The DAM Show

SOPA and PIPA

Peter Krogh — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:09:56 +0000

Here’s a simplified outline of the problems, as I understand it.

The bill seeks to let the government create a naughty list. If you are on the naughty list, or if you link to content hosted by someone on the naughty list, then your whole website can be shut down. The government will block the site by closing the series of tubes that make up the internet.

There are two big problems with this.
1. The first is that the list is not created by standard court proceedings.
2. The second is that the machinery to enforce the naughty list totally screws up internet addressing and security, and is not workable.

Getting on the naughty list
In order to get someone placed on the naughty list, you do not have to sue the accused. You don’t have to provide proof that you own the content that is being infringed. And the accused does not have conventional rights to challenge the blacklisting: to present an argument that they also might have rights to the content.

This is, as I understand it, injunctive relief. This is normally used for some kind of emergency action by the court. The bill creates a perpetual state of emergency where lots of action would be be taken outside of conventional legal channels.

Any site that allows users to post content is at risk of being shut down, so the naughty list can expand like crazy.

And don’t hold out much hope that photographers and other independent creators can get nbc.com or capitorecords.com or universalpictures.com put on the naughty list simply because they violate *your* copyright. This is a hammer built for the interests of big media.

Breaking DNS
While #1 is a big problem, the bigger problem is the mechanism that the bill proposes to enforce the naughty list. In order to block a website, you need to make sure that no request to see that website (take me to www.Amazon.com) actually goes to Amazon.com.

In order to accomplish the blocking, you need to break a fundamental part of the DNS system (the thing that makes sure that you are at the real Amazon.com). This is not really possible, since there are so darn many tubes.

The official DNS list is sent to all ISPs worldwide, so that requests for websites can be routed properly. SOPA and PIPA want the US government to be able to edit the list used in the US, removing sites that are deemed – outside of a traditional court – to be in violation.This breaks the integrity of the DNS system in a fundamental way.

At best, we could be like China, and block access to naughty sites for web surfers that are located within US borders. But circumventing that is pretty trivial. Millions of foreign portals will spring up that will let you access the real DNS list that the rest of the world uses. Once you go through that portal, you are in a world where all websites could be easily spoofed, since you are outside of the (formerly) standard DNS system.

Once you break the universality of the DNS list, you totally screw up security for nearly everyone. And policing that is a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.

But aren’t you in favor of copyright?

I say all of the above in the context of an independent creator – photographer, author, videographer. Yes, I am infringed every day by companies and individuals and websites in all kinds of ways, including offering free copies of my book to paying members. And I believe that this is a big problem for people like me. I don’t know what the real solution is, but I can definitely see what the solution is not.

Hopefully this thing is dead. Congress is learning that you don’t want to get the internets mad at you.

Lightroom catalog backup

Peter Krogh — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:50:52 +0000

Here’s a few tips on backing up Lightroom catalogs. It’s reprinted from a post I made on a photo message board.

I must have missed the discussion about backing up Lightroom Catalogs. Why isn’t Time Machine a good method?

The problem occurs if the catalog is backed up while still open. If the database (the .lrcat file) is changed during the backup, then it may produce a corrupt backup. You would not know unless you tried to restore from the backup.

Apple may have fixed this – they did for Aperture, as I understand it. The fix involves not backing up the database while it’s open.

Even if that’ s fixed, however, there could still be problems for people, depending on how you use the program. Perhaps you leave Lightroom open most of the time, and there is limited opportunity to do the backup in the background.

The best method for backing up Lightroom has a few components.

1. Set Lightroom to backup on exit. Run it as often as you can, dropping a backup version in the same folder that the primary lives in. You should always (if possible) run this after most file-based changes to your images – added, deleted, renamed or re-foldered. This backup protects against corruption of the catalog.

2. Backup the entire Lightroom folder to another disk periodically (ideally, on a daily basis while the catalog is closed). You could use Time Machine to do this, but it will be making lots of copies. I personally use Chronosync to do this on the Mac.

3. You can tell Chronosync to skip the lrdata file (a folder on PC) in these backups to save time. These are the previews of the images and can be reconstructed in the event the backup is needed (as long as you still have the originals, with the same names, in the same folder arrangement – see item 1). This saves substantial time in the backup.

4. I published a pretty massive set of video-driven Lightroom tutorials earlier this year working on a grant from World Press Photo. Totally free.

http://shutha.org/lightroom_workflow_lesson_plan

Hard Drive Shortage?

Peter Krogh — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:36:20 +0000

Due to flooding in Thailand, we’re seeing hard drive prices rise steeply in a matter of days. Large drives (3 TB particularly) seem to be in short supply, and they’re getting expensive.

I would not suggest hoarding, but if you know you need a new drive really soon, it *might* be time to act quickly. I did a quick survey of the places I buy drives, and it seems like prices have indeed gone up, and availability is more scarce.

This seems to be particularly true of mail order retailers. One bright spot – for some people at least – is that Best Buy seems to be prioritizing local stores over mail order. A 2TB Western Digital Green drive is listed as being in stock at my local store for $79. Since it’s an advertised special, I think they are obligated to sell it for that price for the time being. I would not expect that sale to be repeated anytime soon. (Note that they now refuse to ship this item – you have to pick up in person).

One reality check here. Hard drive prices may be going up, but that’s probably up to what the price per terabyte was 6 or 12 or 18 months ago. An extra $100 feels like a lot, but it’s probably not a reason to panic. My expectation would be that we’ll still be able to get drives, they will just cost a bit more. Not a happy prospect if you are just about to trick out an 8-bay RAID with 3TB enterprise drives, but not too bad for someone who needs to buy one extra drive.

Also keep in mind that hoarding does not help the situation, so don’t go overboard.

Fotoweek 2011 Events

Peter Krogh — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:34:36 +0000

Fotoweek DC is coming up as of this Friday. I’ve pulled out some of the best events along with short descriptions, times, cost, and a link to the registration URL. As you can see, I’m speaking on Sunday morning, presenting my photos and videos from the Hope in South Africa project.

Lots here to enjoy and support.

Sunday Nov 6, 11am – Noon – Peter Krogh presentation of Hope In South Africa – Free
Fotoweek Central 1800 L St. NW
Join photographer Peter Krogh as he discusses his travels to South Africa’s central Karoo region to document the work of a small Maryland-based non-profit. His travels have resulted in a prolific, breathtaking set of images, as well as a short film. The material outlines the challenges that HIV and AIDs presents to this sparsely populated agricultural community, and how those challenges are being addressed through a total community effort.

Fotoweek DC page

Fotoweek DC Main Events page

Fotoweek DC Exhibitions Page

Fotoweek Blog

Exhibitions, Lectures and Events
Brian Skerry at the National Geographic Lobby of M St. building through January 2, 2012. Amazing underwater work, beautifully photographed and printed. Free

Friday, Nov 4, 5 to 11pm Launch Party $55
Starts at Fotoweek Central from 5 to 8:30 and then moves to the Corcoran until it closes at 11. Support this great organization, and attend a great party.

Saturday, Nov 5, 8pm to 4am Nightvisions all-night photo contest $10
All photographers are invited to create images digitally, including cell phone photos, during this one night. Images are to be delivered in person to FotoSpace 1838 Columbia Road. NW. Nationally recognized photo editors, art directors, and gallery curators will select one image from each photographer. Chosen images will immediately be printed and displayed. All images submitted will be projected.

Sunday, Nov 6, 6pm – ? Slideluck Potshow – $10
For the fourth year in a row Slideluck Potshow is teaming up with FotoWeekDC for what promises to be a fantastic evening of mingling, dining and slideshow watching! Join us as we enjoy the home-cooked delights of attendees and enjoy the riveting slideshow.
Fotoweek Central 1800 L St. NW

Monday, Nov 7, 6:30 – 9:30pm Ira Block and David Doubilet from NGS , Sponsored by ASPP, The Power of Photography: HTe Power to Create and Connect

Tuesday, Nov 8, 7 – 9 pm Abelardo Morell – ASMP sponsored Lecture
Born in Cuba in 1948, Abelardo Morell came to the United States in 1962. Since earning an undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College and an MFA from Yale University School of Art, he has been honored with a Cintas grant, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Rappaport Prize, and an Altunas Foundation grant. Morell’s work has been featured in more than 70 museums worldwide, including MOMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He has published a photographic illustration of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and his books include A Camera in a Room, A Book of Books, Camera Obscura, and a monograph, Abelardo Morell. Navy Memorial 701 Penn Ave NW – Free

Thursday, Nov 10, 8:00 BYT Young at Heart 2 Show and Party
Young hip DC crowd. Photos from Brightest Young Things website’s coverage. A place to see and be seen. $10 and must be over 18.

Friday, Nov 11, 8-11 Outernational DC - Metro Collective and Eric Hilton of Thievery Corporation. More young hipsters checking, this time looking at the documentary photography of the Metro Collective and listening to the custom beats dropped by Eric Hilton, $30

Saturday, Nov 12, 9:30 am – 1 pm What’s Next 2.0 – $9 – $15
A discussion of the evolving nature of the photography business with Mimi Dornack, MaryAnne Golon, Chris Usher, John Harrington, Pam Huling, and Michael Lutzky
1611 N. Ken St, Arlington, VA

Get your free Fotoweek pass!
Free entry into all 3 Fotoweek venues
Fotoweek Central – 1800 L St. NW
Corcoran Gallery of Art – 500 17th St. NW
FotoSpace – 1838 Columbia Rd. NW

Capture 1 – Media Pro Workshops

Peter Krogh — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:36:12 +0000

I’m very excited to present some new material for Phase One, outlining how Media Pro can be used together with Capture One. If you’re a Capture One user, this will really help your workflow and your overall collection management. (For those who don’t know, Media Pro is the latest version of iView/Expression Media.)

We’ll explore the capabilities of Media Pro to help with short and long-term workflow. And we’ll outline how the two programs can work together, integrating metadata and renderings. You’l see how to get the most out of your image collection, and how to keep it safe and accessible.

We have two programs in each location. There is an evening lecture-style seminar that lasts 2 hours. The following day, I’ll be conducting a day-long hands-on workshop for a much smaller group.

Here’s the Current Schedule.
Click below for more information:

Atlanta, November 9 and 10 - Sponsored by Capture Integration

New York, November 16 and 17 - Sponsored by Digital Transitions

Chicago, December 7 and 8 - Sponsored by ProGear

FotoCare Presentations, New York 10/10 and 10/11

Peter Krogh — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 16:24:44 +0000

I’ll be back at Fotocare in lower Manhattan next week on Monday and Tuesday, with 2 programs I’ve never done in New York.

On Monday, I’ll be presenting Hope in South Africa, A Lightroom Case study. This 3 hour program examines the use of Lightroom as a tool to manage a large photo shoot. In this presentation, I outline how to use the tools in Lightroom to construct a workflow that serves multiple needs for a single project. This includes efficient import, effective organizing, stylized development as well as output and publishing. This program costs $20.

Here’s a link to more information and sign-up.

On Tuesday October 11, I’ll be doing a day-long program on Lightroom from a DAM context. Learn how to more effectively use the program safely and efficiently in a smaller hands-on setting. This one is $200.

Here’s a link for more information.

Thank you, Richard Anderson

Peter Krogh — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:33:42 +0000

As of July 2011, Richard Anderson completed his term as director of the dpBestflow project, and as the chair of ASMP’s Digital Standards and Practices Committee. This closes a six year chapter of working selflessly and tirelessly on behalf of his fellow photographer.

Richard took over the helm of ASMP’s Digital Standards and Practices Committee in 2005, and became principle author and chair of UPDIG. During his tenure there, he oversaw the production of 5 versions of the best practice document. The UPDIG document represented the best consensus on the technical facets of digital photography for publication, and was instrumental in helping to spread good technical understanding worldwide.

UPDIG
The UPDIG Guidelines were endorsed by photographers’ groups from aroun the world, and have been translated into several languages.

As chairman and principle author of UPDIG Guidelines, Richard displayed an ability to patiently search for the real truth about nearly every technical facet of digital photography. This required a dedication to chasing down all loose ends and never taking any conventional wisdom for granted.

This job also required a great deal of patience and dedication. As an entirely unfunded effort, there were more people willing to say what should be done than willing to do the actual work. In the end, Richard researched and wrote the vast majority of the guidelines himself.

dpBestflow
In the fall of 2006, Richard and Gene Mopsik attended a meeting on digital standards with Caroline Arms from the Library of Congress. Caroline had heard of Richard’s work, and was very interested in getting his participation in the National Digital Infrastructure and Preservation Program. The NDIIPP effort provided matching cash awards to projects in academia, institutions and industry to help preserve the nation’s heritage of born-digital creative materials.

Under Richard’s committee chairmanship, ASMP received a $428,000 cash award to research, write and promote best practices in digital imaging for professional photographers. The product of this award was the dpBestflow.org website and the accompanying national tour. (Much of the matching funding was provided by in-kind-services donations of the writing and production team, and significant funds were also provided by ASMP from Author’s Coalition funds).

From 2006 through the present day, Richard has served as the Director of the dpBestflow project. This has included quite a bit of project administration, as well as co-directing the editorial team, and doing plenty of research and writing.

I’ve had the pleasure and privilege to work with Richard over this time, first in my role as the founder of ASMP’s Digital Standards and Practices Committee, and later as an UPDIG contributor, and finally as the dpBestflow project manager and a principle author of dpBestflow. (In fact it was Richard’s economic analysis of digital photography that first convinced me to go all digital in 2002). In that time, I have found him to have the inquisitiveness of a great scientist, the appreciation of interrelated factors of an economist, and the patience and selflessness of, well, someone a lot more patient than I am.

Moving Forward
In the spring 2011 board meeting, ASMP voted to provide funds to update the dpBestflow website with content about motion imaging, as well as to update the general content for newly released software. Rich Harrington will be in charge of the motion imaging content, and our new editor will be Dominique le Roux, who has been working on the Shutha.org project.

While Richard had hoped to spearhead the next version of dpBestflow, family care obligations and a busy studio workload have forced him to step back from the project, and resign the directorship. While I’m eager to extend my participation and take the helm of the project, it will be with real sadness that I won’t be working with Richard.

In a thirty year career of project-by-project employment, my work with Richard Anderson has been one of the most satisfying and productive collaborations I’ve ever had. He has gone from being a colleague to becoming a true friend – one of the most loyal and dependable people I know. I’m really thankful for the time we had working, traveling and just hanging out together.

And everyone in the digital photography ecosystem, whether you know it or not, has Richard to thank for helping to bring clarity to the practice of the craft. Hats off to you Richard: and thanks for all your hard work.

Help Wanted: Online Backup Experiences

Peter Krogh — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:22:19 +0000

I’m writing some new content for dpBestflow, and I’m looking for people with real-world experience with online backup services. While online backup is generally not going to be feasible for an entire media archive, it can present a good solution for parts of an archive, or for other digital files such as correspondence or financial records. (To be very clear, by online services, I mean something like Backblaze, CrashPlan, or Carbonite, rather than a local backup solution like Time Machine).

1. I’m interested in talking to people who have successfully used an online backup service to actually restore lost data. I’d like to know what services were used, what the costs and time frames were, and what the general user experience was.

2. I’m also very interested in finding people who thought they were backed up with an online service, but had the restoration fail for one reason or another.

3. I’d also be interested in speaking to anyone who has performed a real validation of their online backup.

4. Let’s also add anyone who is using a do-it-yourself online backup, such as the Drobo Sync.

5. I’m also interested in talking to anyone who has uploaded large amounts of data to one of the “all you can eat” services such as Backblaze, in order to find out how long it took to upload, and what the test recovery experience is like. I’m less interested in speaking to people who have uploaded, but who have not yet tested for recoverability.

If any of this describes you, please contact me at peter at peterkrogh.com

Adding 3 Terabyte drives

Peter Krogh — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:53:42 +0000

I recently upgraded one of my storage drives from 2 to 3 TB, and wanted to report some of what I found. Upgrading drives beyond 2.2TB can lead to some complications, including either hardware or OS compatibility. I found that most of my firewire drive enclosures don’t support the larger drives, and none of my USB enclosures do. All of the eSATA configurations handled it with no problem. (Tested on Mac only).

Background
We’ve run into a limit like this before. Many years ago, IDE connections would only support volumes up to 137 GB in size (shown as 128 GB in older Mac OS). If you connected a drive that was larger, you had to format the drive into partitions if you wanted to take advantage of the drive’s full capacity. ATA-6, which was introduced in 2002 lifted that limit to an astronomical 144 petabytes.

Serial ATA (SATA) shares the ability to support very large volumes, but the hard drive controller or bridge board (the thing that lets the hard drive talk to your computer’s logic board) may be limited to 2.2TB. Since Operating Systems like Windows XP don’t support volumes larger than 2.2 TB, manufacturers limited the capacity of the controller to make such large volumes. Windows Vista and 7 don’t have the limitation, as long as the drive is formatted as GUID. Mac OS 10.4 and later also don’t have that problem.

So what happens if you put a drive in an enclosure that does not support the volume size? First, you’ll be asked to format the drive, since it won’t be readable to the computer. This can cause a heart attack if you have a bunch of data on the drive and don’t want to reformat it.

Testing my Hardware
I took this opportunity to test some o fmy hardware to see which devices supported 3TB drives. Here’s what I found.

SATA – All of my SATA connections supported the large drive. This included the internal connections on my Mac Pro tower, as well as the add-on eSATA cards I’m using (one for the desktop and one for the laptop). Note that most of these cards have upgradable firmware, and you might need to do that to allow the large drives, if you have an older eSATA card. I upgraded the firmware of my cards to be compatible with 10.6 a while ago, so I’m already running the latest firmware.

Firewire – I have quite a variety of firewire enclosures in use, and nearly all of them don’t support the large drives. Note that many of these are 4-6 years old, so it’s not particularly surprising that they were designed to top out at 2.2 TB.

The Wiebetech (CRU Dataport) devices that I have did not originally support the large drives, but have upgradable firmware that solved the problem. This is one reason that you pay a bit more for Wiebetech, but you get some real value for your money.

The cheaper Cooldrives enclosures that I have don’t support a firmware upgrade. I’m looking at replacing the Bridgeboards in these units with something like this. It has a current Oxford 934 Firewire controller, and should be easy to swap into my multi-bay enclosures.

The older OWC enclosure I had was not upgradable, but the current ones seem to support large drives. One great thing about OWC is that you can get a smart person on the phone to answer these kinds of questions easily.

USB - None of the USB devices I own seem to support the large drives. That’s not particularly surprising, since most of my USB enclosures are older.

Drobo – Did not test, but the company website shows support for 3TB drives. I’d make sure my firmware was up to date before installing one of these.

The Bottom Line
Because of the configuration of my system, and my data needs, I eventually decided not to use the 3TB drive for archive data storage. My photo archive lives in older firewire enclosures that it connected to an iMac server, and none of these devices currently support 3TB. I decided to let these drives remain as 2TB for a while, since I have plenty of space left on them.

I have put the 3TB drives into service as Working File backups that protect the current files on my Mac Pro tower. I’ll use these as swapper drives that let me take current work off-site. Since my works-in-progress data is edging toward 2 TB, the extra capacity will be useful here right away, since I can allow Chronosync to save additional copies of changed and deleted files. These drives connect by eSATA, so there is not problem with the large volumes.

Adobe Pop-up Store Monday

Peter Krogh — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 15:19:43 +0000

I’ll be presenting at Adobe’s two week “Pop-up” store near Union Square in San Francisco on Monday, from 4-5:30 pm. I’ll be showing the work I did in South Africa earlier this year for the organization Hope in South Africa.

In this presentation, I start by showing one of the finished products of the shoot – an image-based narrative that tells the story of this small NGO and the community it operates in. The balance of the presentation is a deconstruction of the editing process – showing how I use the tools in Lightroom to help make sense of a 5000 image shoot. Along the way, you’ll see techniques for organizing, developing and editing a story, along with discussions about how the tools can be used specifically to advance the narrative.

The presentation is free, as are all the events at the store.