A Big Game Hunt of another type.

[David Riecks]

There was a big game hunt for the source of the Snow Leopard photo in
Apple's new OS X release.

The quarry has been found, but not via what could have been the
simplest means.

<http://bit.ly/snowkitty>http://bit.ly/snowkitty

David

--
David Riecks  (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent)
Need Keywords for your database? Get the Controlled Vocabulary Solution
http://controlledvocabulary.com/products/ support for a dozen of the
most popular imaging applications from Adobe Bridge to Photo Mechanic.  

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[John Fowler]

--- In STOCKPHOTO@..., David Riecks <david@...> wrote:
>
> There was a big game hunt for the source of the Snow Leopard photo in
> Apple's new OS X release.
>
> The quarry has been found, but not via what could have been the
> simplest means.
>
> <http://bit.ly/snowkitty>http://bit.ly/snowkitty


As a matter of interest, I downloaded, via right-click, an image from Tim's website.

No IPTC info.

[idmurray]

Dear David,

An interesting link.

How does David Sanger manage the use of his images sold as RF? No detective work I guess.

The same question applies to anyone else selling RF especially those campaigning about image misuses and lack of metadata.

Once you sell your canoe it's no good waving the paddles around hoping that that they'll bring it back to you.

Ian Murray






--- In STOCKPHOTO@..., David Riecks <david@...> wrote:

>
> There was a big game hunt for the source of the Snow Leopard photo in
> Apple's new OS X release.
>
> The quarry has been found, but not via what could have been the
> simplest means.
>
> <http://bit.ly/snowkitty>http://bit.ly/snowkitty
>
> David
>
> --
> David Riecks  (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent)
> Need Keywords for your database? Get the Controlled Vocabulary Solution
> http://controlledvocabulary.com/products/ support for a dozen of the
> most popular imaging applications from Adobe Bridge to Photo Mechanic.  
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

[David Riecks]

At 05:50 AM 9/6/2009, jtf22001 wrote:
>As a matter of interest, I downloaded, via right-click, an image
>from Tim's website.
>
>No IPTC info.

John:

Yes, a poor practice on the part of Tim Davis, IMHO.  However there
are many reasons that this might have happened.

- It could be the use of an older version of Adobe Photoshop and the
use of the Save for Web feature.
- Or if you are using newer versions and have only retained XMP, and
you are using a program that can only see legacy IPTC.
- Or a web designer that is using some processing software that does
not preserve metadata (ie Macromedia Fireworks)
- Or a software program that requires you to toggle a check box to
retain metadata (such as Expression Media).

Regardless of whether Tim put IPTC/XMP info into his images, the
stock distributor that licensed the image (Corbis) does. The question
I was asking had more to do with this fact. So if Corbis delivered an
image with metadata, why does the image included in their software
NOT still have this info?

David

--
David Riecks  (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent)
Need Keywords for your database? Get the Controlled Vocabulary Solution
http://controlledvocabulary.com/products/ support for a dozen of the
most popular imaging applications from Adobe Bridge to Photo Mechanic.

[David Riecks]

At 11:57 AM 9/6/2009, ianmurrayphotos wrote:
>How does David Sanger manage the use of his images sold as RF? No
>detective work I guess.

Ian:

The original image used on the snow leopard OS X cover was Rights
Managed. So I'm not sure how the question of RF fits into this
conversation. Though I do think it's a good idea to put Metadata into
any image you are sending out or placing on your website. When (not
if) a version of Orphan Works passes, you'll be covered.

David

--
David Riecks  (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent)
Need Keywords for your database? Get the Controlled Vocabulary Solution
http://controlledvocabulary.com/products/ support for a dozen of the
most popular imaging applications from Adobe Bridge to Photo Mechanic.

[David Sanger-3]

There are many reasons for including metadata in an image, including
providing a way for people to find the author and license the image
themselves, or to hire the photographer, or to see more of their work.

-----
david sanger photography llc
travel stock and assignments worldwide
www.davidsanger.com
t   510-526-0800
m 510-526-2800

[idmurray]

David,

When the image left Corbis it had metadata?

Ian Murray



--- In STOCKPHOTO@..., David Sanger <ds@...> wrote:

>
> There are many reasons for including metadata in an image, including
> providing a way for people to find the author and license the image
> themselves, or to hire the photographer, or to see more of their work.
>
> -----
> david sanger photography llc
> travel stock and assignments worldwide
> www.davidsanger.com
> t   510-526-0800
> m 510-526-2800
>

[David Riecks]

At 01:39 PM 9/7/2009, ianmurrayphotos wrote:
>When the image left Corbis it had metadata?

Ian:

 From my experience and research, I would be willing to bet a big
steak dinner that it did have embedded metadata when it left Corbis.

When we conducted the Stock Artists Alliance "META survey" of stock
distributors (Q4 2007, Q1 2008), we looked at a number of the larger
image distributors. Corbis was the only one that consistently
included metadata in their previews -- and mostly in their
thumbnails. You can see additional details in a preliminary report I
made at the International Photo Metadata conference in Malta in 2008
(page 25 of the PPT you can download at
http://www.phmdc.org/programme2008.htm).

In addition, as part of a later survey, we checked image files that
were downloaded after licensing. SAA has had an investigative
shopping program which has been going on for at least the past five
years or more. The primary goal is to license an image and then
determine when the photographer is finally paid, as well as how much
(to determine the final percentage of the original sale). A few of
those images were from Corbis, and these were checked for metadata as
well as others. All the images from Corbis, whether RM or RF, had
embedded photo metadata.

FWIW, this doesn't surprise me. In 2002 or 2003 I had talked with
Bill Radcliffe, (then at Corbis) as part of some investigations I was
doing for the IDEAlliance Digital Image Submission Criteria working
group, and learned that he was responsible for setting up this
infrastructure. If I recall correctly, all the images in the Corbis
collection were stored separately, and when an image is served up
from the website (for web viewing or licensing) the most recent
information in their database is embedded in the file that is viewed
or delivered in real time.

That this single image delivered to Apple would have had it's
metadata removed is possible, but would be a fluke. In other words,
the one exception among many millions that were and are delivered
with metadata.

If it had been licensed through any other distributor, it would be --
in my estimation -- a 30-50 percent chance (or less) that this
information would have been included in the file that was delivered.

I would much rather expect that it was something in the production
workflow used by Apple, or their subcontractors, that resulted in
this loss of embedded metadata.

David

--
David Riecks  (that's "i" before "e", but the "e" is silent)
Need Keywords for your database? Get the Controlled Vocabulary Solution
http://controlledvocabulary.com/products/ support for a dozen of the
most popular imaging applications from Adobe Bridge to Photo Mechanic.