Let the Pixels Flow . . .

By Ron Rovtar
Managing Editor
October 20, 2005

NEW YORK -- Sometimes in the evolution of technology an event makes it abundantly clear that something new has replaced something old and that things will never be quite the same again.

In the case of professional quality digital image capture, that event has to be this years PhotoPlus Expo at the Jacob K. Javits center here this week.

From the very the eve of the event when Apple Computer announced its new Aperture workflow software to the buzz at the PhotoPlus seminars to the booths in the exhibition hall, the show's unifying thread is solving the problems that come with high-resolution digital capture.

And let's face it, all those people would not be trying to solve these problems were there not enough photographers suffering from them. There is no compelling business economics in helping a few sufferers. But, now that Cannon and Nikon have both introduced affordable, high-quality digital cameras that really meet the needs of finicky pros, things are changing rapidly.

Clearly, the industry has reached some kind of "tipping point" and film is finally on the way out.

Nowhere is the change more evident than in the pervasive talk of "workflow," a word that entered the photo industry lexicon recently as a way of describing all the tasks (and bottlenecks) involved in getting an image from a digital camera to an editor, art director or stock photography buyer.

Digital capture provides a host of problems that never existed when photographers simply shot slides, threw them down on the light table, picked the best for scanning and worked on those few images in Photoshop.

Imagine how much trouble it is to open 100, 200 or 1,000 high-resolution images, sort them and choose the winners entirely on a computer. Photoshop, even with the new Bridge program for "digital asset management," is clearly not really designed for quickly sorting and choosing those "hero" images.

Which is why almost everyone at PhotoPlus was talking about the new Apple software (click here for more on Apple's Aperture) and why the show itself had for the first time an entire seminar series concerning workflow. Lauren Wendle, associate publisher at PDN magazine who is responsible for the show's seminar program, said that last year, workflow was part of a broader series that included color management.

The subject also cropped up in other unexpected places, including John Sharpe's seminar on negotiating and estimating assignments. Photographers wanted to know how to estimate and bill post production work other than retouching. In other words, they wanted to know how much "workflow" is worth as a line item.

And, of course, along with all the usual light meters, wedding albums, backdrops, cameras (of all types, including film) and trade organizations in the exhibit hall, there were any number of workflow solutions along with the necessary digital portfolios and back-up storage solutions that solve other computer age problems.

Besides Apple's Aperture, Extensis Portfolio 8 claimed it was "time to simplify your digital workflow; Workstream by ZBE, Inc., offered to "streamline your studio workflow:" Express Digital claimed to be "the leading provider of digital workflow software;" and ProShow Producer by PhotoDex promised "unmatched speed and workflow." At the same time iView MediaPro touted a "visual database for all your media files.

BitShelter officially announced its new service for storing all those images. The new service, called PhotoShelter will protect images by storing them in two databases at opposite ends of the United States. PhotoShelter offers services for getting the images to buyers, as does IPNStock and Digital Railroad, both of which were represented at PhotoPlus.

Digital Railroad announced an alliance with PicScout, which uses software that crawls the web to find copyright infringers -- another serious problem in this age of easily reproduced digital photography.

Keynote speaker David Pogue, of the New York Times noted that film already suffers from a 20 percent annual decline in sales while consumer digital cameras are seeing an annual 82 percent rise in sales.

Digital single lens reflex (SLR) cameras -- the kind used by professional photographers -- are seeing 100 percent sales growth per year, Pogue said.

So film, while clearly not gone, is on the ropes and there is not much hope for it in the long run. Digital capture is here in a big way and, though it presents some problems, there clearly are a lot of entrepreneurs out there racing to solve them.

 

The PhotoPlus web site is at: http://www.photoplusexpo.com

Apple's web site is at: http://www.apple.com

Adobe is at: http://www.adobe.com

Extensis is at: http://www.extensis.com

ZBE is at: http://www.zbe.com

Express Digital is at: http://www.expressdigital.com

PhotoDex is at: http://www.photodex.com

iView Media is at: http://www.iview-multimedia.com

PhotoShelter is at: http://www.photoshelter.com

Digital Railroad is at: http://www.digitalrailroad.com

PicScout at: http://www.picscout.com