Cutting to the Chase: A good Digital Asset Management system is essential for today's photographers, allowing them to easily put their hands on the exact photograph they need at any time.

 

Digital Asset Management, or DAM for short, is something thought about by photographers, but often not followed through with.  Let's begin with a definition because you might have already thought about it and not even known it.

 

Digital Asset Management (per Wikipedia): management tasks and decisions surrounding the ingestion, annotation, cataloging, storage, retrieval, and distribution of digital assets.

 

Wow, that didn't hardly help at all, did it?  Let me give the s•c•e•e•e photography simplified definition.

 

Digital Asset Management: The naming, storage, and keywording of photos which allows one to easily put their hands on the exact photograph they are thinking of or to find a photograph in their collection that meets the criteria they need (i.e., I need a photo of a swing.).

 

I suspect that if I were to interview a large number of photographers, I would find that most have wished for a better way to search through their photos.  Let's face it, what good are photos if you cannot find the one you need, and if you are like me, IMG_0001 in the 06012013 folder helps me very little in this process.  In fact, even if I rename the folder to "June Random Photos" it still isn't real helpful, is it?  This is where a solid Digital Asset Management process is of importance.

 

I can recall back to my first digital camera and my terrible attempts at Digital Asset Management without software.  I would import my photos, rename the folder to something useful, and then rename each photo to help denote what the photo was about (ex., TomBirthdayParty2013.jpg).  It didn't take long for this to change!  WOw, what a terribly long and ineffective process!  The good news is this isn't logical or practical, and there are software programs, both free and paid.  Some examples include Adobe Bridge, Adobe Lightroom, PicaJet FX/Free, and many others.

 

It's not enough to simply have the software though.  You have to have a process too, one that you follow every time.  Let me give another example.  There was a time I was completely enthralled with Picasa by Google because of its facial recognition features.  In fact, I still like this thought and how well it seems to work (hint, hint, Adobe), but I didn't routinely allow Picasa to search my photos, and when it did, I didn't often go through and tag the faces it found with names.  While the work I have done is very useful, it is totally incomplete.  The same is true if you use a good Digital Asset Management system.  If you don't have a good system in place for tagging, labeling, rating, and storing your images, you won't do it.  I can't answer what the best system is, but I can tell you what seems to be the best practice for me - doing this work as soon as I import the photos.  YES, it is sometimes painful and untimely, but I have just come to realize this is part of the process and non-negotiable.

 

IMG_9437 To me, the most important part of Digital Asset Management is the tagging.  This is what allows you to develop a library of easily searchable photos.  This is also the hardest part to get used to.  For example, if you have a picture of a Bald Eagle, you might just tag that "Bald Eagle", but what other words might come to your mind?  How else might this photo be useful?  What about nest, bird, brown, white, "bird of prey", American, symbol, eagle, raptor, etc?  It pays to really think this out.  Picture with me for a moment that you are interested in seeing all the birds you have taken a picture of.  Had you only tagged the Bald Eagle as such, you would not as easily be able to find the picture.

 

Rating the photos is also important in my process.  I am not going to go into rating systems today, as I think there are as many as there are photographers.  A good, solid rating system allows you to easily parse through photos that not only fit a keyword you are looking for, but are also the best of what you have shot, or at least above a certain threshold.  

 

ID-100125755 Another key to Digital Asset Management, and one that is not often talked about, and less often followed, is backups.  Yes, we talk about backing our photos up (have you done this lately?), but do you back up your Digital Asset Management library?  How painful would it be to have lost this?  No, it isn't the same as losing your images, but it is something you would regret.  In fact, I go back to a saying that I have used for many years.  Ask yourself, "If I woke tomorrow and everything I had done since my last backup was lost, would I regret not having done a backup more recently?"  If so, then do a backup!

 

Digital Asset Management can be, as I am sure you can imagine, a much more complex subject that I am addressing here, but these are the basics, and if implemented, will greatly increase your efficiency as a photographer.  

 

Though I haven't read the book, I would be remiss to close this without referencing The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers.  Though I cannot personally speak to the quality of the book, I have heard good reviews, so it might be worth checking out.

 

Another worthwhile link is Mosaic's article on organizing images for Digital Asset Management.  I don't currently use the Mosaic software, but after looking it over, I am strongly considering taking their free version for a spin.

 

Backup image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net