Category: Keywording / Metadata
News
ACAP to adopt PLUS image licensing standards
ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol), a new global non-proprietary machine-readable protocol that enables publishers to control how their online content is re-used, has announced that it has adopted the PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System) image licensing protocols. In a recent press release ACAP stated plans to use the PLUS License Data Format and PLUS Media Matrix standards to supplement the existing ACAP vocabulary for communicating license-related information in a machine-readable form to web crawlers and other automated devices that use web content. ACAP has previously concentrated on text-based web resources, and its adoption of PLUS semantics is part of a planned extension of ACAP to meet publisher requirements to communicate more precise terms for use of photographic and other media resources by web crawlers.
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OnAsia releases keyword suggestion feature for Image Keyworder software
OnAsia, a Singapore based stock photography and assignment agency, has announced that it has released a new ‘suggest’ function as part of its Windows-based Image Keyworder software. The suggest feature now allows the community to participate in refining and growing Image Keyworder’s controlled vocabulary of more than 40,000 terms. The new version is offered as a free upgrade for existing users or costs approx US$ 79.99 for a new license allowing installation on two computers.
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Photo News Round-Up
• Newscom adds a variety of still imagery and footage collections including Pacific Coast News and Rapport Press.
• Brooklyn Museum crowd-sourcing fine art photography with Open Call for its latest Photography Exhibition
• The Stock Artists Alliance launches the SAA Metadata Project, a comprehensive survey of metadata practices by photographers and stock image distributors.
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Kursiv launches KIM Keywording software
Kursiv, a swiss stock photography agency, has announced that it is now offering software to aid photo agencies and photographers who are struggling to keyword their images. The new software called "KIM Keywording" will be released early summer 2008.
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Capture integrates PLUS licensing standards into its asset management system
Capture a leading developer of image and digital asset management systems from the UK has announced that it has integrated the PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System) standards into its web-based asset management system Capture Office Online (COO). According to a press release issued by the company “This means that the PLUS media matrix can be used in COO to specify standardized usage categories – and then generate prices easily (and the unique PLUS price code) by using COO’s price factoring facility”.
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CEPIC to host 2nd annual meta data conference in Malta
At last year’s CEPIC Conference in Florence, CEPIC added a special one-day conference dedicated specifically to the topic of metadata – descriptive and identifying text information that accompanies digital photographs—hosted in partnership with the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) and the European news and media trade organization, IFRA. Building on the success of last year’s metadata meeting, the thee organizations will hold a second meta-data conference in Malta on June 5, 2008, called “Metadata for Better Business.”
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New Zealand’s More Images is launching Keedup as separate keywording business
Three years ago More Images, a New Zealand based stock photo agency, launched a keywording service called Keedup to serve the needs of photographers and photo agencies from around the world. Now the company is launching Keedup Ltd as a separate privately-owned company in order to better promote growth of the new business. “With our relatively low wages, and high education standards we are delivering keywording at the standard of US and UK companies, but at a greatly reduced price” states the company’s founder Kevin Townsend.
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Keywording.com develops method for converting captions into keywords
Keywording.com, a Portland Oregon based firm that specializes in keywording images for stock agencies and independent artists, has announced that it has developed a method to efficiently convert photograph captions into relevant keywords. The process was developed by the company’s managing Director Kirsti O’Sullivan, in response to a growing demand get images to market faster and at less cost. “Most photographs will have a caption. We can take that caption and jump-start you towards great keywords at a very reasonable price,” states O’Sullivan.
News
Library of Congress taps into Flickr community to tag vintage images
The library of Congress is participating in the launch of a Flickr initiative dubbed "The Commons" where it has posted 3,115 vintage images Including shots of early 20th century baseball players to 1940s-era images of horse-drawn carts and factory workers. The images have been posted in an effort to solicit help from the Flickr community in tagging the works in order to bring new context to the collection.
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Dreamstime offers useful new keyword tool for contributors
The micro-stock company, Dreamstime, has created a new resource to help photographers understand better how their images are found by those who go purchase them. The company calls the tool, which is unique to Dreamstime and deceptively simple, “words that work.” It allows the contributor to see the specific keywords used by a purchaser to find the image they went on to buy. While often times the keyword is obvious, in many cases the words offer a different perspective on an image that might not have occurred to the contributor, which can provide helpful guidance to shooting and keywording on future productions.
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New Zealand firm Keedup to provide outsourced research services to photo libraries
Keedup, an Auckland, New Zealand keywording company, has decided to add another service to its offerings to stock photo libraries: picture research. The company believes many photo libraries miss out on sales because their staff can't keep up with research requests during regular business hours or simply don't get to off-hours requests soon enough to meet clients' deadlines. According Kevin Townsend, managing director at Keedup, "This is a particularly big problem for small to medium size libraries and photo agencies who are based in one country. When the day comes to an end there is often no one around to deal with customers' research requests."
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News Brief: JaincoTech opens London scanning facility to serve European and UK clients.
In partnership with Elizabeth Whiting Associates (EWA,) digital image services provider JaincoTech has opened a scanning facility in the UK. The company now has three scanning operations worldwide, in London, Mumbai, India and Solon, Ohio.
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Internet Archive selected to digitize NASA space imagery
Internet Archive of San Francisco has announced a partnership to scan, archive and manage the NASA's collection of photographs, film and video. Currently, NASA has more than 20 major imagery collections online. For the first time all of the NASA collections will be available through a single archive of NASA imagery. NASA appears to have selected Internet Archive, as a partner largely due to the fact that it is a nonprofit organization. The two organizations are teaming through a non-exclusive Space Act agreement to help NASA consolidate and digitize its imagery archives at no cost to the agency.
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SAA and ASMP receive Preserving Creative America initiative award from Library of Congress
The Stock Artist Alliance and American Society of Media Photographers have been selected among eight partnerships awarded for preserving digital media by the U.S. Library of Congress. The partnerships are each awarded to address different aspects of preservation, to help ensure the survival of digital media. The SAA has been recognized previously for the publication of its "Metadata Manifesto" in 2006 and the award be used to develop online resources and professional seminars to promote the importance of metadata for the long-term usability of digital photographs. The ASMP will use its award to expand and promote the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines, with recommendations for refined production workflows, archiving methods and best practices based on image use and capture methods.
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Masterfile launches ‘People’s Choice’ search refinement
It seems that the battle to improve search results is a constant struggle for any business with a significant amount of content and stock licensing companies have been trying for years to enhance the basic search techniques which rely solely on metadata to return an intuitive search result. To that end, The Toronto based Stock Agency Masterfile has announced the addition of a new search feature called ‘People’s Choice’ that takes into consideration the compiled actions performed by the sites users. The company states that it has been storing data on user activity for several years and is finally able to release the new feature which functions primarily as a means for the user to refine their search results based on over-all popularity. In addition the company also allows the user to refine their results by the ‘Editor’s Choice’ which brings images flagged by the company’s editors to the forefront.
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iStockphoto adds consumer video formats and additional languages
The leading microstock site, iStockphoto, Is now converting its video content to include the .wmv and .mp4 video formats to make the content easier to use without manipulation. The company has also added localized sites in Japanese, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Polish and Russian, making the Getty-owned microstock site fully searchable in 12 languages.
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Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines 2.0
The Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines (UPDIG) has released updated guidelines for digital imaging. The release includes an executive summary with 12 concise guidelines and a Complete Guide for those looking for more detail. The guidelines were produced primarily from the photographer’s perspective but UPDIG has labored to incorporate the concerns of all users of Digital imaging to make the guidelines useful for anyone involved with digital imaging.
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Researchers teach computers to keyword images
Researchers at Penn State University are claiming to have made a major breakthrough that could impact search engines that rely on keywording or tagging to identify images. The researchers have "taught" computers how to interpret images using a vocabulary of up to 330 English words, so that a computer can describe a photograph of two polo players, for instance, as "sport," "people," "horse," "polo."
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OnAsia Digital keywording Britain’s National Trust Photo Library
Bangkok Thailand based OnAsia Digital has announced a contract to begin keywording the image collection of Britain’s National Trust. OnAsia Digital had completed a similar assignment for the UK’s National Gallery in 2005. The company launched its keywording service four years ago based on its own proprietary metadata management technology including a thesaurus of more than 30,000 terms. OnAsia Digital boasts that it has keyworded over 200,000 images and has stated plans to release a desktop version of its keywording technology before the end of 2006.
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PACA releases metadata standards
The President of the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA), Roger Ressmeyer, has published a letter to its membership concerning Metadata Standards. The new metadata standards, if they are widely accepted, would aid anyone involved in stock image licensing (Stock Photography Agencies, Photographers, Art Buyers, Etc...), to manage their image licensing activities more efficiently. In addition PACA hopes the new standards would prove beneficial for those who wish to submit their work to any of the anticipated global image registries intended to protect the copyright owner in the event that Orphan Works legislation is enacted. Ressmeyer’s letter, in its entirety, follows:
