but the conclusion is simple--it's an extremely useful book for professional and very serious amateurs, and I think it will provide signficant value to photographers across a wide range of levels of experience with DAM.