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The Myths And Fallacies Of Digital Photographs And Their Preservation

brieļ¬ng paper
The myths and fallacies of digital
photographs and their preservation
Digital photographs offer fasciniating new possibilities and seem to be easier to store and preserve
for the future than their analog counterpart, promising incredibly valuable, massive photo archives
available at your fingertips. However, securely storing massive amounts of data, as well as
ensuring that the file formats produced by professional cameras can be read in the near and long-
term future, is a significant endeavour. This briefing paper reviews some of the core challenges in
preserving digital photographs to make sure that the value of a digital photo archive remains and
grows for the benefit of the photographer.
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Introduction
The photographic sector was one of the quickest adopters of digital technology, and today digital cameras far
outnumber their analog counterparts. However, while photographers quickly went digital and took advantage of
the opportunities for quick development, online publishing, and especially the fact that essentially a shot does
not cost anything, many professionals are just beginning to realize the dangers of keeping all photographs in
digital form on their computers.
Digital photographs are threatened on two levels:
1. Storage: Photographs are bitstreams stored on data carriers, often in large numbers. In the event of
accidental damage, such as fire or flood the damage to an analogue film would mean 20 to 36 pictures
might be lost. In contrast, the loss of a hard drive might mean that a lifetimeā€™s work of photography falls
into a digital black hole. This high concentration of data means that in the case of relatively common
events such as fire and flood happening, the damage could be catastrophic. Therefore, a proper backup
strategy is essential.
2. Logical: Digital photographs are, unlike their counterparts, intangible. While printed photos can lose
their colors and fade, they continue to be understandable and meaningful to a human. Digital
information in contrast can quickly become unusable bitstreams not interpretable by future computers
and technologies, if the necessary precautions are not taken in time. While JPEG images are likely to be
readable for a long time, the raw camera data that is widely used in the professional sector does not have
the same software support. Every camera has a different RAW profile and often needs specific software
to function, which might not be available in the future.
Often, proper backup strategies present a significant initial investment for a photographer not only financially,
but also in time and effort to investigate options and become familiar with the technology. In many cases, this
investment acts as a barrier and the necessary backups and precautions are not taken. Frequently it is only after
experiencing loss of data that individuals realize the value of their archives by far exceeds the cost of securing it
for the future.
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Best practice recommendations
For professional photographers or small picture agency, some best practice
recommendations to consider include the following:
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1. Do not rely on CDs, DVDs and their variations. The average lifespan
of these discs is short and, more importantly, unpredictable, with
quality varying. Even more importantly, handling becomes very effort
intensive as the amount of data increases.
Further information and resources
2. Use Hardware RAID systems, either attached to servers or as
The Open Archival Information System (OAIS)
networked-attached-storage. These systems offer high redundancy and
Reference Model (standard ISO 14721)
speed while being practical and affordable. Hard drives do not last
ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/isoas
forever; thus, redundancy is important. Replacing a hard drive in a

RAID system is relatively straightforward.
Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification
(TRAC): Criteria and Checklist
http://bibpurl.oclc.org/web/16712
3. External hard drives, if used as additional back-up media, need to be
activated regularly, at least once every month.
Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk
Assesment (DRAMBORA)
4. Convert original images to a stable standardized format such as TIFF
http://www.repositoryaudit.eu
(LZW compressed).
nestor Kriterienkatalog version 1
http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/series/nestor-materialien/
5. Keep the original RAW file if you want to be able to improve image
2006-8/PDF/8.pdf
results in the future, if needed.
National Archives of Australia:
6. Regularly check if the backup data can be restored successfully.
Preserving electronic records
http://www.naa.gov.au/records-
management/secure-and-store/e-
preservation/index.aspx
In the future
PLATTER
The future should bring two service models for professional photographers:
http://www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu/platter
1. Antivirus-like software tools that take care of locally stored content in a
Plato / Planets Preservation Planning Workflow
h
ttp://www.ifs. t uwien.ac.at/dp/plato
transparent, non-intrusive, and automated way.
2. Trustworthy digital archive services where digital photographs can be
uploaded or deposited and retrieved at any time.
Standards
In this context, compliance on international standards, such as OAIS, as well
as regular evaluations, risk-analysis and compliance audits (following e.g. the
TRAC guidelines or based on Drambora) are important. Furthermore, a
consolidated process for planning digital preservation activities, both on the
organizational level as well as on the object level is recommended, following
procedures such as defined by PLATTER and the Planets Preservation
Planning Workflow / Plato.
Authors: Christoph Becker, Andreas Rauber,
Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria
becker/rauber@ifs.tuwien.ac.at