If your new media project uses more than a few dozen images, or if you obtained images from many sources, you must be particularly well organized. You’ll need a viable system for logging and tracking valuable content as it moves through the various stages of your project and special software to help catalog and organize the images once they are in digital form. You’ll also need enough storage space to hold all your digital data. If you aren’t well organized, the consequences range from annoying delays to shocking charges from sources for lost content.

Note: If your project consists of only a few dozen self-created images, managing and organizing them is important, but not complicated. The digital files can be titled with a simple verbal descriptor and placed in a folder residing on an internal or external hard drive. Be sure to create a duplicate file of all your images and store it safely elsewhere.

Logging and tracking original art

It’s critical that you keep track of images as they come in the door--or arrive digitally from cyberspace. To do this you need to create a picture log. This log should include the following information: the source of the images, the date you received the images, the number of images, a type description of each image (for example, color, black and white, slides, prints, or digital file), a log in number and the name of the person who actually received the image. In general, it is best to keep the images in one central location until a selection is made and a digital copy is created. However, if the images are going to be passed around the office or studio you’ll want to keep track of where they are using the log. (This applies primarily to precious “analog” images rather than digital files, which can be easily duplicated.) When the image is returned to the source, this should be noted in the log.

The log can be a simple handwritten piece of paper, or a database or spreadsheet program. It’s not a bad idea to have both an electronic log and a handwritten version, in case one is lost or destroyed.

Handling images

The minute an image comes in the door you are responsible for it. If it is an original slide or print and it is lost or damaged, costs can be as high as $2,000 per image. Keep the slides and prints away from heat or liquids . Slides are very sensitive to bright light and can begin fading in just a few hours. Keep them in protective packaging at all times and only remove the protection when you are ready to digitize the image. When handling vintage prints or original slides use lint-free cotton gloves, which will keep damaging acids and oils on your fingers from corrupting the surface.

When you receive a digital file--either on a Syquest-type cartridge or on a CD-ROM--immediately make a backup. Carefully store the original media or return it to the sender. If you lose a custom-created CD you may be liable for replacing it at a cost of several hundred dollars.

Imagebases

It can be quite a task to store and catalog prints, slides, and other tangible content. It can be even more difficult when the image is stored on a computer’s hard drive in digital form. As a digital file, the image might exist only in a directory or in a folder with a cryptic reference number or a short title. At best, the image might be represented by a small thumbnail image on the screen. Finding one specific image in a directory that contains hundreds, if not thousands, of images can be like finding a needle in a hay stack.

Software such as Adobe’s Fetch, Canto’s Cumulus, and DCI’s ImageAXS exist to make the job of organizing digital images easier. These Imagebases, as they are sometimes called to differentiate them from more traditional databases, usually consist of a database, a search function, and a viewer. They are compatible with most image file formats. They commonly organize images both textually and visually. The text portion of these programs operates much like any database by entering key descriptors into a field. Typically these descriptors include a variety of pertinent data, including the source of the image, the date the image was made or acquired, a reference number, and a verbal description of the image itself. The verbal description can be literal or figurative. In other words, you might describe an image as “Red Car on Hollywood Blvd”, or figuratively, as “Leisure, Fun, Sexy.” Like any database, its usefulness is determined by how you organize your fields and the words you choose. Textual search methods vary from software to software: some use the simple flat file search methods, which literally look for a single word or combinations of letters, while other programs use the more flexible and precise Boolean method, which uses the qualifiers “and”, “or”, and “not.”

Another common component of Imagebases is a “lightbox,” which attempts to imitate the familiar look and feel of an actual lightbox used by professional picture editors to sort and edit images. A thumbnail version of the image appears on the screen, and at quick glance you can find what you are looking for. Images you select can then be placed in a separate “lightbox” you have created for that purpose. To see a thumbnail image in a higher resolution, you can click on it and a larger version of the picture will fill your monitor screen.


Returning images

When an analog image or digital medium is returned, it should be sent via FedEx, UPS Overnight, Airborne, or an overnight service that provides a detailed log of the status of the shipment. U.S. Postal “Certified Mail” is okay, but it's not considered the safest way to return material. For most commercial carriers, the value of an image is considered to be the value of the film or cartridge itself and not the value attached to the actual content. Since there is a huge gap between the material cost and the content value, you might want to consider additional insurance on top of what is provided by the carrier.

Packaging should be secure, with slides inside of slide sheets and protected by cardboard, prints carefully sandwiched between two sheets of stiff cardboard and digital media, such as Syquest cartridges wrapped in bubble wrap. The outside of the package should say, “Photos (or Images): Handle with Care. Do not Bend.” For digital media write, “Magnetic Material: Avoid Exposure to All Magnetic Fields.” Include in the package a memo describing the contents. You might also want to include a self-addressed stamped envelope, with a note to be signed by the receiver and returned acknowledging receipt in good order of the material.