Digital Photography

The creative industry - photographers, designers, printers and publishers - is still reeling from the broad based changes digital photography has wrought. Who handles pre-press, what file format is the best, what about archiving? These are questions we all face every day, but there is some light at the end of this tunnel. Organizations, like the ASMP, are working hard to establish guidelines and educate with the goal of making all of our business lives run a little smoother.

The most significant recent development is the publishing of the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines. This initiative embraced by a consortium of leading industry associations strives to take the mystery out of the handling of digital files. The ASMP summarizes the work UPDIG is doing, "These 15 guidelines - along with the accompanying Best Practices documents - aim to clarify issues affecting accurate reproduction and management of digital image files. Although they largely reflect a photographer's perspective, anyone working with digital images should find them useful."

Fellow ASMP member and friend Judy Herrmann has written an insightful article on digital photography. The article, "Better, Faster, Cheaper" is now a few years old, but Judy's perspective on what digital photography means from the client side is still valuable reading.