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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Callling all university photographers!
Matt Cashore, Photographer
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South Bend | IN | USA | Posted: 12:08 PM on 06.21.07 |
->> Hi...I recently changed roles from being a contractor for the University of Notre Dame to being an employee. I now have the responsibility of putting together a digital workflow/archive system. There is no existing system, and the position they created for me is new and not an addition to a staff, so I gotta come up with this stuff essentially by myself.
My system as "Independent Matt" was far from perfect, but worked adequately as a one-man operation. "Employee Matt" has to come up with something an entire university can use. I have many questions that would take up too much space here. I have several ideas, and Photoshelter seems like it would be enormously useful, but I would like to know how other university photo departments handle web-based browsing and downloading for internal clients as well as print sales and rights-management for external clients. I am also looking for the best system for keywording/captioning (for instance: all the images from a shoot, or just the selects?) and archiving (Extensis Portfolio, Cumulus, Photo Mechanic...) If anyone out there can spare the time, give me an email or a call and let's chat.
And sorry in advance to everyone who shoots ND Football, my new role isn't going to help fix the mess on the ND Stadium sidelines! |
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Chris Machian, Photographer, Assistant
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Omaha | NE | USA | Posted: 12:43 PM on 06.21.07 |
->> Aperture/photo mechanic/photoshelter.
I know Aperture and PM have plug-ins to upload to photoshelter.
Aperture also has a catalog feature too. |
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Jon Gardiner, Photographer
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Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 3:20 PM on 06.21.07 |
->> Matt,
We have instituted exactly what you are attempting to do. Feel free to contact me and I'll put you in touch with my boss. He loves to talk about what we've done and has done so with several other Universities looking to implement this kind of system.
-Jon |
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Jon L Hendricks, Photographer
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Merrillville | IN | USA | Posted: 3:30 PM on 06.21.07 |
->> Hey Matt,
Congrats Man!!! When did you get this gig? It's about time they hired someone full-time. I may be in the same situation soon enough and am also interested in hearing various thoughts on university archiving.
Personally, I would go with Portfolio Server edition for selects and have the university kick in another server for continuous online storage for them. Or, at least partition a portion just for photos. And maybe keep your RAW outtakes on duplicate DVD in your new office. This is basically how I do it at home but without Portfolio Server that would allow network browsing.
I don't know a lot about Photoshelter yet but they may get expensive if you want to keep all your university archives online over the years. It would seem more economical to have the ND IT guys buy another Server for photos instead of paying photoshelter. Although Photoshelter might be nice to house a few iconic selects to sell online throught the ND website. And if you're working with a lot of external clients Photoshelter will probably be the best way to go for them. |
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Cory Johnson, Student/Intern
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Tuscaloosa | AL | USA | Posted: 3:54 PM on 06.21.07 |
| ->> We use Cumulus at the University of Alabama. It's Web Publisher Pro is very good for web based distribution and if you do any programming it is easy to program customized clients for it. It is expensive and I can't say it's perfect or even that they have good support so do your research on other options but Cumulus works great for us. (Running on Mac OS X Server) We have a catalog for each sport and add an IPTC file info caption to every photo for searching purposes. I would be happy to answer questions or give you more detail if you want. |
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Darren Whitley, Photographer
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Maryville | MO | USA | Posted: 4:20 PM on 06.21.07 |
->> I would recommend either Cumulus or Portfolio. You may have to purchase an enterprise version. Atlanta-based commercial photographer Jim DiVitale switched several years ago from Cumulus to Portfolio due to some issues with OSX and Cumulus. I'm sure that's resolved by now.
We do not use either. I've purchased both but never had time to use them. Ugh!
I work with clients by printing contact sheets or digital proofing using Photo Mechanic. I pretty much insist on being part of the editing process. It's my work (similar to an author or a faculty researcher), it would be ridiculous to be cut out of the process.
Preparation of photos for printing and manipulation of photos also fall under my supervision. |
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Matt Cashore, Photographer
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South Bend | IN | USA | Posted: 6:21 PM on 07.05.07 |
->> Thank you, thank you to everyone who responded here on the message board, by email, or on the phone. Here's the short version of what I've come up with:
No one I talked with seemed to be 100% happy with the archiving/cataloging system they used. Leaf/Cumulus/Portfolio/whatever--they all had plusses and minuses. So long as the images are captioned and keyworded, it seems to me that the specific software you use to search 'em isn't critical. Even OS-X's spotlight will do an impressive job if the keywords are there.
Archive the whole take or just keep the keepers? If someone searches for "commencement" they probably don't want to see every photo that got batch-keyworded. My idea is to keep every usable image, but keyword and caption only the selects from a given assignment. That way a search only brings up only the five best shots of the speaker, or the ten best candids, for instance. Then if the editor/designer wants to look at the entire take they can find the original job folder based on the job name or the date stamp.
And I'm not a paid endorser, but from my research it seems like you just can't beat Photoshelter for viewing and distribution. From lightboxes to online print sales it does it all...
So anyway, those are my thoughts...I welcome yours.
Thanks! |
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Trevor Brown, Photographer, Assistant
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Denver | CO | USA | Posted: 6:45 PM on 07.05.07 |
->> Matt, all I can say is STAY AWAY FROM CUMULUS. IMO, it is a pain in the you know what.
We used it for years here at our office, and we just made the switch to Portfolio and it is much easier. It has its quirks, but not nearly as many as Cumulus. The guy who does all the adding of images to our archive was ready to tear his hair out when we were using Cumulus. You won't have to look very far in chat rooms and other discussion boards regarding cumulus to find out it is one of the most user-unfriendly programs out there. I have heard that it is being tailored more for medical uses and what not. Basically, for image management, it wouldn't be my first choice. It seems like they are straying from tailoring it for photographers.
We edit our takes using photomechanic; adding keywords, batch captioning most of the time, then add the selects to the catalog with Portfolio. The catalogs/archives are housed on a central server that everyone in our office can connect to and download untouched files from, view previews from etc...
The raw takes are burned to DVD and filed in a separate location, organized in boxes.
For exposure on the web, we have integrated the catalogs with Digital Railroads' service. Their system is pretty much seamless with Portfolio.
Any of these programs are expensive, but I highly recommend Portfolio since it has been much better than Cumulus for us. Additionally, Cumulus' support was atrocious when we were dealing with them. We used Cumulus for about 10 years and the program just got less and less user friendly over time.
I think you have an opportunity to pitch them on the value of having a server based catalog and you could probably get them to spend some money. There is definitely money at ND, you just have to push the right buttons. Make sure they know the value of having a digital archive, and maybe even get them to pay you some more money to have you add older and historically significant material to the archive. It Could be a fascinating project.
Hope that helps.
-TB |
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Gary Mills, Photographer
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Culver | IN | USA | Posted: 8:56 AM on 07.06.07 |
->> Dear Father Cashore: Congratulations!
You DID have to join the priesthood to get that job, didn't you?
I remember rubbing elbows with you on the sidelines many years ago and am not surprised at your success.
I hope Notre Dame allows you to do your job and if I can ever help, please call.
Sincerely,
Gary |
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