Tech Update |
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Greetings,
Dave Herbig here, reporting on exciting technical developments at Danita Delimont Stock Photography and the photography industry in general.
New Advanced Lightbox Features
Just two months after launching the Advanced Lightboxes, they have been improved!
Now when viewing two lightboxes at once, both lightboxes can be e-mailed, printed, and annotated with notes from the two lightbox view. And the notes and caption fields are now unlimited in capacity! Try e-mailing a lightbox to a client or co-worker. You can be talking on the phone with them and making changes to the lightbox that can be instantly seen by hitting your browser’s refresh button. For example, you could be working with an author on a book chapter and send a sample from your lightbox on that subject. If the author would like to see different images, you can add them from your main lightbox while on line and the author can see and discuss your new choices immediately!
PACA Digital Standards Committee Report
As a member of the PACA (Picture Archive Council of America) Digital Standards Committee, I am involved in the day-to-day development of recommendations and standards for PACA members. In 2003 the Committee published its first set of recommendations with the intent of seeking consensus between photographers, stock agencies, and buyers so that a more efficient and standardized digital workflow could be created. We are now working with ASMP, CEPIC, BAPLA, ASPP, BVPA, Adobe and others to come up with standards that will be consistent across the industry. Recommendations so far have focused on file types, formats, color spaces, and metadata (IPTC or File Info fields).
Most significantly, files should be sent to agencies as uncompressed TIFFs or level 12 JPEGs in “Baseline Standard” mode. (We prefer TIFFs whenever possible.) The preferred color space is Adobe RGB 1998. If an image file already contains a color space, it is best to leave it in that color space. Use sRGB only for files that will be used on the Web. Monitors should be calibrated to ensure color consistency.
Metadata recommendations were covered in some detail. The debate was significant and centered mostly on the copyright and credit fields. It is best to view the committee’s report to get all the details. The complete recommendations can be viewed at
the PACA web site.
I urge photographers to start following these recommendations at their earliest opportunity as we will be adopting them once they become final.
Enough for now. If you have any topics you would like me to discuss in future issues, just drop me a line at dherbig@danitadelimont.com
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Dave Herbig
Reluctant CTO
and Technichal Supergenius
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