Imaging 12 - Fujifilm Graphic Systems
Imaging 12 - Fujifilm Graphic Systems
Imaging 12 - Fujifilm Graphic Systems
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E-COMMERCE digital asset management<br />
For more information on<br />
any of the DAM products<br />
mentioned here please visit<br />
the vendor’s Web site.<br />
Artesia TEAMS<br />
www.artesiatech.com<br />
Banta<br />
www.banta-im.com<br />
Extensis Portfolio<br />
www.extensis.com<br />
Picdar Hosted Media Mogul<br />
www.picdar.com<br />
Pine Tree <strong>Systems</strong> Mosaic<br />
www.pine.dk<br />
Quark DMS<br />
euro.quark.com<br />
Union Technologies<br />
Resourca<br />
www.utluk.com<br />
WebWare Mambo<br />
www.webwarecorp.com<br />
14<br />
DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT – THE TECHNOLOGY<br />
The heart of a DAM service is its asset<br />
management software, or the system that<br />
allows storage and retrieval of media, and<br />
according to Ursula Connolly of storage<br />
networking specialists Sagitta Performance<br />
<strong>Systems</strong>, “this is the bit that costs money”.<br />
Connolly’s advice is “spend as much as you<br />
can afford – there’s no point committing your<br />
assets to a system that restricts your access<br />
to them.”<br />
There are two levels of digital asset<br />
management software: ‘enterprise’, or a<br />
system that can be used to offer a service to<br />
customers, and ‘in-house’ or ‘closed’ systems.<br />
The differences are not necessarily in<br />
functionality (although generally an enterprise<br />
system offers separate and protected<br />
administrator and client access) but more in<br />
robustness, level of customisability and cost.<br />
Both levels of system are usually set up to<br />
handle a variety of media types: images, text,<br />
audio, video and laid-out documents.<br />
Off-the-shelf systems include Quark’s<br />
Digital Media System (DMS), which can track<br />
usage and manage revisions, and Extensis’<br />
Portfolio suite of Web-based cataloguing,<br />
retrieval and distribution tools. Wellrespected<br />
all-round systems designed for<br />
enterprise level use include Artesia’s TEAMS,<br />
management services, partly because they<br />
already have a relationship with customers<br />
that centres around the production of<br />
collateral, but mainly because they also<br />
have expertise in image handling – and for<br />
all that many digital asset management<br />
databases are set up to handle a variety of<br />
media, images still account for the vast<br />
majority of current digital assets. Printers<br />
can harness their current image handling<br />
skills to build up a strong digital asset<br />
management service, while at the same<br />
<strong>Imaging</strong> <strong>12</strong> autumn 2002<br />
WebWare’s Mambo and Pine Tree <strong>Systems</strong>’<br />
Mosaic. There are also systems that handle<br />
primarily one type of media, with subsidiary<br />
capabilities for others.<br />
Some DAM services, such as Picdar’s<br />
Hosted Media Mogul, exist exclusively on the<br />
Web: typically, an account initialisation fee<br />
followed by a monthly subscription buys a set<br />
amount of space on a server, together with<br />
browser-based software for archiving and<br />
retrieval. myfujifilm.com, currently being<br />
trialled in the US, is another Web-based<br />
system, although oriented more towards inhouse<br />
use: the system also includes workflow<br />
tools such as online proofing and preflighting.<br />
There are also hybrid systems such<br />
as Union Technologies’ Resourca, which can<br />
deliver via both in-house Web or intranet<br />
servers, or via outsourced ASP servers run by<br />
Union Technologies.<br />
One issue for DAM service providers is<br />
rights protection: where copyrighted images<br />
or other media are stored and distributed,<br />
often the service provider is called upon to<br />
implement a royalties levy. Some asset<br />
management software has ancillary rightsprotection<br />
packages for this purpose.<br />
Re-purposing of assets involves any<br />
manipulation of the asset for a specific<br />
time adding skills to handle more unusual<br />
media types.<br />
Competition for printers and repro<br />
houses is likely to come from advertising<br />
agencies, which have long offered their<br />
clients an asset management service based<br />
on manual cataloguing and storage of<br />
transparencies or, more recently, scans.<br />
Creative thinking required<br />
As DAM develops in the UK, advertising<br />
agencies may win over printers simply<br />
output channel. Re-purposing high-resolution<br />
print images for use on a Web site, for<br />
instance, might involve re-sizing, reducing<br />
resolution, converting CMYK to RGB and<br />
applying a colour profile. Some systems<br />
– particularly those tied into pre-press<br />
workflow for printers of regular publications<br />
– can handle automatic re-purposing, in<br />
which a number of parameters determine an<br />
asset’s appearance in a given output form.<br />
Once the software has been chosen,<br />
there’s the infrastructure to be determined –<br />
the storage and access hardware. There are<br />
primary and secondary storage banks: primary<br />
consists of online hard disks and RAID arrays;<br />
secondary consists of removable media such<br />
as DVDs or CDs.<br />
Data security is almost as important as<br />
the asset management software itself. This<br />
means thinking about physical security,<br />
controlling access to data and maintaining<br />
data integrity. DAM companies often have<br />
multiple back-up practices in place, including<br />
hourly, daily, and weekly routines, with a<br />
strict rotation of back-ups kept in a variety of<br />
secure locations. Web-based systems offer<br />
the advantage that their data is stored offsite<br />
– security and back-up are the<br />
responsibility of the system provider.<br />
imber, desert, water, lights, feather, chips ><br />
The heart of a digital asset<br />
management service is its metadata:<br />
short descriptions, thumbnails<br />
and/or keywords relating to the<br />
assets that are stored in a<br />
database and searched by the user.<br />
Metadata can be entered per asset<br />
or automatically on a batch basis.<br />
The metadata is linked to the<br />
asset itself, which is normally<br />
stored on a central server for<br />
because they have in-house designers on<br />
hand to take creative decisions about repurposing,<br />
as Mark Stephenson says:<br />
“Not all re-purposing is about re-sizing<br />
– it makes more sense for a customer to<br />
place a digital asset management contract<br />
with an outfit who can design from<br />
scratch where necessary, and printers<br />
don’t always have designers in-house.”<br />
However, as Stephenson points out,<br />
where printers do offer design to<br />
strengthen their asset management