ImageSpan and Digimarc yesterday announced their partnership to integrate LicenseStream Content Tracker solution into Digimarc for Images – Professional Edition providing creative professionals a seamless solution to monetize, manage, and monitor their image assets.

Digimarc for Images – Professional Edition users that currently embed imperceptible digital watermarks in their images and receive reports of where their content is found online, will now have the ability to receive reports via a LicenseStream dashboard integrated within the Digimarc for Images solution. The dashboard empowers creative professionals to maximize the value of their image assets with efficiency and ease by providing automated remedies to license and collect payments for use of their image assets.  Targeted for a launch later this year, the solution will be bundled into Digimarc for Images – Professional and Small Business Editions.

This initiative builds on a partnership announced in November where ImageSpan and Digimarc are offering a joint enterprise solution for Stock Photography Agencies, Media Companies, Museums and Archives.

Click to see full press release

Thank you to everyone who attended the “Driving New Revenues from the Web: Missouri History Museum’s Story” webinar last week.  We had a great turn out and many asked some great questions.  If you missed the webinar, a recording is now available for viewing on our website click on the following link to view now:

http://www.licensestream.com/licensestream2/Portal/knowledge_center/webinars.aspx

Quick Overview of the Webinar:  We heard from Angie Dietz, Digital Asset Archivist for Missouri History Museum discuss their need to leverage the power of the Web to extend their reach online so that anyone, anywhere could quickly find and license their images and other digital assets.  We then learned how LicenseStream helped the Missouri History Museum monetize its vast historic archives to drive new revenues and discover new markets.  We also reviewed how LicenseStream Content Tracker works with Digimarc for Images to find and address unauthorized uses of content across the Web and also create new revenue opportunities for the museum.

We hope you find this type of information useful.  Keep an eye out for other upcoming webinars by viewing our webinars page or signing up to receive notices . If you have other webinar ideas we’d love to hear from you (post in the comments below).

Looking to reignite your passion for photography? Seeking a little praise by professionals, recognition by your peers, and perhaps even a little free advanced instruction, camera equipment or travel perks?

Entering a photography competition offers a great way to get a little or all of the above while also providing a way to develop your skills and experience – whether you’re a seasoned pro or a weekend shutterbug. Bear in mind that winning a photo competition has more to do with how you photograph than what you photograph. Try not to prejudge your images – just enter contests with the idea that you’re likely to learn a lot and come away with fresh ideas. The key is to enjoy what you’re doing while shooting for more, so to speak.

One word of caution: Beware of contests that offer to provide exposure in exchange for rights to your work. It also doesn’t hurt to ensure your images have been uploaded to a LicenseStream Creator PRO user account which, in addition to providing automated licensing and royalty settlement services, provides proactive technology to track your images  as they get distributed. It also provides regular reporting on where a content owner’s images are found so the owner can take appropriate action.

Here are a few additional tips on how to approach photography contests and come away each time a winner – whether or not you actually win a contest:

• Do your homework: Research competitions online and look for one that matches your interests. Review the entries of past winners to see what worked – did they have people in them? Were they action shots? Were they abstract or manipulated digitally in some way?
• Practice, practice, practice: Once you’ve determined which contests to enter, grab your camera and click away. No matter what the focus, taking plenty of shots of a subject will give you the luxury to select from a wide variety of potential entries. 
• Review the contest’s categories: Many contests offer more than one category, enabling you to choose where your image stands the best chance of winning. If you want to enjoy the rush of winning, look for a category that may attract fewer entries.
• Follow the rules: This sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised at how many contestants fail to follow contest rules, resulting in their elimination. An easy way to stay ahead of the pack is to follow the rules to the letter --- and this means meeting deadlines!
• Read the fine print: Avoid contests that simply offer exposure in exchange for gaining rights to your photograph (except for the right to display your winning photo online or off). For a good list of criteria to consider as you research contests, check out The Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions located on the UK-based pro-imaging site. It warns competitions that try to claim copyright for your works, fail to give credit for all free usage, add, alter or remove metadata from digital images, or that require an entrant to sign a commercial agreement as a condition of winning.

Here are a few upcoming contests that we found interesting and that abide by The Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions:

• Shoot Nations 2010: Will launch Friday, May 21st with the theme “City Living.” This year, the contest is appealing to young people (under 25 years old) around the world to help build a global picture of what urban environments mean to them. Are the streets paved with gold, or fraught with risk and difficulty? How to the challenges of growing up in the city differ as a boy or a girl? Prizes aren’t yet posted for this year’s contest, but in the past have included the opportunity to be exhibited at the UN Secretariat building in New York, a new Olympus SLR camera, a National Geographic magazine subscription and a contemporary world wall map from The Future Mapping Company. For more information go to the ShootNations09 site  which includes information about this year’s contest. Competition closes Saturday, July 31st.
• Demotix: A user-generated newswire and photojournalism community with more than 14,000 users in 110 countries worldwide, Demotix holds a monthly competition called Viewfinder with a changing theme. For example, the Viewfinder competition in April focused on the art of portrait photography. Prizes lean toward the career-advancing tools, such as the opportunity to turn your images into a photojournalism book or to get your best images printed on glossy stock.   For more information, click into Viewfinder. 
• International Garden Photographer of the Year 2010: A prestigious competition open to everyone, anywhere, this competition imposes no restrictions on the type of camera you use or the techniques you use to produce an image. The competition accepts entries in six categories – ranging from People in the Garden to The Edible Garden, and also offers four seasonal competitions. Unlike many professional competitions, this one provides all entrants with professional feedback on their entries – upon request after the judging of the competition is completed. It also offers a “People’s Choice” award, that allows registered visitors to the site to vote for their favorite images in a different category each month. Prizes include cash awards and exhibitions of the winner’s work. The current contest, Spring into Life, closes May 31st, and the next contest, Insect Beauties, opens June 1. To learn more, check out International Garden Photographer of the Year 2010.  
• NSS Cave Arts and Music Salons: Organized by the U.S. National Speleological Society (NSS) to promote and recognize top-notch cave-related art, artists and musicians, NSS Salons are open to everyone so that those who enter need not be members of the NSS.  For photographers, there are two salons. Prizes consist of blue ribbons and winners can elect to have the NSS promote their work for use in periodicals or on Web sites to showcase winners, promote future NSS congresses, and competitions. The Photo Salon, to which contestants may submit slides and digital images has a closing date of May 15, 2010. The Print Salon, to which photographic prints can be submitted, has a closing date of July 31, 2010. Details about each competition can be found on the NSS Site: Photo Salon  and Print Salon.   

Plenty of other contests can be found online or through various photography organizations. If at first you don’t succeed, keep entering. Contests are a great way to make new contacts and friends. Eventually, you are sure to win your fair share of contests.

Most of all – be sure to enjoy yourself!  If you’re not having fun, you’re probably putting too much pressure on yourself and are not going to deliver your best work. 

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the “Comments” link below.

With our partner Digimarc, ImageSpan is engaged in an ongoing series of educational webinars for prospective new business customers. The latest of these, "Copyright 101, Copyright Basics for Creative Professionals, Media Companies and Content Archives," featured Jonathan Bailey, founder of the website, Plagiarism Today.

Bailey also serves as a consultant, helping Webmasters and companies devise practical content protection strategies and develop good copyright policies.

Below is a summary of some of the points discussed in the recent copyright webinar.

Who should be interested in copyright?
Copyright law today covers a broad range of people including Writers, Visual artists Photographers, Musicians, and Film Makers. It is not only these producers of this content but also the consumers that need to be aware of what copyright is and how it protects the owners of the content. From the classical music composer to the YouTube video amateur, copyright affects all of us.

What does copyright protect?
U.S. copyright protects a number of different works including literary, musical, dramatic, pantomimes, choreographic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, motion picture and audiovisual, sound recordings and architectural. The copyright process is designed to protect the creator of the content and covers anything that is fixed on a tangible medium (for example on paper, in a digital file, on a painter’s canvas) of expression with a requisite level of creativity. Copyright does not apply to ideas but only to the expression of those ideas attached to a tangible medium.

It is worth noting that copyright eventually expires and, as a rule of thumb, anything created before 1928 is public domain and is not protected by copyright. That being said, copyright for an individual lasts 70 years after the individual’s death and can be passed on like any other asset. Copyright for a corporation is fixed at 95 years after publication.

What rights does copyright give me?
As the name suggests, the copyright owner has the right to copy or reproduce the work to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies, to publicly display or perform and to transfer ownership of the work. It may seem odd that the right to copy or reproduce and the right to distribute are called out separately. But as Jonathan pointed out, it would be common for a school to be given the right to copy or reproduce a work on a limited basis, while a copyright holder retains the right to distribute the work.

Where do I register my copyright?
The U.S. Copyright Office: If you are a US citizen and plan to file suit in the US it is a legal requirement that your work be registered with the US copyright office. Filings cost $35.00 for most works and multiple works can be submitted with the payment of one fee. For each filing, there are to maximum statutory damages. Even if you complete a filing properly and submit it electronically, expect that it will take a minimum of 9 months to receive a copyright certificate. A number of companies will help you assemble documentation to prove that you have submitted a request for copyright. These companies are not official government services but may help in preparing your case for trial. Most cases are settled out of court and do not make it to trial.

What are the best practices when dealing with infringement?
Preparing for and dealing with litigation is a time-consuming and expensive proposition. As mentioned above, most cases will not make it to trial and will be settled out of court.

However, by approaching copyright violation in a calm and strategic manner, you may be able to turn violators into customers. By giving violators an easy way to license your content, and by encouraging the legal use of your content, you are far more likely to achieve a positive outcome than by threatening of legal action.

The bottom line is that copyright is in place to protect you and your assets. It acts like an insurance policy -- should you ever need it.

To find out more, watch Jonathan Bailey's full Copyright 101 presentation and listen to audience questions by visiting our full webinar archive at: http://www.licensestream.com/licensestream2/Portal/knowledge_center/webinars.aspx

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the "Comments" link below.

The ImageSpan team just returned from Museums and the Web, an annual conference that drew 600 museum professionals to Denver to explore “the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage on-line,” according to the event’s online brochure.

Museum professionals view the Web as a potential treasure trove of opportunities, which may help explain why attendance rose about a third for this year’s Museums and the Web event.

The question is: how to best leverage the Web? Presenters from around the world strove to answer that question by sharing ways to engage audiences online. For example, one presentation covered how best to present large collections online so that the public can easily find what interests them, while another offered ways to complement, enhance and extend on-site learning with on-line learning.

The biggest trend to emerge from this year’s event was “a focus on sharing data and putting data outside one’s own website into spaces controlled by others,” said David Bearman, a partner in Archives & Museum Informatics and a key organizer of the event.

For many long-time museum professionals, releasing content to the “wild” of the Internet is a scary and daunting prospect. However, most of those in the museum community understand the educational, cultural and even monetary benefits of making their content available online. A lot of museum professionals simply want to make their content available for browsing by art lovers, or for educational purposes. Others want to know who is using their content and want attribution for it online, but do not want to charge for its use.

This latter group expressed interest in the combination of LicenseStream Tracker with Digimarc for Images, which lets photography agencies, media companies, museums and archives add an imperceptible digital watermark to communicate copyright ownership and information on how to contact the owner wherever the image is found online. The LicenseStream Content Tracker then crawls the Web looking for uniquely watermarked images, providing regular reporting on where a content owner’s images are found so they can take appropriate action.

Yet other museum professionals are just beginning to realize that there may be new markets for their content where it would be fine to charge a usage fee – for example, for advertising or another commercial purpose such as store design. Many museum professionals had their eyes opened to this notion at Museums and the Web, where the Missouri History Museum  demonstrated how ImageSpan’s LicenseStream  empowered it quickly and efficiently to start discovering new markets and sell hundreds of images.

As a result, a comment we heard often at the event was: “I know that we are sitting on a gold mine, but it’s just such a huge undertaking.” Museum professionals recognize that there is value in their content, but do not believe they can begin licensing it until they have a content management system in place and until they digitize, tag or keyword ALL of their content to make it easy to find, use and license.  However, the Missouri History Museum’s experience with LicenseStream demonstrated that this is not the case. The museum has more than 600,000 images, including many that are not digitized, and it is still implementing a content management system. However, already it has begun licensing its images with LicenseStream.

How? While LicenseStream is not a content management system (CMS), it can host content to enable licensing, royalty processing, multiple-party fee disbursement, etc. In fact, LicenseStream can “plug in” to any existing architecture and/or CMS to generate revenues that will help a museum justify the larger content management initiative.

Another huge trend at this event was the interest in mobile applications. This spike in interest reflects the broader market’s interest in mobile applications, as highlighted in a recent announcement by the research firm Gartner said investments in mobile applications and technologies will increase through 2011 as organizations emerge from the recession and ramp up mobile spending.

However, while several vendors focused on museum tours, we discovered that museum professionals were most interested in learning about mobile applications that are NOT tours. They want to know what additional applications are out there to help them take advantage of this new medium and its explosive growth, especially with the introduction of the iPAD.

As museums wake up to new opportunities via the Web and mobile technologies, it will be exciting to see how they optimize the use of these technologies to engage with audiences and advance their missions.

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the “Comments” link below.  

As newspapers refocus their business models to encompass multiple platforms, and look for revenue alternatives to advertising, there is a lot of interest in new technologies at the Newspaper Association of America mediaXchange this week in Orlando, Florida. More than 650 industry executives have gathered at the event to share audience and revenue development strategies that generate growth in print and online.

Hype around iPAD (and other eReaders) 

There also is plenty of buzz at mediaXchange about emerging hardware distribution platforms that media companies are adopting to help drive revenues. In particular, there’s a lot of hype focused on the iPAD as companies test it and other e-readers (including the Kindle and similar tablets) as well as devices such as the Samsung Go netbook.

As a result, everyone’s favorite parlor game at mediaXchange is speculating about the magic price point that will bridge the gap between what current subscription models charge and the new, lower-cost subscription models tied to such tablets and similar devices. For example, The New York Times annual print subscription fee is about $785. By contrast, The New York Times’ monthly subscription on the Kindle is now $19.99 – up from the initial teaser offer of $13.99. In addition, publishers including The New York Times are testing bundle offers where the price of a device is discounted in exchange for a subscriber commitment of a year or two. 

Platform Strategy vs. Device Strategy

Based on comments we’ve heard at the show, publishers are still trying to understand whether to pursue a platform strategy vs. a device strategy. Ideally, newspapers should be able to publish content once for use across all devices in a way that is optimal for the newspaper's bottom line as well as for the consumer. However, each device sports its own key features and capabilities, and pursuing an individual product strategy for each device will not scale up to cost-effectively meet or take advantage of mass market demand for content.

Why Does This Matter to LicenseStream Subscribers?

Demand for content will continue to grow exponentially as newspapers, magazines and other media companies form business relationships with companies that are creating new conduits to the consumer – whether it’s Apple’s iPAD, Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s nook. That means the ability for media outlets such as the Chicago Tribune or SPIN magazine to search for and easily license digital content is more important than ever.  Just as important is the need of the photographer or videographer to be fairly compensated for the original content he or she creates.

ImageSpan and its partners already provide the tools to make your digital content license-ready, to publish it to the Web and to major search engines in a way that protects it, and to help you monitor, manage and monetize unauthorized usage of it. In addition, ImageSpan and its partners make it easier for potential purchasers of your content – including major newspapers, magazines and book publishers – to drive the revenues they need during  this time of great change. 

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the "Comments" link below.  

Yesterday, we took a look at what  photo metadata is, why it’s important, and how it benefits photographers. The information came out of a presentation on metadata by ImageSpan with liveBooks and the Bay Area-based Renegade Meetup photography group that drew nearly 30 photographers to an after-hours event at liveBooks last Wednesday evening.

Today, we’ll continue to share what we learned in that Metadata Meetup. We’ll touch on how to apply metadata, how to make the application of certain types of metadata more efficient, and why applying metadata is critical for your business. We’ll also include links to websites where you can learn more about metadata.

Attaching Metadata

There are several ways and methods for attaching metadata to an image. In addition to embedding metadata as images are published to the Web, through services such as LicenseStream and liveBooks, photographers can associate metadata in several other types of photography workflow software, such as Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom™ . In fact, photographers using Lightroom and the popular Adobe Creative Suite® 3 software can upload all of their images along with metadata applied in those programs to LicenseStream via plug-ins.

Travel photographer David Sanger,  who presented a great overview of what metadata is and how it works, said that there are instances where social media sites will strip out metadata. He added that even some major search engines will not look at metadata to help anyone searching for an image find it.

To ensure that the image is searchable, Sanger recommends photographers associate a caption as well as keywords with their images. Search engines, Sanger said, “primarily look at the text on the page associated with an image.” That said, he added, “If somebody finds your image and the metadata survives, then they can identify the image as yours and they can license it.”

Applying Keywording

Brian Pobuda, a corporate photographer who also consults as a digital asset management specialist, said that to make applying metadata more efficient,  he often applies a first round of basic keywords to a group of content. For a recent shoot, for example, he labeled a batch of images “City Center, Las Vegas, 2010,” and then applied more specific keywords to those images he expects clients to use.

Sanger said his keywording practices depend on the image destination.

“For example, with Getty I provide conceptual keywords and they do the rest of the keywording,” he said. “When I know an image will be put on Google Images, I want lots of keywords because I want as many people to find it as possible.” Other stock agencies may penalize you for having too many obscure keywords, he added, because your ranking depends on your click-through ratio which may fall if too many obscure keywords are attached.

There also are situations when additional keywords may not be desirable.

“If I have a picture of a sunset, it won’t necessarily say 'San Francisco, Baker Beach, June 2003 sunset 4 p.m.,'” Sanger said. “I may just say 'Sunset on Ocean,' because an image buyer may just be looking for a generic image. Similarly, he doesn’t always apply a date. “There are times specificity can work against you,” he said.

PCWorld Senior Editor Melissa Perenson, who served as moderator at the Metadata Meetup suggested a good, common-sense method for applying keywording. “Just think about how you would find an image if you were doing a search,” she said.

In fact, keywording specifically and metadata applications generally can still vary widely. Major stock agencies all have their own methods of applying metadata. Some use IPTC – a standard that came out of the newspaper world. A more advanced standard which includes additional fields emerged when Adobe moved to XML, Sanger said. “Then there is a third way to do it, which is to have the captions or metadata in a sidecar which is a separate XMP file that can accompany the photo,” he said. In addition, there’s a fourth standard called Dublin Core®.

Because there is not yet complete standardization as to what fields are used by various agencies or within various software programs, Sanger said, “it helps to stick with the simple ones that are used in your tools unless you have reason to delve more deeply into it. You can overdo it.”

As for keywording hierarchies, Sanger recommends Controlled Vocabulary, a site run by metadata master David Riecks. “David's site not only has more than you need to know about structured vocabularies,” Sanger said, “he also has links to a variety of products that will allow you to structure your keyword hierarchy.”

A Critical Tool for Tracking Your Business Efforts

While metadata is used to identify, license and monetize images, Sanger also suggested photographers think of metadata as information needed to operate their businesses. It can include your sales results, where the images have been submitted for licensing, where the images have been sold, which stock agencies or services have a certain image or group of images, and which clients commissioned them.

“This is important information because if you have an exclusive contract with one agency you have to know which images are with that agency and can’t go elsewhere for sale or licensing," he said. "While that information isn’t usually in the image itself, the ability to track sales and revenues relies upon identifying which images have been sold or licensed. It all goes back to the file name or the ID portion of the file name.”

Finally, for additional information on metadata, Sanger suggested the following sites:

• www.photometadata.org
• www.StockArtistsAlliance.org
• www.controlledvocabulary.com

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the "Comments" link below.  

If you shoot, distribute, license, sell or post digital photos to the Internet, associating metadata with those images should be a key part of your workflow.  

The topic of metadata is so important that ImageSpan, with liveBooks and the Bay Area-based Renegade Meetup group hosted a presentation on metadata that drew more than 20 photographers to an after-hours event at liveBooks offices last Wednesday evening.

Digital photo files can include descriptive, technical and administrative metadata. Virtual compartments in image files can hold several types of data – from pixels that make up an image to the text that identifies and describes the image. Metadata contained in an image file can list an image’s creator, copyright holder, source and description. It can explain rights released and available to an image. It can list how and when an image was created, its size, color characteristics and more.

PCWorld Senior Editor Melissa Perenson launched the metadata meeting last week with an example that illustrated why metadata is so important.

“Somewhere I have a photo of my parent’s surprise 40th anniversary party, but when it came time for their 50th anniversary party, I couldn’t find it,” Perenson said. “It may have been in a filing cabinet or on a hard drive that is long-since dead and I didn’t even realize it.”

Had she been able to use metadata to more efficiently identify and store her now 10-year-old images, Perenson said, she may have been able to locate them more readily.

“This demonstrates how metadata is critical both for the retention and preservation of our images,” she added. "It’s also critical if you want to do something with your images, such as find or license them.”

So what is metadata?

Travel photographer David Sanger noted that metadata “really is any information associated with an image.” 

He projected an image on the room’s video screen of a slide with an older-model automobile on it labeled “1986 Chevrolet Caprice, Big Rim Miami.” Said Sanger: “This is the way we used to do it, by putting a slide ID and a caption on a sticky label.”  With the rise of the Internet and advances in photo workflow software, Sanger added, things have changed dramatically.He projected an image of Einstein as a boy and an associated computerized page that displayed a staggering amount of data on who else was in the photo, when it was taken,

“The principal is that you want the metadata at a minimum to describe the ‘who, what, where, when and why’ – the basic rules of journalism,” he said. “The first place to start is with a file name. File names ideally describe the content in the photography so you know right away from looking at it what it is.”

Sanger noted that with some cameras, the moment an image is shot it gets a number associated with it that stays with it and with every version of that image, whether it is a JPEG, a TIFF, or a NEF. Such cameras also may attach technical metadata, such as the shutter speed, location-specific information using GPS, and even the serial number of your camera. In addition, some cameras allow you to apply a copyright directly into a file when the shutter is pressed.

Brian Pobuda, a corporate photographer who also consults as a digital asset management specialist, agreed that file naming is the most critical place to begin. 

“To me, metadata starts right there,” he said. “Never let out an image without least your name and the date and the subject matter, because it’s a way to keep track of your babies. I always consider photos babies and you want to give them a good home, so put a file name on them because any good digital asset management system will pick up file naming as keywords, and that’s very useful. You’ll never regret it.”

In addition to helping a photographer identify his or her image files, metadata can also help a him or her track files and speed workflow.

Benefits of Metadata

So why else attach metadata?

“Well, copyright is one reason,” said Sanger. “If you have an image and it has a caption, keywords and a copyright, major search engines such as Google Images will pick that up, too.”

Rafael Solis of ImageSpan said that “if you don’t have metadata associated with your image, then there’s a dis-connect between the buyer and the content owner. In other words, anyone who is looking to buy or use your image may not only be unable to find it, but they won’t be able to find you to license it.”         

“Great metadata enables tracking,” Solis said, “which goes hand-in-hand with the ability to search for it, query it, and facilitate a transaction to monetize it.”

In fact, LicenseStream Content Tracker with Digimarc for Images uses metadata to track and find images that are uploaded through LicenseStream. Digimarc for Images adds an imperceptible digital watermark to communicate copyright ownership and information on how to contact the owner wherever the image is found online.

Content Tracker can then find the owner’s images and report back on where and how they are being used so the creator can take steps to address unauthorized uses. The creator can then opt to send an email requesting that the image be licensed, linked back to the creator’s website, or that the author be credited.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a closer look at the application of metadata, why it’s important for your business, and provide links to websites where you can learn more about metadata.

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the "Comments" link below.   

March 20^th was the official beginning of spring and with that comes the annual tradition of spring cleaning. As a content owner or creator you no doubt have archives of analog content in various states of organization. The question is, what to do with it?

There are a number of options for getting your images and analog media into a digital format in the market place today.

Creating a clear plan outlining what you want achieve by digitizing your media assets is a good place to start.

Digitizing your images also allows for them more easily to be used, standardized, manipulated and distributed in ways that are not possible with analog images. 

In addition, digitization allows you to:  

• Improve organization and management of your media assets
• Add digital content to your stock image collection from your analog archives for monetization
• Preserve your content from deterioration

If you plan to invest your own time in this process, start by doing a cost-benefit analysis. Calculate the value of your media assets now and in the future and determine whether they are worth the investment in time, equipment and supplies to digitize them yourself.  The following are a few things to consider in determining value:

• Marketplace value
• Historical archive value
• Personal value
• Relevance as Image Stock

What’s next?

Once you have a clear vision of what you want to digitize and why, the next step is to decide on an approach.

I can do this!

Plan to buy your own equipment and handle the process yourself? Be sure to check out all the scanner options before choosing the one that best suits you. Most retailers offer online user reports and reviews. It always pays to start your search online and narrow down your options. Once you have your machine, follow the manufacturer’s instructions on cleaning and do it regularly! Also try to create a work environment that is as dust-free as possible.

If you plan to go it alone, estimate how much time it will take you to digitize all your content and ask yourself if you’re ready to dedicate the time to completing your project.  Professionals in the image scanning industry estimate 10 to 15 minutes per image as a fairly good processing rate for a commercial operation. Based on that estimate, you may be looking at a significant time investment to digitize your images.

I don’t have time, who do I choose?

If you decide to go with a service provider / vendor to do the scanning, be sure to do some research and look for online reviews. There is always a risk that your raw assets could get lost or permanently damaged when dealing with a vendor so choose carefully.  Below are a few factors to consider when choosing a company:

• Good security around shipping and processing
• Quality control safeguards (well defined standards on image quality and Pricing)
• Good customer reviews
• Images are scanned and cleaned by people (Auto-fed machines can damage your image assets permanently and the human eye is a better judge when it comes to cleanup and retouching).

Is it worth the hassle and cost?

Your analog assets are not working for you nor are they being accessed by potential licensors when they are sitting in a box in storage. Worse yet, they are probably in danger of being permanently damaged by the elements.  And while your analog content may not generate immediate revenues as digital stock, gaining easy access to and protecting it from deterioration are key steps toward preserving future value.

Have questions or comments about this blog post? Please feel free to share them by clicking on the "Comments" link below.  

You’ve been pursuing photography assignments with a speed to rival Tim Lincecum’s two-seam fastball, you’re up to your elbows in editing, and the e-mails just keep coming. You need a break, so you’re praying for just a couple of easy photo shoots, free of friction. 

But is another routine shoot the way to avoid burnout?

Probably not. In fact, taking on new types of assignments and mastering new technologies may be the best way to reignite your creativity. At least that’s the advice of a few veteran professional photographers, including LicenseStream subscriber and Pulitzer Prize winner Deanne Fitzmaurice.

Fitzmaurice knows something about taking on challenges. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for an essay she created for the San Francisco Chronicle about a nine-year-old Iraqi boy who was badly injured when he picked up a bomb, mistaking it for a ball.

© Deanne Fitzmaurice Frank Capley and Joe Alfano get married at City Hall in San Francisco in June 2008.

"You can sit around and wait for an assignment to come to you,” Fitzmaurice said, “or self-assign a story that will prompt you to present new material in a new way.”  Fitzmaurice did just that when she found she needed new inspiration about a year-and-a-half ago. “I went out and did a story that followed a gay couple through their marriage and all of these doors started opening for that story,” she recalled. “Time magazine ran one of the photos from it, MSNBC ran it as a multimedia piece and then Time chose a different image from that same group of images for a story about Pictures that Mattered in 2008.”

Fitzmaurice said that by creating a story with multimedia elements, she probably enhanced the story’s appeal.

“I had recorded ambient audio while following this couple, and then I went back and interviewed them and brought all of these pieces to MSNBC,” she said. “MSNBC ended up putting it on their Website as a video by using the still images and incorporating the audio from the interview and the ambient sound that I’d collected.”

 The experience provides a good example of two ways to get unstuck. 

“First of all – go out and shoot the stories you care about whether they’re assigned to you or not,” she said. “Then if you can, also shoot video and collect audio. Adding these elements offers such a rich way of telling a story, and enables you to add layers of information to your photographs.

You’ll also find that there are multiple places where you can license these different pieces of media.”

To counterbalance such high-stress assignments, Roth photographs scenery and creates glamour shots of models, both of which give him artistic control over the location, the lighting, and the talent.

Roth also stays inspired by engaging in activities that help him refine his photography skills.

For example, he said, “Just yesterday, I served as an assistant for a photographer who is extremely talented with lighting. I looked at the opportunity to be an assistant as a way to appreciate and learn from his techniques.”

He also strives to keep current with – and gain inspiration from – new technologies.  “I participate in webinars that highlight new technologies at least once or twice a week,” he said.

However, he advises younger photographers not to focus too narrowly on certain technologies.

“They may work a lot with HDR or fool around with Photoshop but then they get stuck doing those things,” he said. “I’d suggest they really learn the basics of photography – even basic film photography – and then try out all kinds of different software and play around with it all until they feel comfortable.”

He applies the same advice to genres of photography. “Pursue photojournalism if you want to,” he said, “but be prepared to shoot food, sports, architecture and any other avenue that interests you.”

Centrella added that he has learned to use social media tools – especially photography forums – to stay in touch with colleagues around the world. “It’s a way to find out what’s going on, who and what’s working during slow months, and what lenses people are using for particular shoots,” Centrella said.

Centrella also counters burnout with another tried-and-true way to counter stress:  “I can go fishing and take my camera, which is fantastic. It’s fantastic because it means I’m always looking – and always finding – new sources of inspiration.”   

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