Media Asset Management

Many of my premedia / prepress clients have digital assets that require image extensions based on different uses. Their photo studio might have shot a certain scene in horizontal format, and the image is now needed in vertical for a different purpose. Another scenario may be a picture box in a page layout program ( Quark / InDesign ) is expanded by a graphic designer. The newly formed "white space" needs image data created. As is the case below. My client had a very nice legacy image that was retrieved from the image management system. This image needed to be versioned for a new purpose. My job was to use my high end Adobe Photoshop retouching and color correction skills to expand the bounds of the digital image, filling the new required space. The extension of this room scene wasn't as difficult as the image I posted in the prior blog. The wooden floor boards were easily stepped and repeated as necessary. You can see I did some selective masking and color correction on our clients amazing products.

Many of my premedia / prepress clients have digital assets that require image extensions based on different uses. Their photo studio might have shot a certain scene in horizontal format, and the image is now needed in vertical for a different purpose. Another scenario may be a picture box in a page layout program ( Quark / InDesign ) is expanded by a graphic designer. The newly formed "white space" needs image data created. As is the case below. My client had a very nice legacy image that was retrieved from the image management system. This image needed to be versioned for a new purpose. My job was to use my high end Adobe Photoshop retouching and color correction skills to expand the bounds of the digital image, filling the new required space. This particular image may have been the "trickiest" background extension this post processor has ever tackled. Using tricks such as vanishing point, content aware scaling, healing brush, and good ole' fashion cloning. The contour of the tile, light fall-off, and scene elements made this image fierce competitor, but in the end, the results were superb.

Many of my premedia / prepress clients have digital assets that require image extensions based on different uses. Their photo studio might have shot a certain scene in horizontal format, and the image is now needed in vertical for a different purpose. Another scenario may be a picture box in a page layout program ( Quark / InDesign ) is expanded by a graphic designer. The newly formed "white space" needs image data created. As is the case below. My client had a very nice legacy image that was retrieved from the image management system. This image needed to be versioned for a new purpose. My job was to use my high end Adobe Photoshop retouching and color correction skills to expand the bounds of the digital image, filling the new required space. This was on of the more tricky images I have worked. Using tricks such as vanishing point, content aware scaling, healing brush, and good ole' fashion cloning.

Careful selections, masking, and photo composition skills made this image possible. We now have a new media asset repurposed via high end prepress production.

Todays tip will involve using Lab color space in Adobe's Photoshop CS4. We'll make a curves adjustment layer, tweak the a / b channels, adjust the layer opacity, and BAM! Your photo just got more color than a new 64 pack of Crayola's ! Prepress color management and color manipulation done fast.

Step one, open your image and under "Edit" menu, use the Convert to Profile command, and choose Lab.

Step Two go to Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Curves

Photo Composition Tips

If you work in prepress production you are going to have to create a photo composition sooner or later. So I thought I would give you a few tips on how to make two images become one.

Even Lighting and High Quality Masks

It takes a bit of artistic know how and a dash of creativity to pull off a quality photo composition. This first thing I do is bring the two images into the same document. Now compare the lighting, tone, and "style". The final look might be directed to you from an art director, client, or it might come from your own artistic style.

Dancing in the Street

In my example image I used a stock street scene and a model shot taken in my studio. I wanted the final image to look like the model was dancing in the street. On the model I added more hair, tattoos, make-up, a grounding shadow, some light rays in her new hair, and then to achieve a grunge look I added contrast, noise, and desaturated her slightly. 

A High Contrast Background

For the street scene I added lens flare, highlights via a white layer set to overlay, noise and a simple S curve for contrast.

Bring it All Together!

Placement was key as was the grounding shadow for the model. Get these two things wrong and the final comp will just look like a great big cut and paste project. The key is to make it look like you photographed her right there on that street! So how did I do?

Have you made any photo comps that you just HAVE to share? Send me a link or a tweet (@PremediaArts) I 'd love to see what your creating!

xx joy

This is the thirteenth video in the series of Widen customer interviews with Cheryl Rugland, Agency Director for Edge Advertising. After 21 years, Widen has never let Edge down. Edge thinks of Widen as a partner in providing digital asset management solutions and services. Cheryl explains that there is not another company that can provide the capabilities and service levels that Widen provides to the Edge catalog publishing workflow. Widen has delivered DAM tools and services that provide a huge impact to the catalog production process. Widen has helped Edge cut page production timelines down by 20-30 minutes per page. Edge has been able to reduce freelance time while increasing efficiency with their internal staff. Watch the video to learn more about why Edge has stayed with Widen through 21 years of working together.

This is the forth video in the series of Widen customer interviews with Cheryl Rugland, Agency Director for Edge Advertising. Edge has tried lots of things with Widen to streamline the catalog production process. Edge has over 600 vendors that they deal with in their catalogs. That’s a lot of copy and information to go with all of the products. Before DAM, all of that data was kept with the copy writers. In the early 1990’s, Widen and Edge went beyond the catalog production process to develop a database that became the start of Widen Digital Asset Management and Catalog Production systems. Now, all of their catalog data is in a central location where the correct information can go in the appropriate catalog. All images, logos, charts and product information is part of the Widen digital asset management and catalog publishing system. With the help of Widen digital assets management and catalog production technologies, Edge is saving about 75% of the time involved with their catalog production processes from 10 years ago. Watch the video to learn more about the evolution of digital asset management between Edge and Widen.

As the Brand Development Manager here at Widen I’m constantly looking forward. Where are the markets going? What are the latest trends? What is the next Big Thing in rich media management that we need to be a part of?


So it was kind of a fun “looking back at looking forward” exercise I went through when Newsweek re-published an article that they had originally published in 1995 titled The Internet? Bah!.

In it, Clifford Stoll, the journalist who is unfortunately linked to his couldn’t-be-more-wrong predictions for life, laments against the value of the internet and how it will never be a big life-changer everyone wants it to be.

While I could pick nearly any sentence out of the article and show how Clifford was wrong (e.g. “The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper” – tell that to the newspapers of today!) the more interesting aspect was what Clifford got right by getting it all wrong. You see he came to those conclusions by considering the tools that were available at the time and to illustrate that he started it off with “Consider today’s online world.” That was his first mistake. If the online world stayed how it was in 1995 (think text based usenet groups and 2400 baud modems – a 30k image would easily take 30 minutes to download!).

If you consider the future based on the tools we have available today then the future will always look impossible. What he wasn’t considering was that cell phones of today would have 100x the power as the computers of 1995. Or that downloading a full movie today would take 5 minutes, when downloading a simple JPEG image in 1995 takes 30 minutes!

But in uncovering all these problems Clifford was uncovering opportunities – unfortunately he just didn’t know it or didn’t care to act on it. In the article he talks about the lack of social communities in 1995 – hello Facebook, MySpace, etc. He calls the internet a “wasteland of unedited data” – hello Google! And his rant against the future of ecommerce because of a lack of secure online purchasing (PayPal, Google Checkout, SSL, etc.) and lack of social feedback (Amazon rating system, review sites).

The point is that every single one of the problems he mentioned later became billion-dollar industries and, in many cases, companies in their own right. So Clifford was so right by being so wrong!

How does this all relate to DAM Asset Management? Well, just like Clifford I’m not sure yet.

We as a company and an industry have become comfortable with the markets we serve and the use cases from those markets. For example here at Widen we started off serving primarily the manufacturing and retail industries (via their Marketing departments), though more recently DAM software is catching on with Healthcare, Government, Education and other sectors.

We make some assumptions that our product is not the right fit for, say, an individual. Or a sole-proprietor. For all the reasons you might think and agree with—it’s too complicated. Individuals don’t need all those features. People prefer storing their images locally for speed reasons.

But after seeing Clifford’s 1995 example I have to challenge you and myself on these – how many of these are legitimate roadblocks, and how many are glowing opportunities waiting to be solved by the next Bill Gates?

I’d be willing to be bet that the 2025 version of us will kick ourselves for not acting on these ideas sooner.

What is the best digital asset management product? That’s a good question… and a common question among those beginning to research digital asset management technologies and vendors. The purpose of this post to help those understand how to decide what is the best digital asset management product for you.

Organizations of all shapes and sizes are adopting digital asset management systems and practices to improve efficiency, brand consistency, accountability, intelligence and effectiveness. When asked, “what kinds of companies need digital asset management?” my response is typically any company that has sophisticated enough creative or marketing operations that they’re creating significant amounts of digital content – images, videos, brochures, etc. – that need to be used and repurposed. That digital content is to be centrally managed and readily available for multiple users to access the content they are supposed to. DAM is particularly valuable to organization’s that have distributed user networks and workers who require remote, self-serve access to a central library of digital assets. There is no exact right or wrong answer to know if a company needs DAM. The size and scale of a DAM implementation varies. When the “traditional” methods of using the shared drive, email attachments, and FTP site start to bring reoccurring pain, then DAM might be something worth considering.

Organizations that are finding success in adopting DAM software solutions include the following vertical markets:  manufacturing, retail, marketing & advertising agencies, media, entertainment, publishing, sports, colleges & universities, healthcare, insurance, financial services, non-profit organizations, hospitality, food service, government, engineering, construction, hi-tech.

When asked “What is the best digital asset management product?” … There really is no right answer. It varies. The digital asset management analyst community will tell you the same thing. The best DAM solution really depends on you and your company. It depends on what kind of company you are and what your functional goals are. The size of your company or industry you’re in may matter (or may not). The size of your digital asset library may matter (or may not). The types of assets you predominantly need to manage may play a part. The quantity of users and their location (internal or external) may make a difference.

The digital asset management analyst community will tell you to consider the types of solutions vendors offer to fit different use cases. It is important to understand the business scenarios that fit each vendor’s product strategy to find the best digital asset management product for your particular circumstances. The DAM analyst community has helped those looking for DAM solutions by rating vendors according to common scenarios useful for understanding which types of products tend to work better according to the type of projects. These use case scenarios can be divided into three buckets to include: (1) Image Management, Brand Management and Marketing Operations – segmented further by Digital Asset Library, Photo Archive, Brand Management, Marketing Collateral Production and Distribution, and Ad Production services; (2) Publishing – segmented further by Periodicals Production & Distribution, Multi-Channel Publishing, Catalog Publishing, Rights-Managed Content Syndication and Distribution services; (3) Video Production – segmented further by E-Learning, Video Review and Approval, Short Form Video Production, and Broadcast Video Production services.

Other things to consider when looking for a digital asset management vendor (in no particular order) include:

How long has the vendor been around? … How long have they been offering DAM? … How much of their focus is on DAM? … Is DAM a core part of their business or just a side activity? … How many DAM clients do they have? … How many DAM clients have they lost? … Do they have experience in your industry? … Do they offer complementary services? … Where does their experience come from? … How stable is the company? … Have they been bought or sold? … Is their DAM offering home grown or purchased from someone else? …  How sophisticated is it? … Is it evolving as the marketplace changes? … What does their product roadmap look like? … Do they have one? … How often do they come out with new upgrades and innovations? … Who installs them? … Do they have a technical services team? … Do they have a help desk? … What are their hours? … How do you reach them? … Who handles the implementation? … Do they offer training? … Do they perform integrations? How? … What information technology resources will be required internally? … What is the cost to deploy? … What is the cost to maintain? How do you achieve an ROI? … What are the extra costs? … What are their security practices? … How can they ensure my assets are safe? … Is it customizable? … How much customization is required to make it work? … Is it scalable to grow with my business?

These are just a small set of the many questions to ask when looking for the best digital asset management product for your organization.

Leave a comment if you have other advice for those looking at DAM for the first time or share your experiences.

They grow up so fast, don't they?

Adobe Photoshop turns 20 years old this month. It seems like only yesterday that little 6 year-old Photoshop 4.0 discovered nondestructive image editing with Layers. Or when he was 8 years old and impressed you with his multiple undo History Palette. But at the same time you wanted to send him to bed without dinner for the horrible way he mismanaged color in 1998. We all watched as Photoshop went from the pimply pre-teen years of 6.0 to when he began developing facial hair with CS2's Bridge and Smart Objects. And now he's off in college... sniff...

                          

Ah, memories. I recall the first time I played with Photoshop. I was a young kid with a dream. Well, okay, I was a 20-something working on a Scitex Prisma workstation. Scitex was what all the cool imaging people were working on in 1990. Then along came this program called Photoshop 1.0 from Adobe. Some of my coworkers at Quad Graphics knew it as a funny program with the creepy bitmapped eyeball icon running on that little beige box called the Macintosh over in the corner. Back then it was not so much of a photo editor as it was a paint program with a few image correction and optimization capabilities.

By 1993 I was weened off the Scitex system, and had my own speedy Quadra 950 running Photoshop 2.0. Back then, Photoshop was no replacement for a high-end CEPS system. The Mac, running at a speedy 33MHz, was dreadfully slow (by today's standards), RAM was very limited and expensive, and the tools in Photoshop did not compare to a $200,000 workstation like the Scitex Prismax. What a difference 17 years makes.

Today, with Photoshop 11 (CS4), Adobe has created a something that has transcended proper grammar, as the noun "Photoshop" has morphed into a verb in many circles. The phrase "We can photoshop that out." is as popular as "Please hand me a kleenex." or, "Can you make me a xerox?".

Did the Knoll brothers ever imagine what would become of Barneyscan XP (Photoshop 0.87) back in 1988? I don't think it's making too much of a leap to say that Orville and Wilbur Wright are to air travel, what Thomas and John Knoll are to digital imaging. Okay, I'll give Russell Brown some props as well.

Photoshop evolved into the tool it is today because the digital imaging and desktop publishing markets around it flourished at the same time. First it was low-cost desktop scanners, then digital photography. This digital revolution helped define what Photoshop has become today.

It is impossible to imagine any image you see in a magazine, newspaper, catalog, billboard or a website that hasn't been touched by Photoshop. Sure, you can do a lot of color correction and image enhancement in RAW processors like Apple Aperture or Adobe Lightroom, but for full feature image editing, Photoshop what you need.

Over the years, there were many programs that came and went that were supposed to kill Photoshop, or at least compete with it. There was software like Live Picture (anyone remember FITS files?), and in 1995 Quark announced plans for Xposure, the Photoshop killer that never made it to market.

When I was in art school in 1984 (yikes!) I can recall my instructors trying to put aside our fears by saying the computer would only be another tool for an artist to use. They used to say things like, "You could take a computer programmer and ask them to create art on a computer and they couldn't do it. But train an artist how to use a computer, and it becomes another tool in their arsenal.".

            

Who could forget this little bit of photo retouching from 1994? Time Inc. turned OJ's mug shot into an illustration with a little help from Photoshop. See more of these famous manipulated photos here.


Over the last 20 years, Photoshop has become that indispensable, omnipresent tool for every artist. In the right hands, amazing, original works of art can be created. In journalist or marketing hands, it can even be used to slant the news or make the unreal seem real to support an accompanying story. See the OJ photos above. It can do something simple like subdue a red cast from your child's face. Or clone the barf stains off the carpet from the 20 year old Photoshop's all night kegger at the fraternity last night.

Here's to another 20 years. There is still so much for that Photoshop kid to learn...

The worst-kept secret in consumer electronics history was finally made public last week as Apple introduced us to the iPad. Yeah, it's a funny name, but the iPod sounded a bit strange back in 2001 too. Now that name is woven into the fabric of our technological lives.

And just like the iPod changed the way that many of us listen to music over the last decade, the iPad will change the way many of us read books, newspapers, magazines and maybe even catalogs in the decade to come.

As I covered in the blog I wrote last July called, Pulp Fiction: Is Print Dead? the e-reader concept is absolutely in our future. Amazon's Kindle was not really the first e-reader to the market. E-readers were introduced about ten years ago, but the timing wasn't right for a number of reasons. So they never took off. Speaking about the Apple iBooks application during his speech, Steve Jobs showed a photo of the Kindle and said, "Were going to stand on [Amazon's] shoulders and go a bit further here." 




I believe the introduction of the iPad is on scale with the introduction of color in magazines and catalogs. Back in the 60's and 70's, the body of most magazines were in black and white. Most newspapers did not use much color in their production. The desktop publishing and digital prepress revolution of the 1980's made color in publications as common as sequins and feathers on Lady GaGa. And the brilliant, colorful display of the iPad will make dull black and white readers like the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader show up on eBay faster than you can say "16 shades of gray."

It is not a stretch to imagine that in the not-too-distant future, the heavy backpacks filled with textbooks that our kids tote around will become as odd-looking as a CRT monitor. Five of the worlds biggest book publishers are already online, and as Jobs put it, "We're going to open up the floodgates for the rest of the publishers in the world, starting this afternoon... We're very excited about this."

I'll tell you some that aren't very excited about this... Book printers. Book binders. Magazine printers. Barnes and Noble. Borders. Look at the music industry. Certainly there are many people that still purchase CDs and DVDs. But lots of record stores that were around in 1990, are no longer in business because so many people download their music from sites like iTunes. When was the last time you walked into a Musicland or Sam Goody's? Traditional paper back and hard-cover books, textbooks, and glossy magazines will have a market for some time to come. But each year more people feel right at home downloading electrons in front of a glowing screen instead of buying atoms at a brick and mortar store. Perhaps because they literally are right at home. 

Of course let's not forget that this device is not just for reading. It is a true multimedia player (albeit without support for Flash right now)... It's a web browser, a photo viewer, an email device, a video player, a gaming device, a music player, a calendar, an art canvas, and a lot of other things not yet realized. The iPhone has over 140,000 apps available to download. And it's only been about a year and a half since the SDK release. Expect lots of apps created specifically to take advantage of the iPad. 

But it's the iPad as an e-reader that is perhaps most important from the standpoint of changing cultural habits. When was the last time you touched a photo in a book and something amazing happened? Like a digital equivalent of a pop-up book. Or imagine this... You receive a digital catalog in your inbox, and as you flip through the glowing pages and touch a photo of a model wearing a jacket, a window opens and a video begins playing with the model wearing that jacket in some cool location. A voice-over describes the jacket's details as music plays in the background. It's a mini infomercial that came to life on the pages of a digital catalog. I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing...


 

Marketers have been shifting budgets and focus to Digital Marketing strategies for quite some time in order to be “multi-channel” and leverage the power of digital media, online and other interactive channels. These strategies allow brand owners to be more efficient in reaching their target audiences with their message. Leveraging new ways to push messages, publish content and interact with customers is the easy part because the ROI is clearer. However, marketers should not overlook the methods and technologies that assist in creating, managing and distributing the “assets” that power digital marketing strategies. Although managing digital assets is not seen as the “sexy” side of marketing, it is a critical component to increasing efficiency with operations, ensuring consistency in presenting a brand to the marketplace, and maximizing the return on marketing investments.

As marketers leverage more cost-effective means of reaching their audiences, they should also adopt more cost-effective means of managing their digital media with Digital Asset Management solutions.

An Integrated Approach to Marketing

There’s a lot of evidence to show that digital marketing is more targeted, more impactful, and better tied to other vehicles and channels. More appealing to marketing executives is the opportunity that digital marketing brings with reporting, tracking and accountability. While many marketers are not entirely doing away with traditional marketing and advertising programs (TV, print, direct mail, etc.), they have shifted more focus on an integrated approach. Digital marketing helps marketers better engage customers to complement more traditional approaches targeting the masses. Digital marketing is often more cost effective, builds awareness quickly, fosters relationships and is measurable in ways traditional advertising just can’t match.

As companies make moves in the way they deliver their message and connect with customers to be more cost-effective, they should also make moves in the way they manage the content of their brand. The solution to being more cost-effective with how to manage that content is better known as digital asset management (DAM). 

What DAM Provides to Digital Media and Brand Assets:

• Greater ability to organize and find approved and available assets
• Greater ability to share and repurpose assets across multiple channels
• Greater ability to ensure compliance and consistency with approved assets

Driving Brand Awareness with DAM

Marketers seek to improve brand awareness by being in more places in front of more faces. However, if the brand does not appear consistent from one customer touch point to the next, than that is more damaging to the brand than not being there at all. DAM helps marketers repurpose digital media across multiple channels and do so consistently with assets meeting the quality standards for each channel. For example, image assets were historically developed with the specific channel in mind i.e. print catalog. Now, image assets are developed for multiple channels--print catalog, brochure, store signage, website, email marketing, online video and other social/interactive media.


What Drives DAM Adoption? (From the 2009 Aberdeen Benchmark Study)

• Improved Operational Efficiency – streamlined digital supply chains
• Improved Brand Consistency – approved brand assets used in multiple channels – as opposed to communications coming from disconnected departments
• Improved Return on Marketing Investments (ROMI) – greater opportunity to find and reuse or repurpose existing assets and reduce re-work or costs of re-creating lost assets

Now that we’ve covered the core reasons why marketers should leverage digital asset management technologies to improve marketing efficiency and effectiveness, I’ll cover why SaaS is the most cost-effective delivery model for marketers to deploy digital asset management solutions next.

The last several years have seen a dramatic shift from traditional media to digital media such as online marketing and social media. The move to digital media has led to an exponential growth in digital marketing content, which has in turn created bottlenecks and inefficiencies in managing this content and difficulties in measuring the performance of campaigns and in maintaining a consistent brand image.

Digital Asset Management (DAM) technology can overcome these problems by automating the process of ingesting, archiving, searching, managing, repurposing, sharing and publishing content in a seamless and collaborative environment. DAM adopters achieve substantial return on investment including reducing time to market, improving the performance of marketing campaigns, reducing marketing costs and improving brand consistency. This article will examine in detail how DAM can rapidly generate ROI by improving the performance of digital marketing efforts.

In order to give power to your marketing programs in 2010 and be more efficient in doing so, Digital Asset Management should be your first technology investment.

Widen has released a new whitepaper that addresses 5 key benefits that DAM provides to marketing operations, including:

1. Generate additional revenues by reducing time to market
2. Reduce costs of finding assets
3. Reduce costs of distributing assets
4. Save money on physical samples
5. Improve brand consistency

This whitepaper is an interactive PDF containing videos of customer interview segments from InSinkErator, Brady Worldwide, Knaack and Sub-Zero and Wolf.

Download: Why Digital Asset Management Should Be Your First Technology Investment for 2010.

A coworker recently asked me: "What is the next big format that will hit after 1080p? I'm curious what is on the horizon."

There are a number of ways to answer that question. In terms of factual numbers, 1080p is a "resolution." The next logical larger sizes are 2K and 4K. But those exist already... so the answer switches from fact-based, to opinion-based.

I am a video tweak head, so I am always interested in the next video format that can squeeze in one more pixel of resolution. But I realize that I am in the minority, at least as far as a business case goes for an entire industry to adopt a format. Moving from standard definition video to HD (specifically 1080p) was a no brainer. There are clearly visable advantages in clarity and overall viewing experience. But if you look at what is next in terms of higher resolution, we run into a wall.

The wall is the ability for the human eye to see the detail that the device is displaying. Here is an interesting article on the science behind what the human eye can see. It basically says that there is almost no visable difference even between 720p and 1080p when watching a 50" screen from 8 feet away, which is the average viewing distance in the average home. Therefore, in order to need more detail than what 1080p can provide, you would either need to sit closer than 8 feet, or need a screen larger than 100". Video is mostly consumed on a TV, or online. As far as online video publishing is concerned, most online video is downres'd from 1080. So higher res will not get a push from online video management either.

My coworker also asked what the next "big" format would be. If you define "big" as something that will change the entire industry, including aquisition, editing, display, and broadcasting, I don't think 2K or 4K will be the next "big" format. There isn't enough of an advantage for large groups of consumers to make a switch.

I really think that the next "big" format change will be something regarding 3D. Something that does not require wearing nerdy glasses. We will also have to keep a close watch to see how it affects digital asset managment tools.

Watch the interview with Brian Becker, VP of Client Development for Widen Enterprises, as he talks about the prepress production processes performed for a large apparel marketer. Part II focuses on Widen's digital sampling and color retouching services in the life cycle of a digital asset.
 

Intro

Widen recently helped a large apparel company improve quality and streamline creative production processes by utilizing a blend of Widen premedia services and digital asset management technologies. Widen helped the client make the move from showcasing garments currently shot on mannequins to garments shot on live models for a new women's sports licensed apparel campaign. In meeting the goal of going live inside 30 days, Widen created over 500 images with 20-25% of their shots featuring garments on live models versus mannequins.

To get up to speed with the photo shoot and Widen photography workflow management capabilities, check out Widen Premedia Workflow Study Part I - Photography Workflow Management.


Color Production
The image work for the project was done by the Widen Color Production department, which consists of six master graphic artists. They are the ones that go in and clean-up the files… They take the camera raw data and optimize it for the best environment for lighting of the flesh tones, hair color, garment color, detail and sharpness, etc. Widen’s color retouching experts have a knack for understanding the customer expectations, which was very simple and natural for them given the jobs they work on every day.


Digital Sampling
The Digital Sampling department is the group that applies the graphics to the garments shot on the models and mannequins. The color operators take artwork from Illustrator and merge them onto the actual photograph in Photoshop. There challenge and expertise is to make sure the graphics follow the contours, shapes, highlights, shadows and wrinkles in the garments as they apply logos, team names, numbers and names, etc. supplied in the client's technical specs.

Many people don't realize what a huge production process there is that goes on behind the scenes to get garments sent to Widen, put on models, styled, shot correctly, color-optimized, digital-sampled, posted to a database and eventually marketed on a website or print catalog, signage, etc.


Color Management
Consumers only spend a few seconds shopping for garments online, so it’s critical that what they see on the screen is what they’ll get in real life.  We don’t use our eyes to confirm what we “think” we like on a screen, we use technical data that comes from a strong color management umbrella over the top of everything we do in production. From our cameras to our proofing devices, everything is color managed for the desired output – website or printed material.

In the end, Widen created approximately 500 images, which are upload to their digital asset library also hosted by Widen. From there, the images are ordered for placement on any number of websites. Posting images via embed links will help to ensure the most current images are used across all web domains.

The Widen Advantage caters to the life cycle of a digital asset by offering all of the production, management and distribution services under one roof. The blend of Widen premedia services and digital asset management solutions working together help clients in a number of ways, including:

Cost Savings - Increases efficiency in creative/production cycles plus centralization of re-usable assets minimizes efforts re-inventing every process of the creation-production-distribution value chain.

Faster Time to Revenue - Shortens time to market and increases effectiveness of marketing execution by empowering sales channels with on-demand access to use brand-approved digital assets.

Competitive Advantage - Improves brand consistency with quality representation of products and ensures compliance across targeted, multi-channel marketing campaigns.

Better Planning and Strategy - Tracking of usage patterns including reuse and repurposing of assets allows for more effective budgeting, resource allocation and planning of future marketing campaigns.

Check out the Widen Premedia Workflow Study Part I - Photography Workflow Management.

Watch the interview with Brian Becker, VP of Client Development for Widen Enterprises, as he talks about the prepress production processes performed for a large apparel marketer. Part I focuses on Widen's digital photography and photography workflow management capabilities in the life cycle of a digital asset.

Intro
Widen recently helped a large apparel company improve quality and streamline creative production processes by utilizing a blend of Widen premedia services and digital asset management technologies. Widen helped the client make the move from showcasing garments currently shot on mannequins to garments shot on live models for a new women's sports licensed apparel campaign. In meeting the goal of going live inside 30 days, Widen created over 500 images with 20-25% of their shots featuring garments on live models versus mannequins.

This is a case of having a DAM customer, in which Widen provides the technology and service to manage thousands of images, take advantage of Widen’s expertise in premedia services to create their digital assets for this particular campaign.


Models and Apparel – Connecting one DAM Customer with another DAM Customer
Since this apparel customer wanted to use live models for the photo shoot at Widen, we were able to help because we have another DAM software customer that is a model and talent agency. In essence, we were able to connect one DAM client with another DAM client to complete the photo shoot. To get started, the apparel company was able to browse model shots by viewing assets from the Rock Agency online image management system and select the talent for the shoot.


Digital Photography, Review and Approval
When it came time for the shoot in Widen's photo studio, we brought in the models, photographer, and did all the make-up and styling so that we could capture a single garment before it was off to our digital sampling and color retouching departments to create all of the products and get them ready for the customer’s campaign.  (Learn more about Widen digital sampling and color retouching services in Part II.)

Leveraging Widen's online photo approval application, Widen could post the best shots for client approval before the models had even left the studio. Widen’s photo approval system allowed for same-day sign-off by the client who was over a thousand miles away.


Color Retouching, Image Management and Distribution
Once the preferred shots were selected, Widen’s Digital Sampling department created the other variations of the garments by applying logos, team names, numbers and names, etc. supplied in the client’s technical specs with Illustrator files. Widen's Color Retouching department also created the one-of-a-kind pieces by taking a photo of the garment on the mannequin and applying color retouching techniques to create quality digital apparel samples optimized for e-commerce websites. All of the final images were organized and managed in Widen’s online photo asset management system where the client could select the best shots for executing the campaign.


The end result helped the client achieve superior image quality and color consistency for the product images on the web to best represent the real-life garment.


Check out the Widen Premedia Workflow Study Part II - Digital Sampling and Color Retouching.

Color Retouching for Catalog Production Services



Production artists face many challanges throuout a day. Maybe you need to clone grass from one document to another or quickly shift between brushes and sizes.

All of this can be done super simply with your keyboard, stylus, or mouse. Try these tips to make your life easier!


Resizing Brushes

Tapping the left and right brackets to increase / decrease your brush size is so last year. Try using the new Drag-resize brush cursor keyboard shortcut in Photoshop CS4 to make changes to the brush size. Ctrl + Option (Mac) / alt + right click (win) -drag will increase/decrease brush size. Add the Cmd (Mac) /shift (Win) to change hardness.


Changing Brush Opacity

To change the opacity of a painting tool, use the number keys on the keyboard. Tapping one number assigns the percentage of the hit number (1 = 10%, 2= 20% etc. and 0 = 100%). Hitting two numbers quickly will give you that exact amount (5 + 4 = 54%). Note: If you have a tool selected that is not a painting tool, these shortcuts will affect the Opacity on the Layers panel.


Heal and Clone Between Documents

You can use the Healing brush and Clone Stamp tools between two open documents: Option (Mac) / Alt (Win) -click in the source document and then clone in the destination document.


Heal and Clone Stamp to Multiple Layers

For added flexibility, use the Healing Brush and Clone Stamp tools to clone to blank layers by checking Sample "All Layers" in the Options bar. In addition, you can choose to Sample the "Current & Below" layers. This can be extremely helpful when cloning image layers and adjustment layer information simultaneously.


One More Tip

I recently became a fan of Adobe Photoshop on Facebook and you should too! They post fun stuff and everyone gets involved. From "Whta's Your Favorite Shortcut" to some interesting posts from NAPP!

Happy Photoshopping!!
xx joy

There are a lot of companies that will say “now is the time to gear up for the new year so that you can hit the ground running,” but this customer video compilation goes to show why top marketers implemented Widen digital asset management programs to improve their marketing operations. See why these marketers have made the investment in Widen’s hosted DAM software to create efficiencies, improve productivity, and increase brand consistency throughout their marketing channels.

• Are you wasting precious time and resources managing and fulfilling requests for brand assets?
• Are you looking for ways to improve marketing efficiency, effectiveness and agility?
• Are you seeking fool-proof ways to achieve brand consistency across all customer touch points? 
• Do you want to empower sales channels to be more effective?

In the first segment, Jim Magruder, Senior Marketing Communications Manager at InSinkErator, talks about their growing problem managing and distributing brand assets. He explains what a problem it was to regularly get calls from customers, sales reps, ad agencies and PR firms needing digital assets and there was no easy way to provide them what they needed in a timely matter. Sound familiar? He knew they needed a more efficient digital media asset management system so he wouldn’t lose precious time having to duplicate the same process over and over again fielding requests such as “I need an image and I don’t know what format I need.” Each time, he would have to stop what he’s doing to find the asset, convert it, ship it, etc. Widen DAM asset management services changed all that and removed the burden of having to manage and distribute assets “the old way.”

In the second segment, Jim Scarlata, Senior Marketing Operations Manager for Knaack LLC, explains that there was one gatekeeper to their digital asset library and there was no easy way to achieve brand consistency across all marketing channels, ensure the most current brand assets were always available (and used), and make assets easily available to all channel partners. With Widen’s help, Knaack has a single online location for all of the most current digital content to be globally available to any approved user.

In the third segment, John Wernecke, Global Marketing Manager (Former Public Relations Manager), Motorola Mobile Devices talks about the ease of use when it comes to digital assets management with the help of Widen. The Widen Media Collective provides Motorola with enterprise-wide ability to share and collaborate interactively 24 hours a day, which has allowed marketing and creative groups to come together at a central location that is always accurate and working.

In the fourth segment, Michele Bedard, Vice President of Marketing, Sub-Zero, Inc. and Wolf Appliance, Inc., explains how Sub-Zero and Wolf is all about the brand and making sure customers have  a consistent brand experience across all touch points. The Widen online digital asset management tools provide the people in the field with access to the most current assets so Sub-Zero and Wolf brands look the same from whatever source anyone would see it.

In the fifth and final segment, Michele Kowalkowski, Catalog Manager North America, Brady Worldwide, Inc., talks about how the Widen corporate image library empowers sales people to carry out their jobs and supports relationships with their distributor networks. Without always having to be reliant on the marketing team, they have a digital asset library they can trust to be accessible when they need assets and get them instantly in the format needed to complete their project.

To get more takes from the pros, watch more Widen Customer Interviews.