© 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1743–6540 Journal of Digital Asset Management Vol. 6, 3, 139–146 www.palgrave-journals.com/dam/ Correspondence: Patricia Russotti School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology, One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623- 5603, USA E-mail: patti.russotti@ rit.edu INTRODUCTION This book is a guide for photographers, image- makers, or anyone who will be working with image fi les during the course of their work. It is also a handbook for knowing who should be doing what, within an Eagle ’ s view of workfl ow as well as all the iterations that a fi le will take on during its lifespan. It is for anyone wanting to know the choices for developing a workfl ow to create consistent, and reliable results in their work. Original Article Getting to work – Image ingestion Patricia Russotti visual artist and educator, is a Professor in the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, College of Imaging Arts & Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology. She is an active digital and photographic imaging artist producing a wide range of work for corporations, public service organizations, museums, Individual artistic commissions, funded projects and public exhibitions. She has done extensive consulting for in-house graphic service departments, ad agencies and photography studios. These endeavors focus on assessing, refi ning and creating workfl ows, best practices, and providing training programs. Patti is also committed in assisting educators with the integration of current industry best practices, technology and software into their curriculums. Patti has been training and presenting on Adobe Photoshop since the fi rst version of the application. She is a long time Adobe Beta Tester. She develops and presents technical and creative corporate seminars, workshops and training programs internationally. Patti ’ s career has a breadth and depth of experience and skill in workfl ow, image making (analog, digital, alternative and historic processes), the creative process, design and education. She is the co-author or Digital Photography Best Practices and Workfl ow Handbook, A Guide to Staying Ahead of the Workfl ow Curve. © 2010, published by Elsevier Inc, Focal Press. Patti ’ s positions previous to and concurrent with RIT include: the management and operation of a multimedia lab, ownership and operation of an advertising photography studio and an imaging services, consulting group. Patti holds MS and EdS degrees from Indiana University. Richard Anderson is an advertising and corporate photographer based in Baltimore, MD (USA). He made the transition from fi lm to digital photography in 1999 and now uses a completely digital workfl ow. Anderson has conducted numerous seminars and written magazine articles on digital workfl ow and quality issues for photographers. He is an ASMP Board offi cer and chairs the ASMP Digital Standards Committee. He was the principle author of the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines (UPDIG). He is the project leader for dpBestfl ow, a project jointly funded by the US Library of Congress and the ASMP to promote best practices for digital imaging workfl ow and digital image preservation. In addition to the aforementioned book, the project has published a website, dpBestfl ow.org. , which is a resource for the digital photography community worldwide. Anderson received a 2009 International Photographic Council (IPC) Photographer Leadership Award in recognition for his volunteer work as an ASMP board member, for his contributions to the trade through his role in developing UPDIG, for his efforts in securing a 3-year award from the Library of Congress to further his work on digital standards, and for his educational outreach to the photographic community. ABSTRACT Chapter 7, Getting To Work – Image Ingestion, covers the key com- ponents of getting digital images from the camera into the computer. The ingestion step is one of the most important steps in a safe and effi cient digital image workfl ow. Performing this step properly can provide the best opportunity to automate the dig- ital workfl ow and ensure organization and safe-keeping of the photographer ’ s work. We discuss best practices for: options for safe transfer of images utilizing dedicated ingestion software, creating a fi le and folder backup; fi le naming conventions and strategies; adding metadata and building templates for reuse; and visually verifying images in an image browser before the memory cards are reformatted. Journal of Digital Asset Management (2010) 6, 139 – 146. doi: 10.1057/dam.2010.16 Keywords: digital ; photography ; workfl ow ; best practices • • • • • Russotti and Anderson © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1743–6540 Journal of Digital Asset Management Vol. 6, 3, 139–146140 and to synthesize the workfl ow and communication process; what works, why things work, and what choices you need to make for consistency, effi ciency and repeatability. It is sometimes diffi cult to get direct answers to specifi c questions; everyone has a position and wants to share that with you. Who really knows the best path and with the most accurate information? Many tools are currently incomplete or are still evolving. Many of today ’ s requisite skill sets may require a consultation with an expert in that particular step to ensure accuracy. Collaboration is not just a buzzword, it is a necessary part of our workfl ow. How do you work smart now? Accepting things verbatim may not always be the best way to go. Use this information to make enlightened decisions while tapping into the growing community of imaging professionals. Digital Photography Best Practices and Workfl ow is a culmination of the knowledge and experience of many of those experts . Working with technology requires us to consider the following aspects: Embrace the concept of integrated information and critical thinking to make good decisions. Have an open and informed mind. Accept that things evolve and change. ‘ Know ’ the solution before understanding the new process may hinder an otherwise appropriate action. Technology often becomes like religion and politics – be a good consumer and employ bi-partisan tactics. Learn to examine other ’ s ideas, maintain an open mind, and allow yourself to adjust your position and known facts. All applications have issues – being wedded to one mind-set can hinder a better understanding of the process and a more effi cient workfl ow. Flexibility is paramount – yet consistency and discipline are essential. These are the fundamentals of what workfl ow is about and what is required to stay on top of, and ahead of the curve. Accumulating knowledge and experience has become what we • • • • • • • • • The goals are to: Show how each piece of hardware and software might fi t into the bigger digital workfl ow picture. Help our audience understand how to choose hardware, software and a process that is optimal for their photographic goals. Show how to make informed decisions about choosing the correct workfl ow for your needs. Provide a framework for keeping up with the evolving digital photographic workfl ow and ecosystem. Provide realistic strategies to preserve digital image fi les (and the work that you do to them) for the short, and especially the long term, as they are an important part of our history and culture. During the last few years, the term ‘ Workfl ow ’ has migrated from a primarily print and publishing, graphic arts industry persona to an imaging-at-large term. This has resulted in the need for photographers, artists, trainers and educators to integrate this concept and material into their vocabulary and curriculums. Yet, up until now, there has not been a single and complete resource that puts each of the seemingly disparate processes together. There has been a need to create a harmonious map and guide among all the disciplines that ultimately need to work together. In other words, a resource that unites and leads to all the things you need to do within a workfl ow. Perhaps the root cause of this lack of understanding and consistency lives in the many defi nitions or views of workfl ow, which exist depending on one ’ s background and discipline. This text provides the necessary components to help build a cohesive workfl ow that implements best practices and provides solutions for imaging professionals and educators. Digital Photography Best Practices and Workfl ow is a coherent, concise guide to the key aspects of the digital photography workfl ow; a list of resources and links to stay current and up to speed with the rapid changes in technology; a glossary to help standardize the language and defi nitions as one implements best practices • • • • • • • • Getting to work – Image ingestion © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1743–6540 Journal of Digital Asset Management Vol. 6, 3, 139–146 141 call the best practices – these are the things that work if a little bit of discipline and consistency are applied. Our digital careers are about living through the technological shifts and synthesizing what works and will continue to work as the technology evolves. Figures 1 and 2 provide a workfl ow overview from Chapter 4 of ‘ Digital Photography Best Practices and Workfl ow. ’ DATA PRESERVATION AND DATA BACKUP The primary goal of image ingestion is to preserve image data and create backups. Image ingestion from memory card(s), tethered cable or wireless requires similar steps. In the capture section, we referred to the ideal setup of using a backup card when shooting if your camera model supports that function. If you do not use two cards for capture, you should regularly download your single cards to a disk or storage device; not format cards until the downloaded images can be reviewed and backed up to a second drive; not connect the camera directly to the computer to ingest images (unless shooting tethered); always use download software as opposed to using the Finder application to copy the image fi les. • • • • Figure 1 : This is the dpBestfl ow generic workfl ow excerpted from Chapter 4 of ‘ Digital Photography Best Practices and Workfl ow ’ . Russotti and Anderson © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1743–6540 Journal of Digital Asset Management Vol. 6, 3, 139–146142 non-Latin letters and other non-standard characters such as forward and back slashes, colon, semi-solon, asterisks, angle brackets or brackets. File names should end in a three letter fi le extension preceeded by a period, such as .CR2, .JPG, > TIFF and so on. The next important criterion is that each digital image fi le should have a unique fi le name. Having multiple fi les with the same name is confusing to the photographer and clients alike. There is the danger that a fi le might automatically overwrite another fi le with the same name. How you arrive at unique fi le names will require some thought. Once you have developed a system, it is important to standardize and adhere to it. Some parameters that can be used to develop unique names can incorporate the following aspects: Your name or initials as the beginning of the string . Keep in mind that you are limited to 31 characters, so short names or initials work best. The date of the photography session . This works best if you use year, month and day to keep fi les lined up in a chronological order. A job sequence number . The fi rst project of the year might have a date / job string such as 09001, and so on. This will cause fi les to line up in job number order. • • • • Using the Finder to copy fi les is potentially unreliable, sometimes resulting in skipped or missing fi les. Never use the fi nder to move fi les from the memory card. If you move (not copy) fi les or folders between the memory card and computer disk and some glitch happens to the destination volume, or your connection with it, all your fi les vanish – both on the memory card and on the destination hard drive. There are many other good reasons to use dedicated ingestion software, but image preservation is the most important one. DPBESTFLOW FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS Naming (or re-naming) digital image fi les is a key organizational task in digital image workfl ow as it is the most basic element of your fi le system structure. Digital cameras do not currently have very sophisticated naming options, and the default names are confusing and lack one of the most important criterions for digital image fi le naming – each fi le name must be unique. The fi rst criterion for fi le naming is that it must follow these basic computer system rules: Letters in the name should only be the letters of the Latin alphabet (A – Z, a – z). Numbers should only be the numerals 0 – 9. Only use hyphens and underscores. Avoid any other punctuation marks, accented letters, • • • Figure 2 : Workfl ow parameter decision points. Getting to work – Image ingestion © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1743–6540 Journal of Digital Asset Management Vol. 6, 3, 139–146 143 A sequence number . This number can begin at 0001 and go until the end of the job (make sure to have enough digits to contain the total number of fi les, or your fi les will not line up correctly). Many photographers like this model because they tell at a glance if the total number of fi les matches the fi nal fi le number. Another reason to use this system is that the order that fi les line up (and are likely viewed and proofed) can be controlled easily by organizing the fi les in a desired order and then renaming them. Another approach is to use the automatically generated numbers from the camera. One problem with this approach is that this cannot guarantee unique job names if you use more than one camera when you shoot. Avoid incorporating a job name or description in the fi le name . Although you can do this, it is hard to avoid running into an overly long fi le name using this approach. Another consideration is that if you do a lot of shoots for a particular client, or at a particular location, you will have to use some other naming string to differentiate the shoots from one another, so the descriptive component of the name is not particularly helpful. One fi nal criterion is to have a fi le naming system that allows you to easily tell whether a fi le is an original fi le, masterfi le or derivative fi le. There are any number of possible variants such as a black and white version, a CMYK version or a standard fi le format version from a raw original, such as JPEG or TIFF. Plan for this, and incorporate enough headroom into your fi le naming schema to add a descriptor for these variations. For instance, a masterfi le could have the letter M or, MF or Master added at the end of the fi le name, but just in front of the three-letter extension. A CMYK version could have CMYK added, or a black and white version could have BW added and so on. • • Once you have created a fi le naming system, use it consistently for all fi les. Just as with the optional workfl ow step of converting proprietary raw fi les to DNG, there can be early binding fi le naming, or late binding fi le naming. Although many prefer to implement a fi le naming schema on ingestion, those who use multiple cameras when they shoot, or those who want to organize image fi les in a particular order and have the fi le names preserve that bit of organizational effort, prefer to rename image fi les after the editing workfl ow step. We recommend appending short descriptors for different versions of an image fi le as part of your fi le naming schema. For instance: Original: RNA_08002_001.cr2 DNG version: RNA_08002_001.DNG • • Tripwire One of the very worst things you can do with fi le naming is to create a situation in which the same image fi le has two different names. This can occur if you make an immediate duplicate copy of the ingested fi les, put away a copy and go on to edit and rename the other copy. A workfl ow like that will be doubly confusing because not only will the fi le names not match up, but the total number of fi les may be different as well. Although there are workarounds, such as matching up image fi les by capture time, or putting the original fi le name into a metadata fi eld and matching fi les up that way, it creates more work and wastes time. However, putting the fi le name into a metadata fi eld, such as the ‘ Title Field ’ , is useful for delivery fi les. This allows you to easily recover from situations in which the fi les ’ recipient renames them and then needs another version of the same image. You can direct the person to where the original fi le name is stored and Masterfi le: RNA_08002_001_M.PSD Layered Masterfi le: RNA_08002_001_LM. PSD Flattened masterfi le: RNA_08002_001_FM. PSD Web version: RNA_08002_001_web.jpg Offset printing version: RNA_08002_001_ CMYK.TIFF Desktop or Lab print version: RNA_ 08002_001_print.TIFF • • • • • • Russotti and Anderson © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1743–6540 Journal of Digital Asset Management Vol. 6, 3, 139–146144 INGESTION TOOLS Card readers Card readers come in many confi gurations to accommodate different computer connections (USB, USB2, Firewire 400 / 800) and several types of memory cards (Compact Flash (CF), Secure Digital, Memory Sticks and so on). If you have a collection of cameras, from point- and-shoot to high-end digital, you may need an all-in-one card reader to accept a wide variety of card sizes. This type of card reader is usually a USB device. You may also need a higher speed Firewire 400 or 800 CF card reader. If you photograph events or sports and have a need for speed, you may want to have a set of Firewire 800 card readers. These stackable units can download from multiple cards at the same time. The gold standard for information on fl ash memory cards and card readers is available on the Rob Galbraith site ( www.robgalbraith.com/ bins/reader_report_multi_page.asp?cid=6007- 9392 ). As with most other things digital, plan to periodically replace older memory cards with newer ones that have greater storage capacity as well as increased read and write speed. Luckily, they have gone down in price. Download / ingest software Many software applications used for image ingestion are multifunctional – meaning they can be used as a browser, parametric image editor, cataloging application or all of the above, as is the case for such all-in-one programs such as Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture. One software stands out as purely dedicated to image ingestion, the aptly named ImageIngester . Another widely used application, PhotoMechanic , adds a browsing function as well. Camera manufacturers make downloading utilities and browsers, although their metadata support varies. Adobe Lightroom , Apple Aperture Adobe Bridge and PhotoMechanic 4.6 include image ingestion along with tethered shooting (Aperture directly, and Lightroom, Bridge and PhotoMechanic indirectly by means of auto import from a watched folder fed by the manufacturer ’ s capture utility). Some Cataloging Software, such as Expressions Media have import functions, although few use it for that purpose as it jumps ahead too many steps in the workfl ow. Phase One ’ s Capture One software is widely used for ADD METADATA The second goal of the ingest step is to advance the workfl ow by adding metadata; image adjustment presets; applications such as Image Ingester Pro software that can even add cataloging information as the fi les come into the computer. At the cost of a little bit of setup time, batch metadata can be added to the image fi les via metadata templates. This will save lots of time later in the workfl ow and does not add signifi cantly to the download time. Adding basic metadata at this stage helps to insure that all derivative fi les will have the same base metadata as the originals. We recommend that your basic metadata template should consist of the following: File Name (in the document title fi eld) Name of the Creator / Author Address Phone E-mail Copyright status Copyright notice Generic rights usage This basic set of metadata can be built to provide more specifi c custom metadata as the image fi les go through the editing process. This additional metadata might include the following: Description and / or headline Specifi c rights usage (possibly PLUS code or usage description) Client name Location Keywords Star ratings Special instructions • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • your search time becomes much shorter. In addition, keeping the original fi le name in the metadata can be useful when you need to rename a fi le for use on your web page. This will make it more discoverable by search engines. Getting to work – Image ingestion © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1743–6540 Journal of Digital Asset Management Vol. 6, 3, 139–146 145 INGESTION SETUP Card handling Have a plan for keeping shot cards separate from un-shot cards. Make sure that the un-shot cards are formatted and ready to go. Establish a numbering or coding system for your cards. If you fi nd corrupted fi les, this will make it easier to track down which card may be creating the problem. It also just helps you keep track of your cards. Backing up downloaded cards The ideal plan is to use a software that writes fi les to two separate drive destinations. Use of a Raid1 external drive is highly recommended. But if your software only supports writing to one destination, the second choice is to regularly download to a second drive, although this doubles your download time. The third choice is to regularly copy fi les from the fi rst download to a second drive. In all cases, memory cards should not be formatted until downloads have been verifi ed. The easiest method of verifi cation is to put the downloaded fi les into a raw processor, and let it build new thumbnails from the raw data. • • • Tripwire: Earlier, we said that managing image metadata can be confusing. We face that confusion fi rsthand in the ingestion step. Some of these examples are as follows: ImageIngester writes only the XMP variety of metadata. Others (for example: Aperture) write only the legacy Information Interchange Model (IIM) International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) variety . Adobe Software writes both varieties. PhotoMechanic lets the user decide whether to use XMP or legacy IPTC and where to put it. PhotoMechanic issues PhotoMechanic can embed XMP metadata in proprietary raw fi les (although not any longer as a default setting). Not only is this a potentially dangerous practice, it can also cause a metadata collision with Adobe Camera Raw, where a proprietary raw fi le can have embedded XMP metadata from PhotoMechanic coexisting with attached XMP (sidecar fi le) from Adobe Camera Raw. This will not appear to be a problem, unless the same fi les are put back into PhotoMechanic and any change is made to the metadata. A change will cause Adobe Camera Raw to read only the newer XMP, which is embedded, and ignore the older XMP (camera settings in the sidecar fi le). Result: When this happens, all your parametric edits will be lost, and you will have to start over with your color and tone edits. Best Practice: Our advice is to make sure that the PhotoMechanic preference is set to always create a sidecar fi le for the XMP data. • • • • • Tripwire: Browsers set to use the embedded camera previews cannot be used to verify raw fi les. The preview JPEG can appear fi ne, but the underlying raw data can be corrupt. When using parametric image editors (or browsers set to build previews from the raw data), be aware that you need to let them build their cache and create thumbnails from the raw data before you can judge whether the underlying raw data is good. HANDLING YOUR CAPTURE FORMAT CHOICE Capturing and downloading JPEGs is simplest, and has the least issues. Shooting and downloading Raw + JPEG is trickier. Be sure to test your workfl ow as weird things can happen. We found that some software gives the raw fi les and the JPEG fi les sequential numbers instead of the tethered ingestion, although its metadata support is extremely minimal. Bibble Labs ’ s Bibble software also offers tethered shooting. However, its metadata support is only slightly better than Capture One; although like Capture One, it offers advanced parametric image editing capabilities. Russotti and Anderson © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1743–6540 Journal of Digital Asset Management Vol. 6, 3, 139–146146 tethered or from cards, takes longer than JPEG, but is otherwise straightforward. Some software supports converting fi les to DNG format on ingestion. There are pros and cons, which we discuss in Chapter 9, Optimization . same number with different extensions. This behavior can vary according to the model of the camera and whether ingest is done from cards or done auto-imported when the camera is tethered. Downloading proprietary raw, whether Table A1 : Comparison chart of ingestion software features Photo mechanic Lightroom Bridge Downloader Pro ImageIngesterPro Ingest to multiple locations Yes, up to 2 Yes, up to 2 Yes, up to 2 Yes, up to 3 Yes, up to 3 Choose images to be ingested No Yes Yes Yes No Allow automatic ingestion when card is detected No, but ingest window can pop up No, but ingest window can pop up No Yes Yes Rename fi les during ingestion Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Arrange images into folders by date and time or by name Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Convert to DNG during ingestion No Yes Yes Yes, with plug-in Yes Verify image during ingestion No Only if DNG conversion is being used Only if DNG conversion is being used Only if DNG conversion is being used Yes Embed metadata during ingestion Yes Not in raw fi les Not in raw fi les Yes Yes Sidecar metadata during ingestion Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Metadata variables Yes No No Yes Yes Metadata memory Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Rename differently for different cameras Yes Yes No Yes Yes Filter fi les being ingested Yes No No Yes Yes Tag GPS during ingestion No, but tags can be synced after ingestion No No Yes Yes Eject card after ingestion Yes Yes No Yes Yes Launch external viewer after ingestion No No No Yes Yes Download multiple cards at once No No No No Yes Getting to work – Image ingestion INTRODUCTION DATA PRESERVATION AND DATA BACKUP dpBestflow FILE NAMING CONVENTIONS ADD METADATA INGESTION TOOLS Card readers Download/ingest software INGESTION SETUP Card handling Backing up downloaded cards HANDLING YOUR CAPTURE FORMAT CHOICE Appendix