Re: folksonomies

[J. Trant]

Günter,

Thanks for a good summary of the MCN-L 
discussion. I wanted to highlight one of the 
attractions of folksonomy for the art museums 
involved in Steve that you didn't mention: It's a 
bridge between the museum and the visitor.


There's a "semantic gap" between the way that 
museum professionals talk about art and the way 
that the general public perceives it. What you 
see in a picture may not be reflected in art 
museum professional documentation. As Koven Smith 
reported at the MCN session, preliminary tests at 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art have shown a 
significant difference in the terms assigned by 
art historically and non-art historically trained 
staff. And what curators 'know' about a work may 
not be drawn from visual analysis at all. Michael 
Jenkin's wonderful anecdote about the MMA's 
curatorial trials reinforced this; one curator 
was stumped when asked to assign keywords that 
described a photograph: "Everything I know isn't 
in the picture", he said.


Subject cataloguing (at any one of Panofsky's 
levels of description: pre-iconographic, 
iconographic or iconological) is one aspect of 
what is often not included in museum 
documentation. Another is style and period 
terminology (think "Impressionist"). Then there 
is the lack of simple descriptions of the visual 
elements that make up a composition (red circle, 
blue square). Or there is the formulation of 
names. Is she Gabrielle Chanel, or Coco?


In all these cases enabling users' descriptions 
[through tagging] would capture their perspective 
on the works in museum collections, bridge the 
gap between visitor and museum, and further 
enable access to the collections we hold in the 
public trust.


jennifer
--
__
J. Trantjtr...@archimuse.com
Partner & Principal Consultant  phone: +1 416 691 2516
Archives & Museum Informatics   fax: +1 416 352 6025
158 Lee Ave, Toronto
Ontario M4E 2P3 Canada  http://www.archimuse.com
__



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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digita

[Newman, Alan]

Title: RE: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines






GŸnter,


Yes, true. Steve Puglia (NARA) has done a wonderful job.

UPDIG is a broad inter-agency top-level set of evolving guidelines.

NARA addresses step-by-step, granular methodologies.

Hopefully MCN, VRA & IS&T will participate in UPDIG and create a larger resource.


Alan



--

From:   guenter.wai...@rlg.org

Reply To:   mcn-l@mcn.edu

Sent:   Tuesday, November 29, 2005 2:03 PM

To:     mcn-l@mcn.edu

Subject:    Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines


I've taken a look at these guidelines, and I definitely see their appeal in

being extremely hands on, concrete and fairly short. I'd be curious to hear

whether anybody has taken a look at these vis-a-vis other best practice

documents such as the very detailed NARA Guidelines?

http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/digitizing-archival-materials.pdf


Cheers,


GŸnter





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Re: [POSSIBLE SPAM ] - folksonomies - Bayesian Filter detec

[Christopher Dunn]

Gunter,

This is excellent!  Thanks for this.  I have just forwarded this link to 
several colleagues at other institutions.

Christopher Dunn

Christopher P. Dunn, PhD
Executive Director for Research Programs
Chicago Botanic Garden
1000 Lake Cook Road
Glencoe, IL  60022
USA

Phone:  847.835.6934
Fax:  847.835.1635
http://www.chicagobotanic.org/research/science/_dunn.html
 
 

-Original Message-
From: guenter.wai...@rlg.org [mailto:guenter.wai...@rlg.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 12:54 PM
To: mcn-l@mcn.edu
Subject: [POSSIBLE SPAM ] - folksonomies - Bayesian Filter detected spam

For those of you not done yet with folksonomies, or those who'd like a
re-cap of the discussion, I've written up a little piece on this really
great thread at http://hangingtogether.org/?p=68. Enjoy!

Günter Waibel
Program Officer/RLG
2029 Stierlin Court, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA  94043 USA
voice: +1-650-691-2304 | fax: +1-650-964-1461
blog: www.hangingtogether.org
guenter.wai...@rlg.org




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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital ImagingGuidelines

[Guenter . Waibel]

I've taken a look at these guidelines, and I definitely see their appeal in
being extremely hands on, concrete and fairly short. I'd be curious to hear
whether anybody has taken a look at these vis-a-vis other best practice
documents such as the very detailed NARA Guidelines?
http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/digitizing-archival-materials.pdf

Cheers,

Günter




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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digita

[Newman, Alan]

Title: RE: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines






Here's what UPDIG has to say about Digital Archiving and the various trade-offs between RAW, DNG and Tif.

I find no major fault with this overview analysis.  UPDIG is a work-in-progress and a very good head start as a basic practice model for museum imaging practicioners.

Alan Newman



-



Archival image formats

RAW file archiving for DSLR users is likely to be one of the greatest challenges in the long-term maintenance of a digital archive. Because each camera model creates a unique file-type, the likelihood of files becoming unreadable at some time in the future is high. Photographers must develop a comprehensive strategy to use when confronting this issue: one that takes into account the probable obsolescence of file formats and the necessity of file format migration.

File format migration refers to the practice of conversion of image files to a different storage format. This can come in the form of conversion to TIFF files, conversion to DNG files, or conversion to some future format not even in existence today. Each of these choices holds certain advantages and disadvantages regarding image quality, storage needs, and workflow requirements. Some of these concerns are outlined below.
Conversion to TIFF files

By converting images to TIFF format, the photographer is storing the images in the most accessible file format. Because TIFF is an open standard, it is likely to be readable for a very long time. TIFF also offers a workflow advantage: By converting to TIFF, you probably eliminate the need to reconvert the files again for many years, perhaps even for your lifetime. So images can be converted and archived with confidence that they are safely accessible long into the future.

There is a downside, however. TIFF files are much larger than RAW files. Converting image files to 16-bit TIFFs can make the files up to 10 times larger than RAW files, and 15 times larger than DNG. This will clearly increase the cost of file storage. The other downside to conversion to TIFF is that it precludes the use of better RAW converters that are surely coming in the future. Just as Photoshop CS2 does a better conversion that Photoshop CS does, it is likely that the RAW file conversion programs available in several years will do an even better job than our current tools.
Archiving RAW files

If a photographer chooses to archive the RAW file, then he will be preserving the largest number of options for future conversion of the files. As conversion software improves, new versions of the file can be made that will can have better color fidelity, or better noise reduction, or better upsizing interpolation. By keeping the RAW file intact, the largest number of future conversion options is preserved.

This, too, has its downside. RAW files will likely have to be converted to a more universal file format at some time in the future. This may involve the conversion and re-cataloging of hundreds of thousands of image files. If this conversion is not accomplished before that particular format becomes generally unreadable, then the conversion may simply never happen, and those images may be lost.

Additionally, since RAW files are proprietary, it is not safe practice to alter these files. This means that any work you do to these files, such as the addition of metadata, or adjustments to the image, cannot be stored in the file itself. This is typically accomplished by the use of either “sidecar” files, or the storage of these adjustments in some kind of larger database. The splitting of this information makes for a file-management challenge that may present a serious roadblock in the future, as you try to include this work in a conversion file.
Archiving DNG files

RAW files can be converted to DNG files, which is an open format that can store the RAW image data, metadata, and a color-corrected JPEG preview of the image. The DNG file format provides a common platform for information about the file and adjustments to the image. Because of this, cataloging applications like iVIew MediaPro and Extensis Portfolio can see metadata that has been entered in Photoshop, and these programs can see the image adjustments made in Photoshop. DNG files can be re-opened in Photoshop as though they were RAW files, and offer the full range of conversion options in Photoshop that the original RAW file offered.

DNG is likely to be readable long after the original RAW format becomes obsolete, simply because there will be so many more of them than any particular RAW file format. Additionally, the DNG offers significant file-size savings through a lossless compression that can reduce the file size by up to one third. Also, by converting to DNG at the time of archiving, you are likely to forestall further file format migration for a very long time. DNG also offers the possibility of embedding the RAW file itself, so that it can be re-co

folksonomies

[Guenter . Waibel]

For those of you not done yet with folksonomies, or those who'd like a
re-cap of the discussion, I've written up a little piece on this really
great thread at http://hangingtogether.org/?p=68. Enjoy!

Günter Waibel
Program Officer/RLG
2029 Stierlin Court, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA  94043 USA
voice: +1-650-691-2304 | fax: +1-650-964-1461
blog: www.hangingtogether.org
guenter.wai...@rlg.org




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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines

[Jeff Evans]

At Princeton we have two delivery points: TMS and Press  
(Publications).  TMS takes the large Jpegs and rolls away.  But for  
press, most printers will want uncompresses RGB Tiffs.  Or CMYK tifs  
if you're proofing in house.  Dont compress a tiff - Burn 'em to DVD  
if you have to.  I would however suggest sizing them for your  
intended publication - that will shrink them a bit.


Raw files are great to keep - if your workflow allows for re- 
exporting.  Can turn into a bit of a management headache though  
"which Tif is it" etc.   I am keen on photographers or studio  
production managers handling the RAW file storage problems.


Jeffrey Evans
Digital Imaging Specialist
Princeton University Art Museum
609.258.8579



On Nov 29, 2005, at 1:00 PM, Ray Shah wrote:

Can someone explain to me what advantages the TIFF format has over  
PNG, and why that is not used instead? This would reduce file size  
without the need for an intermediary compression step, and as far  
as I'm aware maintain image fidelity as well as TIFFs, and much  
better than JPEG.


- Ray

Matt Morgan wrote:

Richard Urban wrote:

Matt,

Generally compression isn't recommended for a few reasons.  While  
Zip and
LZW are fairly reliable compression algorithms, they add another  
layer of

complexity to the file.

Understood--thanks to you and to Tim Au Yeung.

It's possible that the compression could make
unpacking them more difficult down the line.  I've  heard it  
suggested that
this is particularly true if there is some bit level corruption  
of the file,
which could cause the compression to fail. (comments from people  
who get
under the hood with files would be appreciated...sometimes I feel  
like these
are digital urban legends).  I'd be interested in seeing any hard  
data on

this.
If there is such a problem, it would be in the different  
implementations, not in the algorithm, which is mathematically  
perfect. Perhaps nobody has gotten the hard data you're asking  
for, but if not, it's probably only because other industries do  
not doubt the reversibility of compression in the way we do. I  
mean, zillions of files are compressed and uncompressed every day,  
and for years, almost every PC hard drive was dblspaced or drvspaced.


I understand that you're talking about problems not necessarily  
visible to the eye, or that we just wouldn't worry about in a  
spreadsheet or memo, but in demonstrated practice, common forms of  
reversible compression are safe for files. Can I go on that? How  
much more convinced can we get?
The other concern is over the patents held on both compression  
algorithms.
There was a time where the patent holders were attempting to  
claim control
over the patents, suggesting that you'd need a license to unpack  
your files
(or least the people making the software you use would).  These  
mostly seem
to have gone away, but the patents are still out there. Generally  
this is
why we've steered away from proprietary formats towards open  
standards.


I'm all for open standards, especially for museums and libraries-- 
and ZIP is at least as open (now) as most RAW formats. In any  
case, there are other compression algorithms that are well-tested  
and more open than ZIP has been in the past. So it just seems like  
this is a minor issue compared to the complexity problem.


Thanks,
Matt

Richard Urban
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
rjur...@uiuc.edu


-Original Message-
From: Matt Morgan [mailto:m...@concretecomputing.com] Sent:  
Tuesday, November 29, 2005 10:39 AM

To: mcn-l@mcn.edu
Subject: Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic  
Digital

Imaging Guidelines

Newman, Alan wrote:


Curious coincidence. I just distributed this link today to my  
staff and I


was preparing a post to MCN-L.  We've adopted most of these  
guidelines in my

division at the National Gallery.




I'm curious to know which recommendations you haven't adopted ...  
let us

know!

I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really  
interesting and
helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format was  
relatively
unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we want to  
recommend RAW
format, but we realize you're going to convert them anyway, at  
least until
the DNG format is widely-supported." Their best arguments for RAW  
applied to
oddball cameras--which to me is an argument not to buy an oddball  
camera. Is
anyone behaving differently, and storing files in RAW (but not  
also storing
in TIFF)? I think, although I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working  
Group has

more faith in RAW than the museum and library worlds do.

The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but  
haven't seen

addressed much, is why not store files with some form of reversible
compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't address this
(although it allows that compression is valuable and acceptable for
delivery). ZIP (an

Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital ImagingGuidelines

[Matt Morgan]

Matt Morgan wrote:

  
  
Richard Urban wrote:
  
Matt,

Generally compression isn't recommended for a few reasons.  While Zip and
LZW are fairly reliable compression algorithms, they add another layer of
complexity to the file.  
  
Understood--thanks to you and to Tim Au Yeung. 
  
It's possible that the compression could make
unpacking them more difficult down the line.  I've  heard it suggested that
this is particularly true if there is some bit level corruption of the file,
which could cause the compression to fail. (comments from people who get
under the hood with files would be appreciated...sometimes I feel like these
are digital urban legends). 
  

I misunderstood what you were saying here. Although maybe then zipping
will expose the bit-level corruption of the file, which would be nice
:-). But probably that's just a fantasy.

  
 I'd be interested in seeing any hard data on
this. 
  
  
If there is such a problem, it would be in the different
implementations, not in the algorithm, which is mathematically perfect.
Perhaps nobody has gotten the hard data you're asking for, but if not,
it's probably only because other industries do not doubt the
reversibility of compression in the way we do. I mean, zillions of
files are compressed and uncompressed every day, and for years, almost
every PC hard drive was dblspaced or drvspaced. 
  
I understand that you're talking about problems not necessarily visible
to the eye, or that we just wouldn't worry about in a spreadsheet or
memo, but in demonstrated practice, common forms of reversible
compression are safe for files. Can I go on that? How much more
convinced can we get?
  
The other concern is over the patents held on both compression algorithms.
There was a time where the patent holders were attempting to claim control
over the patents, suggesting that you'd need a license to unpack your files
(or least the people making the software you use would).  These mostly seem
to have gone away, but the patents are still out there. Generally this is
why we've steered away from proprietary formats towards open standards.
  
  
I'm all for open standards, especially for museums and libraries--and
ZIP is at least as open (now) as most RAW formats. In any case, there
are other compression algorithms that are well-tested and more open
than ZIP has been in the past. So it just seems like this is a minor
issue compared to the complexity problem.
  
Thanks,
Matt
  
Richard Urban
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
rjur...@uiuc.edu


-Original Message-
From: Matt Morgan [mailto:m...@concretecomputing.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 10:39 AM
To: mcn-l@mcn.edu
Subject: Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital
Imaging Guidelines

Newman, Alan wrote:

  

  Curious coincidence. I just distributed this link today to my staff and I


was preparing a post to MCN-L.  We've adopted most of these guidelines in my
division at the National Gallery.
  

   



I'm curious to know which recommendations you haven't adopted ... let us
know!

I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really interesting and
helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format was relatively
unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we want to recommend RAW
format, but we realize you're going to convert them anyway, at least until
the DNG format is widely-supported." Their best arguments for RAW applied to
oddball cameras--which to me is an argument not to buy an oddball camera. Is
anyone behaving differently, and storing files in RAW (but not also storing
in TIFF)? I think, although I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working Group has
more faith in RAW than the museum and library worlds do.

The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but haven't seen
addressed much, is why not store files with some form of reversible
compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't address this
(although it allows that compression is valuable and acceptable for
delivery). ZIP (and bzip2 and gzip) is perfectly reversible, and it's tried
and true. Why store 100Mb TIFF files when we could be storing 10Mb tiff.zip
files? Has anyone out there opted to use reversible compression in digital
repositories? If not, why not?

I realize that JPEG2000 would also solve the compression problem, but ZIP
ought to have less of an acceptance problem than JPEG2000 (as ZIP is already
so established).

Thanks,
Matt




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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digita

[Tim Au Yeung]

Hi Matt,
 
> So now we can begin compressing our TIFFs? The main reason I ask is that I
have heard a lot of really
> bad arguments against compression in the past, and a lot of non-argument
(for example: "it's just not
> done"). I want to know what the good reasons against it are.

> For a small museum especially, that might save hundreds of thousands of
dollars in storage by reversibly
> compressing RAW and TIFF files, and therefore be able to preserve where
otherwise it might not be able to
> afford it, is compression acceptable? Or is it so unacceptable that nobody
should implement a repository
> with compression?

Well -- since TIFF has entered into the books as an ISO standard (see
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd72.shtml), based on
the TIFF 6 spec, there isn't a strong reason to argue against it. I don't
have a copy of the standard in front of me and what it specifies as a part
of the standard in terms of compression so if someone else wants to comment
but I suspect that compression is allowed as part of the specification.

One thing to consider is the difference between ideal practice and
best-possible practice recommendations -- in a ideal situation, you
eliminate all complex encoding (including compression) so that the final
file is (as much as possible) almost human readable. That way, there is the
possibility of "deducing" the layout of the file without any sort of key or
guide. Realistically, this is a terribly inefficient way of storing data
(see XML for examples) that often conflicts with the on-the-ground
experience of practitioners. I wouldn't eliminate compression from the
toolbox of practitioners wanting to implement a repository as it may be
necessary (High definition video, for instance, is completely unrealistic to
store in an uncompressed form).

A final thing to note is that RAW files often already have compression, so
compressing again often yields no appreciable gains and only adds a layer of
complexity.

Tim





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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital ImagingGuidelines

[Matt Morgan]

Tim Au Yeung wrote:

  Hi Matt,
 
  
  
So now we can begin compressing our TIFFs? The main reason I ask is that I

  
  have heard a lot of really
  
  
bad arguments against compression in the past, and a lot of non-argument

  
  (for example: "it's just not
  
  
done"). I want to know what the good reasons against it are.

  
  
  
  
For a small museum especially, that might save hundreds of thousands of

  
  dollars in storage by reversibly
  
  
compressing RAW and TIFF files, and therefore be able to preserve where

  
  otherwise it might not be able to
  
  
afford it, is compression acceptable? Or is it so unacceptable that nobody

  
  should implement a repository
  
  
with compression?

  
  
Well -- since TIFF has entered into the books as an ISO standard (see
http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd72.shtml), based on
the TIFF 6 spec, there isn't a strong reason to argue against it. 

Now I get it. I wasn't arguing against tiff--just not understanding
some things about it.

  I don't
have a copy of the standard in front of me and what it specifies as a part
of the standard in terms of compression so if someone else wants to comment
but I suspect that compression is allowed as part of the specification.
  

If that's true, that's truly great. I will look into it. Thanks!

As Alan Newman pointed out, not all tools handle compressed TIFFs
nicely. So that's an issue sometimes.

  
One thing to consider is the difference between ideal practice and
best-possible practice recommendations -- in a ideal situation, you
eliminate all complex encoding (including compression) so that the final
file is (as much as possible) almost human readable. That way, there is the
possibility of "deducing" the layout of the file without any sort of key or
guide. Realistically, this is a terribly inefficient way of storing data
(see XML for examples) that often conflicts with the on-the-ground
experience of practitioners. I wouldn't eliminate compression from the
toolbox of practitioners wanting to implement a repository as it may be
necessary (High definition video, for instance, is completely unrealistic to
store in an uncompressed form).

A final thing to note is that RAW files often already have compression, 

I had no idea. Thanks.

--Matt



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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital ImagingGuidelines

[Ray Shah]

Can someone explain to me what advantages the TIFF format has over PNG, 
and why that is not used instead? This would reduce file size without 
the need for an intermediary compression step, and as far as I'm aware 
maintain image fidelity as well as TIFFs, and much better than JPEG.

- Ray

Matt Morgan wrote:
> Richard Urban wrote:
>> Matt,
>>
>> Generally compression isn't recommended for a few reasons.  While Zip and
>> LZW are fairly reliable compression algorithms, they add another layer of
>> complexity to the file.  
> Understood--thanks to you and to Tim Au Yeung.
>> It's possible that the compression could make
>> unpacking them more difficult down the line.  I've  heard it suggested that
>> this is particularly true if there is some bit level corruption of the file,
>> which could cause the compression to fail. (comments from people who get
>> under the hood with files would be appreciated...sometimes I feel like these
>> are digital urban legends).  I'd be interested in seeing any hard data on
>> this. 
>>   
> If there is such a problem, it would be in the different 
> implementations, not in the algorithm, which is mathematically 
> perfect. Perhaps nobody has gotten the hard data you're asking for, 
> but if not, it's probably only because other industries do not doubt 
> the reversibility of compression in the way we do. I mean, zillions of 
> files are compressed and uncompressed every day, and for years, almost 
> every PC hard drive was dblspaced or drvspaced.
>
> I understand that you're talking about problems not necessarily 
> visible to the eye, or that we just wouldn't worry about in a 
> spreadsheet or memo, but in demonstrated practice, common forms of 
> reversible compression are safe for files. Can I go on that? How much 
> more convinced can we get?
>> The other concern is over the patents held on both compression algorithms.
>> There was a time where the patent holders were attempting to claim control
>> over the patents, suggesting that you'd need a license to unpack your files
>> (or least the people making the software you use would).  These mostly seem
>> to have gone away, but the patents are still out there. Generally this is
>> why we've steered away from proprietary formats towards open standards.
>>   
> I'm all for open standards, especially for museums and libraries--and 
> ZIP is at least as open (now) as most RAW formats. In any case, there 
> are other compression algorithms that are well-tested and more open 
> than ZIP has been in the past. So it just seems like this is a minor 
> issue compared to the complexity problem.
>
> Thanks,
> Matt
>> Richard Urban
>> Graduate School of Library and Information Science
>> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
>> rjur...@uiuc.edu
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Matt Morgan [mailto:m...@concretecomputing.com] 
>> Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 10:39 AM
>> To: mcn-l@mcn.edu
>> Subject: Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital
>> Imaging Guidelines
>>
>> Newman, Alan wrote:
>>
>>   
>>> Curious coincidence. I just distributed this link today to my staff and I
>>> 
>> was preparing a post to MCN-L.  We've adopted most of these guidelines in my
>> division at the National Gallery.
>>   
>>>  
>>>
>>> 
>> I'm curious to know which recommendations you haven't adopted ... let us
>> know!
>>
>> I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really interesting and
>> helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format was relatively
>> unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we want to recommend RAW
>> format, but we realize you're going to convert them anyway, at least until
>> the DNG format is widely-supported." Their best arguments for RAW applied to
>> oddball cameras--which to me is an argument not to buy an oddball camera. Is
>> anyone behaving differently, and storing files in RAW (but not also storing
>> in TIFF)? I think, although I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working Group has
>> more faith in RAW than the museum and library worlds do.
>>
>> The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but haven't seen
>> addressed much, is why not store files with some form of reversible
>> compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't address this
>> (although it allows that compression is valuable and acceptable for
>> delivery). ZIP (and bzip2 and gzip) is perfectly reversible, and it's tried
>> and true. Why store 100Mb TIFF files when we could be storing 10Mb tiff.zip
>> files? Has anyone out there opted to use reversible compression in digital
>> repositories? If not, why not?
>>
>> I realize that JPEG2000 would also solve the compression problem, but ZIP
>> ought to have less of an acceptance problem than JPEG2000 (as ZIP is already
>> so established).
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Matt
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>> leave-mcn_mcn-l-12800...@lists

Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital ImagingGuidelines

[Matt Morgan]

Richard Urban wrote:

  Matt,

Generally compression isn't recommended for a few reasons.  While Zip and
LZW are fairly reliable compression algorithms, they add another layer of
complexity to the file.  

Understood--thanks to you and to Tim Au Yeung. 

  It's possible that the compression could make
unpacking them more difficult down the line.  I've  heard it suggested that
this is particularly true if there is some bit level corruption of the file,
which could cause the compression to fail. (comments from people who get
under the hood with files would be appreciated...sometimes I feel like these
are digital urban legends).  I'd be interested in seeing any hard data on
this. 
  

If there is such a problem, it would be in the different
implementations, not in the algorithm, which is mathematically perfect.
Perhaps nobody has gotten the hard data you're asking for, but if not,
it's probably only because other industries do not doubt the
reversibility of compression in the way we do. I mean, zillions of
files are compressed and uncompressed every day, and for years, almost
every PC hard drive was dblspaced or drvspaced. 

I understand that you're talking about problems not necessarily visible
to the eye, or that we just wouldn't worry about in a spreadsheet or
memo, but in demonstrated practice, common forms of reversible
compression are safe for files. Can I go on that? How much more
convinced can we get?

  
The other concern is over the patents held on both compression algorithms.
There was a time where the patent holders were attempting to claim control
over the patents, suggesting that you'd need a license to unpack your files
(or least the people making the software you use would).  These mostly seem
to have gone away, but the patents are still out there. Generally this is
why we've steered away from proprietary formats towards open standards.
  

I'm all for open standards, especially for museums and libraries--and
ZIP is at least as open (now) as most RAW formats. In any case, there
are other compression algorithms that are well-tested and more open
than ZIP has been in the past. So it just seems like this is a minor
issue compared to the complexity problem.

Thanks,
Matt

  
Richard Urban
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
rjur...@uiuc.edu


-Original Message-
From: Matt Morgan [mailto:m...@concretecomputing.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 10:39 AM
To: mcn-l@mcn.edu
Subject: Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital
Imaging Guidelines

Newman, Alan wrote:

  
  
Curious coincidence. I just distributed this link today to my staff and I

  
  was preparing a post to MCN-L.  We've adopted most of these guidelines in my
division at the National Gallery.
  
  
 


  
  I'm curious to know which recommendations you haven't adopted ... let us
know!

I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really interesting and
helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format was relatively
unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we want to recommend RAW
format, but we realize you're going to convert them anyway, at least until
the DNG format is widely-supported." Their best arguments for RAW applied to
oddball cameras--which to me is an argument not to buy an oddball camera. Is
anyone behaving differently, and storing files in RAW (but not also storing
in TIFF)? I think, although I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working Group has
more faith in RAW than the museum and library worlds do.

The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but haven't seen
addressed much, is why not store files with some form of reversible
compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't address this
(although it allows that compression is valuable and acceptable for
delivery). ZIP (and bzip2 and gzip) is perfectly reversible, and it's tried
and true. Why store 100Mb TIFF files when we could be storing 10Mb tiff.zip
files? Has anyone out there opted to use reversible compression in digital
repositories? If not, why not?

I realize that JPEG2000 would also solve the compression problem, but ZIP
ought to have less of an acceptance problem than JPEG2000 (as ZIP is already
so established).

Thanks,
Matt




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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digita

[Richard Urban]

Matt,

Generally compression isn't recommended for a few reasons.  While Zip and
LZW are fairly reliable compression algorithms, they add another layer of
complexity to the file.  It's possible that the compression could make
unpacking them more difficult down the line.  I've  heard it suggested that
this is particularly true if there is some bit level corruption of the file,
which could cause the compression to fail. (comments from people who get
under the hood with files would be appreciated...sometimes I feel like these
are digital urban legends).  I'd be interested in seeing any hard data on
this. 

The other concern is over the patents held on both compression algorithms.
There was a time where the patent holders were attempting to claim control
over the patents, suggesting that you'd need a license to unpack your files
(or least the people making the software you use would).  These mostly seem
to have gone away, but the patents are still out there. Generally this is
why we've steered away from proprietary formats towards open standards.

Richard Urban
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
rjur...@uiuc.edu


-Original Message-
From: Matt Morgan [mailto:m...@concretecomputing.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2005 10:39 AM
To: mcn-l@mcn.edu
Subject: Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital
Imaging Guidelines

Newman, Alan wrote:

>Curious coincidence. I just distributed this link today to my staff and I
was preparing a post to MCN-L.  We've adopted most of these guidelines in my
division at the National Gallery.
>  
>
I'm curious to know which recommendations you haven't adopted ... let us
know!

I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really interesting and
helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format was relatively
unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we want to recommend RAW
format, but we realize you're going to convert them anyway, at least until
the DNG format is widely-supported." Their best arguments for RAW applied to
oddball cameras--which to me is an argument not to buy an oddball camera. Is
anyone behaving differently, and storing files in RAW (but not also storing
in TIFF)? I think, although I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working Group has
more faith in RAW than the museum and library worlds do.

The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but haven't seen
addressed much, is why not store files with some form of reversible
compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't address this
(although it allows that compression is valuable and acceptable for
delivery). ZIP (and bzip2 and gzip) is perfectly reversible, and it's tried
and true. Why store 100Mb TIFF files when we could be storing 10Mb tiff.zip
files? Has anyone out there opted to use reversible compression in digital
repositories? If not, why not?

I realize that JPEG2000 would also solve the compression problem, but ZIP
ought to have less of an acceptance problem than JPEG2000 (as ZIP is already
so established).

Thanks,
Matt




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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital ImagingGuidelines

[Matt Morgan]

Tim Au Yeung wrote:

  Couple of thoughts here:

  
  
I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really interesting 
and helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format was 
relatively unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we want 
to recommend RAW format, but we realize you're going to convert them 
anyway, at least until the DNG format is widely-supported." Their best 
arguments for RAW applied to oddball cameras--which to me is an argument 
not to buy an oddball camera. Is anyone behaving differently, and 
storing files in RAW (but not also storing in TIFF)? I think, although 
I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working Group has more faith in RAW than 
the museum and library worlds do.

  
  
We generally store tiffs as our archival masters but we don't throw out
device-specific files either (RAW being one of them). From a photographer's
perspective (putting on a different hat for a moment), the RAWs hold so much
valuable information that gets lost in the conversion that at long as
manufacturers are making RAWs available, they're keepers.

  
  
The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but haven't 
seen addressed much, is why not store files with some form of reversible 
compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't address this 
(although it allows that compression is valuable and acceptable for 
delivery). ZIP (and bzip2 and gzip) is perfectly reversible, and it's 
tried and true. Why store 100Mb TIFF files when we could be storing 10Mb 
tiff.zip files? Has anyone out there opted to use reversible compression 
in digital repositories? If not, why not?

  
  
There are a couple of reasons why compression can be a bad thing. The first
is the issue of intermediary levels of complexity which add to the
preservation problem -- something that Howard Besser put forward in
discussions of preservation. The second is that most compression schemes are
proprietary and patented; the result being that they cannot be easily
implemented without cost. Zip is a good example of this -- it's based on the
LZW algorithm which until very recently (2004 I think) was held by Unisys.
It's only been in the last year that people could start thinking of using
the LZW algorithm freely.
  

So now we can begin compressing our TIFFs? The main reason I ask is
that I have heard a lot of really bad arguments against compression in
the past, and a lot of non-argument (for example: "it's just not
done"). I want to know what the good reasons against it are.

For a small museum especially, that might save hundreds of thousands of
dollars in storage by reversibly compressing RAW and TIFF files, and
therefore be able to preserve where otherwise it might not be able to
afford it, is compression acceptable? Or is it so unacceptable that
nobody should implement a repository with compression?




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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digita

[Tim Au Yeung]

Couple of thoughts here:

> I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really interesting 
> and helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format was 
> relatively unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we want 
> to recommend RAW format, but we realize you're going to convert them 
> anyway, at least until the DNG format is widely-supported." Their best 
> arguments for RAW applied to oddball cameras--which to me is an argument 
> not to buy an oddball camera. Is anyone behaving differently, and 
> storing files in RAW (but not also storing in TIFF)? I think, although 
> I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working Group has more faith in RAW than 
> the museum and library worlds do.

We generally store tiffs as our archival masters but we don't throw out
device-specific files either (RAW being one of them). From a photographer's
perspective (putting on a different hat for a moment), the RAWs hold so much
valuable information that gets lost in the conversion that at long as
manufacturers are making RAWs available, they're keepers.

> The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but haven't 
> seen addressed much, is why not store files with some form of reversible 
> compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't address this 
> (although it allows that compression is valuable and acceptable for 
> delivery). ZIP (and bzip2 and gzip) is perfectly reversible, and it's 
> tried and true. Why store 100Mb TIFF files when we could be storing 10Mb 
> tiff.zip files? Has anyone out there opted to use reversible compression 
> in digital repositories? If not, why not?

There are a couple of reasons why compression can be a bad thing. The first
is the issue of intermediary levels of complexity which add to the
preservation problem -- something that Howard Besser put forward in
discussions of preservation. The second is that most compression schemes are
proprietary and patented; the result being that they cannot be easily
implemented without cost. Zip is a good example of this -- it's based on the
LZW algorithm which until very recently (2004 I think) was held by Unisys.
It's only been in the last year that people could start thinking of using
the LZW algorithm freely.

Tim




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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digita

[Newman, Alan]

Title: RE: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines






Matt,


It is important is to archive the raw file because it has the potential to yield higher quality output than tif (higher dynamic range is just one example) when taking advantage of CS2 and other next generation image editing tools (e.g. Apple's Aperture) .

Zip is well established EXCEPT tif/zip with layers it is not fully supported quite yet by the mid-range media asset managers.  You can set tif.zip for lossless compression.

Zip & Raw are clearly here to stay and hopefully there will be more support for a lingua franca like DNG from the camera mfrs.

We have not yet fully adopted embedding IPTC (and XMP) metadata although we are working on that along with custom panels.

Alan



--

From:   Matt Morgan

Reply To:   mcn-l@mcn.edu

Sent:   Tuesday, November 29, 2005 11:36 AM

To:     mcn-l@mcn.edu

Subject:    Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines


<><>

Newman, Alan wrote:


>Curious coincidence. I just distributed this link today to my staff and I was preparing a post to MCN-L.  We've adopted most of these guidelines in my division at the National Gallery.

>  

>

I'm curious to know which recommendations you haven't adopted ... let us 

know!


I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really interesting 

and helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format was 

relatively unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we want 

to recommend RAW format, but we realize you're going to convert them 

anyway, at least until the DNG format is widely-supported." Their best 

arguments for RAW applied to oddball cameras--which to me is an argument 

not to buy an oddball camera. Is anyone behaving differently, and 

storing files in RAW (but not also storing in TIFF)? I think, although 

I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working Group has more faith in RAW than 

the museum and library worlds do.


The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but haven't 

seen addressed much, is why not store files with some form of reversible 

compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't address this 

(although they allow that compression is valuable for delivery). ZIP 

(and bzip2 and gzip) is perfectly reversible, and it's tried and true. 

Why store 100Mb TIFF files when we could be storing 10Mb tiff.zip files? 

Has anyone out there opted to use reversible compression in digital 

repositories? If not, why not?


I realize that JPEG2000 would also solve the compression problem, but 

ZIP ought to have less of an acceptance problem than JPEG2000 (as it's 

already so established).


Thanks,

Matt




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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital ImagingGuidelines

[James Landrum]

Problem with compression is the lossy-ness, i.e., data loss ...
same for lossy files types... which is why lossless file formats are 
recommended...


Matt Morgan wrote:


Newman, Alan wrote:

Curious coincidence. I just distributed this link today to my staff 
and I was preparing a post to MCN-L.  We've adopted most of these 
guidelines in my division at the National Gallery.
 

I'm curious to know which recommendations you haven't adopted ... let 
us know!


I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really 
interesting and helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format 
was relatively unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we 
want to recommend RAW format, but we realize you're going to convert 
them anyway, at least until the DNG format is widely-supported." Their 
best arguments for RAW applied to oddball cameras--which to me is an 
argument not to buy an oddball camera. Is anyone behaving differently, 
and storing files in RAW (but not also storing in TIFF)? I think, 
although I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working Group has more faith in 
RAW than the museum and library worlds do.


The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but haven't 
seen addressed much, is why not store files with some form of 
reversible compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't 
address this (although they allow that compression is valuable for 
delivery). ZIP (and bzip2 and gzip) is perfectly reversible, and it's 
tried and true. Why store 100Mb TIFF files when we could be storing 
10Mb tiff.zip files? Has anyone out there opted to use reversible 
compression in digital repositories? If not, why not?


I realize that JPEG2000 would also solve the compression problem, but 
ZIP ought to have less of an acceptance problem than JPEG2000 (as it's 
already so established).


Thanks,
Matt

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--

From the desk of James [Jim] E. Landrum III,

Archaeology Materials and Database Manager,
Archaeology Technologies Laboratory (ATL; http://atl.ndsu)
North Dakota State University (NDSU),
Digital Archive Network for Anthropology and World Heritage (DANA-WH; 
http://dana-wh.net)
Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) 
CAA2006 Conference, Fargo, North Dakota, USA. http://www.caa2006.org






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Re: [MCN SIG: Digital Media] Uniiversal Photographic Digital ImagingGuidelines

[Matt Morgan]

Newman, Alan wrote:

>Curious coincidence. I just distributed this link today to my staff and I was 
>preparing a post to MCN-L.  We've adopted most of these guidelines in my 
>division at the National Gallery.
>  
>
I'm curious to know which recommendations you haven't adopted ... let us 
know!

I read through the UPDIG recommendations and found it really interesting 
and helpful. I thought their recommendation for RAW format was 
relatively unconvincing, though. Almost like they were saying "we want 
to recommend RAW format, but we realize you're going to convert them 
anyway, at least until the DNG format is widely-supported." Their best 
arguments for RAW applied to oddball cameras--which to me is an argument 
not to buy an oddball camera. Is anyone behaving differently, and 
storing files in RAW (but not also storing in TIFF)? I think, although 
I'm not sure, that the UPDIG Working Group has more faith in RAW than 
the museum and library worlds do.

The other question I've been asking myself a lot lately, but haven't 
seen addressed much, is why not store files with some form of reversible 
compression like zip (or gzip or bzip2)? UPDIG doesn't address this 
(although they allow that compression is valuable for delivery). ZIP 
(and bzip2 and gzip) is perfectly reversible, and it's tried and true. 
Why store 100Mb TIFF files when we could be storing 10Mb tiff.zip files? 
Has anyone out there opted to use reversible compression in digital 
repositories? If not, why not?

I realize that JPEG2000 would also solve the compression problem, but 
ZIP ought to have less of an acceptance problem than JPEG2000 (as it's 
already so established).

Thanks,
Matt

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Product announcement: "Adlib Museum Lite" free collection management software for small museums

[Bert Degenhart Drenth]

Adlib Information Systems is proud to announce the release of a free
version of our Adlib Museum Collection management software, named "Adlib
Museum Lite". It is intended for small museums and private collectors
and can handle up to 5,000 objects, including multiple images per
object. The software is designed to run on the Windows platform.
 
The software package, including a 93 page full color 'How to use' manual
can be downloaded from:

http://www.adlibsoft.com/adlibsite/adlibmain.aspx?action=museum_lite

Kindest regards,

Bert Degenhart Drenth
Managing Director
Adlib Information Systems
www.adlibsoft.com
b...@adlibsoft.com






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AHDS Moving Image and Sound Preservation Study

[Simon Tanner]

Dear All, ** apologies for cross posting **

The AHDS are working on a JISC study into digital preservation.  We would 
be very grateful if you could spare a few minutes to fill out a very short 
online survey about the preservation of moving images and sound.


You may already be familiar with our survey on digital image 
preservation.  PLEASE NOTE that this survey addresses concerns central to 
the preservation of digital moving images and sound.


The survey can be found at:

http://www.ahds.ac.uk/moving-images-survey.htm

If you know of anyone else who you think could contribute to this study,

please could you forward the details.

Best wishes,


Emma Beer
Arts and Humanities Data Service
King's College London
3rd floor
26-29 Drury Lane
London WC2B 5RL
Tel:  0207848 1976
Fax: 0207 848 1989


Please note new mobile number: 07887 691716

Simon Tanner
Director,  King's Digital Consultancy Services
King's College London
Kay House, 7 Arundel Street, London WC2R 3DX
tel: +44 (0)20 7848 1678 or +44 (0)7887 691716
email: simon.tan...@kcl.ac.uk   
www.kcl.ac.uk/kdcs/




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File naming

[Mike Rippy]