01 Sep, 2010 | Posted by: psnotes



IN THEIR SHOES -- Nectar3D: “Despite knowing there are plenty of articles already published on this topic, in DT, I just couldn't stop myself from sharing a few points. In my last blog article I wrote this: "If your keywords are not relevant enough your wonderful portfolio is not going to work up to your expectation." Also the same applies on category selection as well.
Now it is very easy to repeat these words in various forms but the real issue is how to do it? Well, it depends to a large extent on the flexibility of your mind. Not very easy as it sounds, because you have to forget you are a contributor while typing keywords. Rather become a buyer.
http://blog.dreamstime.com/2010/08/23/keywording-becoming-a-buyer_art33198
TAKEAWAY: Yes, try to think like a buyer searching for your picture. A buyer will often need more than the emotional appeal of the picture. The location of the tree, The name, the specieis, the time of year, etc.

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11 Aug, 2010 | Posted by: psnotes




SYNONYMS -- When it comes to keywording stock images, synonyms are your friend (pal, buddy, mate). There are hundreds of things out there that can be referred to by more than one word. As a stock photographer, you have no way of knowing which word your customers will use in their searches. http://www.glowimagesblog.com/2010/08/02/keywording-tips-for-stock-photographers-part-5-synonyms-are-your-friend/
TAKEAWAY: You may not know exactly which word or phrase a photo seeker will use, but you can guess. After a while you’ll get good at guessing as it will translate into sales.

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HELPER -- Metadata editor METAmachine 2 released

Already recognized as a powerful desktop utility for editing metadata in images, METAmachine 2 represents a significant upgrade with major enhancements to its licensing and keywording capabilities
SOURCE: Rob Galbraith http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-10054-10832



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04 Aug, 2010 | Posted by: psnotes




FINDING YOURS -- How many times have you heard it said that location is everything? For many buyers of stock images, location really is everything. One client was working on an informational book about Italian cuisine and had to have images that were actually shot in specific regions of Italy. Glow Images has a lot of great images of Italian food, but unless the keywords included the city and country, that client couldn’t even consider them.
http://www.glowimagesblog.com/2010/07/26/keywording-tips-for-stock-photographers-part-4-where-am-i/




WORDS TO SELL BY -- Seven Keywording Tips. Your images will sell better if you put a little extra effort to writing accurate keywords, and lots of them. Here are a few tips to help you master the art and science of keywording. http://www.bigstockphoto.com/blog/theupload/2010/07/keyword-tips/


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27 Jul, 2010 | Posted by: psnotes



WHERE TO FIND THEM -- A good photo-archiving program is a necessity for anyone who stores digital pictures on their home computer, not just professional shutterbugs. A good archiving program will let users store their pictures efficiently and quickly, organizing keywords and metadata, while making it simple to label them so they can be found easily later. SOURCE: Philipp Laage http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Photo-Archiving-Software-for-All/story.xhtml?story_id=032003MR8VDS

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21 Jul, 2010 | Posted by: psnotes



THE BASICS : Keywording Tips for Stock Photographers. In order to help potential customers find your stock images, you’ll want to make sure that you describe certain things in the keywords for every image you submit to a stock photography site. GLOW IMAGES.
http://www.glowimagesblog.com/2010/07/13/keywording-tips-for-stock-photographers-part-2-don%E2%80%99t-forget-the-basics/


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14 Jul, 2010 | Posted by: psnotes




WHAT’s IMPORTANT -- Common mistakes when keywording images: what an image is not. If someone asks you what can you see in the image enclosed, what would you answer? Is that a landscape, a single tree, farmlands, the horizon, blue, green, yellow…? What would you say?
http://blog.agefotostock.com/post/2010/07/05/Common-mistakes-when-keywording-images-what-an-image-is-not.aspx
TAKEAWAY: Rarely do editorial photobuyers look for stand-alone illustrations. Instead they are seeking specific photos (in this example) the species of tree, the type of crop in the field, etc. for a photo request




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23 Jun, 2010 | Posted by: psn



THE ONLY MEANS "I've often wished that I could translate the look and feel of an image that I am searching for into something besides words - is it possible to search by painting or drawing a picture and somehow feeding that into a search engine? No, don’t think so! -- Images are not made of words, but words are the only means by which we can organize, identify and find images. " SOURCE: Hatcheckgirl ; Dreamstime; http://blog.dreamstime.com/2010/06/14/the-practical-keyworder-deep-search_art32672


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16 Jun, 2010 | Posted by: psn



Google Changes Search-Results Page
Google has made some major changes to its search results recently, adding more options for searchers. These are not changes to search algorithms, which determine the websites that show up, and where. Rather, the new changes give searchers options that allow them to tailor the type of search results that they see. To help you navigate through these changes and what it really means for your ecommerce business, let's look at sample search results and focus on what your site can do to appear in them.
SOURCE: Bill Hartzer
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/05/earlyshow/saturday/main6551213.shtml


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01 Jun, 2010 | Posted by: psn



TEN RULES -- Suggestions for Better Keywording - Having the correct and most relevant keywords associated with your files will not only get them in front of the most interested visitors but will improve your ranking in our new search engine. Here are 12 suggestions you can think about when keywording your images. http://blog.cutcaster.com/2010/05/12/10-suggestions-for-better-keywording/
TAKEAWAY: If you want to increase sales, memorize these keywording suggestions.


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18 May, 2010 | Posted by: psn



SUGGESTIONS FOR BETTER KEYWORDING -- Having the correct and most relevant keywords associated with your files will not only get them in front of the most interested visitors but will improve your ranking in our new search engine. Here are 12 suggestions you can think about when keywording your images.
http://blog.cutcaster.com/2010/05/12/10-suggestions-for-better-keywording/


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12 May, 2010 | Posted by: psn




GEO-TAG YOUR PHOTOS -- For photographers who hope to sell the pictures they take, at least some of that information can be useful. Although few buyers will care whether the photo was taken with a Nikon or a Canon, many will want to know exactly what they’re looking at before they buy — especially if they are editorial buyers and need a highly specific photo. SOURCE: Dean http://blogs.photopreneur.com/should-you-be-geotagging


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28 Apr, 2010 | Posted by: psn




Pixazza starts tagging home, travel and sports images with commercial links - Pixazza has found a way to add value to images by tagging the content in images with commercial information and links. http://www.fastmediagroup.com/archives/5864
TAKEAWAY: You may want to get extra hits for your editorial stock photos by adding similar destriptive meta tags and/or alt tags to each of your pictures.

YOUR CHOICE -- BradCalkins: “I see a lot of people with different takes on keywording (me included!) and I can't help but wonder if it isn't a self-fulfilling prophecy. Consider two very different approaches to keywording, along with my take on what the results would be. Is keywording a self-fulfilling prophecy?
SOURCE: Brad Calkins http://blog.dreamstime.com/2010/04/19/is-keywording-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy-_art32223


COPY SPACE -- The Mind of the User. There is a saying among librarians that "every book has its reader and for every reader, a book". Information organization is designed around this principle and this philosophy is relevant for any type of information that needs to found, including visual information. http://blog.dreamstime.com/2010/04/19/the-practical-keyworder-the-mind-of-the-user_art32221

MULITPLE IMAGES -- The best time to add keywords to your photos in Aperture 3 is during the photo importing process. It’s not that it’s easier – but if you get in the habit, you’re unlikely to postpone and forget keywording altogether.
http://www.apertureland.com/2010/04/19/how-to-add-keywords-to-multiple-images-at-once-in-aperture-3/

THE ADVANTAGE: -- How To Keyword Your Images. The greatest lesson I ever learned about microstock photography is that key-wording is extremely important. It’s not sexy or fun but this is where you eventually will crush your competition if you do it right. Most of your competition will luckily do it completely wrong so you can get an enormous advantage here. http://photobusinessguide.com/blog/206/keyword-images/



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20 Apr, 2010 | Posted by: psn



EXPAND YOUR CONCEPTS -- The Practical Keyworder - Concepts: One thing leads to another... Concept keywording has gotten a bad reputation - why? As I pointed out in an earlier post, many articles have been written about the necessity of "shooting to concept" (Want Success? Start with the Concept). So, if you have a great concept, why not throw on as many concept words as possible? http://blog.dreamstime.com/2010/04/12/the-practical-keyworder-concepts-one-thing-leads-to-another-_art32150
TAKEAWAY: Photobuyers with imagination can read many concepts into your picture, if you allow them to.


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14 Apr, 2010 | Posted by: psn



PRACTICAL KEYWORDS: Keywording, or *cataloging* has been the key to finding useful information - and images - for hundreds of years. Cataloging and classification is an old art that is slowly being rediscovered as sites like Dreamstime attract large numbers of contributors and as the number of images available grows exponentially. The sea of information - and images - is vast. How is it possible to stand out from the crowd, to maximize views and downloads, and to make certain that your efforts are rewarded?
http://blog.dreamstime.com/2010/04/05/the-practical-keyworder_art32064

Find Effective Keywords -- When you add your digital photos to a stock photography websites, you are always asked to add keywords or tags, and to assign your image to various categories. How do you make a list of effective keywords for your photographs? SOURCE: Marlee C. Dorst http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Find-Effective-Keywords-For-Photos&id=4063989

HE HATES IT/BUYERS LOVE IT -- “I hate keywording. I really do. I like post-processing in general but sitting down and coming up with all the possible ways someone might be searching for an image is tedious. Especially as a nature photographer, since there are so many different things about an animal that might be potentially interesting to someone. SOURCE: Michael Hampson http://blog.michaelhampson.com/2010/04/lightroom-keywords-for-taxa.html
TAKEAWAY: He may hate the job of keywording but he will love cash or the check for the sale of the image because it was found through effective keywording.


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31 Mar, 2010 | Posted by: psn



INCLUDE THOSE TAGS -- Consumer behavior online is changing rapidly. Facebook overtook Google to become the most popular site in the US last month, according to Hitwise, demonstrating how attached consumers are to their online social lives. And access to social media is no longer confined to our desktops. The increasing number of smartphones means that owners have access to the web at all times. “The journalists now follow guidelines on tagging keywords and on writing headlines that are optimized for more effective search results,” SOURCE: Marketing Week - Steve Hemsley -
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/briefings/real-time-results-focus-attention-on-social-media/3011734.article
TAKEAWAY: Photobuyers are into social media also. Be sure to include keywords in your FACEBOOK, Twitter, et al messages that include your primary specialty in stock photography. You’re bound to get inquiries from photo researchers who need your expertise. –RE

GOOGLE CATCHER -- Your photos may be good, but can they be found? 5 Keys to Searchability and SEO for Photographers. Helping Google read your images cannot only help your pages and galleries rank, but images can rank on their own. Ranking an image can be extremely beneficial as users search sites like Google images for wedding venue photos, etc. We’re talking about the potential for lots of new business just from focusing on the SEO of your images.
http://www.mcpactions.com/blog/2010/03/23/5-keys-to-searchable-images/
TAKEAWAY: We here at Photosouirce InternationAL have been teaching this concept since 2007. It works so, follow their directions. The goal is to be on page 1 of a Google search. Here at PSI we want to be on page 1 if anyone types “sell my photos” or “buy my photos.” Test it out, photosource.com will be on page 1. It works like magic, so, follow these SEO rules.



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23 Mar, 2010 | Posted by: psn


THE RIGHT KEYWORDS -- This sequel article focuses on how to use the most relevant keyword combinations to improve visibility — as well as your bottom line!
http://artsstock.com/blog/shutterstock-tips-improve-your-sales-with-keywording-part-two/

TAKEAWAY: Make your photos marketable.
The BACKGROUND, choose one that’s uncluttered and confusing (not like the photojournalistic shot I once saw of President Clinton with a telephone pole coming out of his head.)
The PERSON, choose an appropriate adult, child, teen who best represents the message (opinion) you are making.
SYMBOL. When appropriate, include an icon or tool that represents the subject matter.
INTERACTION. with the symbol. Give the picture a feeling of action or no action at all if it fits.


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03 Mar, 2010 | Posted by: psn



GET FOUND -- The Importance of Keywording in Earnest. It is great to have good, marketable images, -- it`s even better if they are found. Dreamstime`s " Buyer searched after" is one of their more useful resources.
www.microstockposts.com/the-importance-of-keywording-in-earnest/
TAKEAWAY: The easiest way to convince yourself of the importance of extended keywording is to put yourself in the shoes of a photobuyer who is looking for, “adult woman tennis player amateur distraught exhausted” for a coffee table book on senior tennis players. If you have such a photo and haven’t keyworded that photo (metadata), then, well, you’ve lost a sale and possibly lost the chance for a new contact for your buyer database.


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20 Jan, 2010 | Posted by: psn



ALT TAGS HELP -- Use alt tags to sell your photos. Visitors won’t find your blog or web page unless you coax them. Be sure to include alt tags with each photo. Photos are pretty much ignored by the search engines except for Alt text that accompanies your images. Find out about Alt tags here: http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/alt_tag/
http://www.tipsfromthetlist.com/15324.html

Note: Need more info on how key words can help invite potential clients to your blog or website? Go to...

http://HSLtd.us/metamachine


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22 Dec, 2009 | Posted by: psn



BETTER THAN HIEROGLYPHICS -- When the Caption Counts As Much As the Picture - If Pictory is anything to go by, it's clear that captions that include the photographer's story and add new meaning to the picture also make it more attractive, more interesting - and perhaps even more likely to sell.
http://blogs.photopreneur.com/when-the-caption-counts-as-much-as-the-picture?tm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PhotopreneurBlog+%28Photopreneur+Blog%29




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24 Nov, 2009 | Posted by: psn



DATA ON THE FLY – Digital Photo Metadata Takes Off with Exif Pilot - Two Pilots has released a
new version of Exif Pilot. With Exif Pilot, you can see not only your photo image but also the accompanying metadata. Each time you take an image, your digital camera records date and time information along with technical parameters. This information is stored in a special format called EXIF. That is one of the advantages of digital photography. You can view, edit, and create EXIF data.
http://www.creativepro.com/article/digital-photo-metadata-takes-exif-pilot


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20 Oct, 2009 | Posted by: psn



THE CASE OF THE MISSING KEYWORDS – Carnegie Museum of Art will celebrate the photography of Pittsburgh icon, Teenie Harris. An exhibit documenting the work of one of Pittsburgh’s most influential 20th-century photographers might seem like a fitting project for a major Pittsburgh art museum, but there is a serious obstacle to overcome: the photographer’s negatives — of which there are nearly 80,000 — arrived at the museum without captions. http://www.pittnews.com/node/19665
TAKEAWAY: Most of the old-tyme pros seldom took notes, let alone kept keywords and captions. It just wasn’t in their M.O.S. They didn’t bother about captions, keywords, tabs. (Which could be an annuity for their future retirement). Here’s a situation what it means to you if you don’t recognize that future retirment income could be lost if you don’t meticulously add metadata to each of your marketable photos.


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11 Aug, 2009 | Posted by: psn




FLICKR SEARCH MADE EASY -- Seven alternative Flickr search engines - Don Reisinger: The site's search results page now allows users to see small previews of photos and get details on those pictures without being forced to visit the individual photo page. But if you're looking for something a little different, these Flickr alternatives are worth checking out.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10303576-2.html?tag=mncol;title


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22 Jul, 2009 | Posted by: psn





THE BEST KIND OF KEYWORDS -- SAA Helps Hundreds Get Meta-Smart at Cross-Country Events - In the wake of seven, free educational events over the past two months, nearly 800 picture professionals from Puget Sound to the Potomac have a better grip on the power and processes of embedding photographic metadata. The Stock Artists Alliance plans three more get-META-smart events for this fall.
TAKEAWAY: SAA is pushing the advantages to you of including metadata in all of your digital images. Here’s the place to go to learn more.
http://www.stockartistsalliance.org/node/751


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03 Jun, 2009 | Posted by: psn



DETAILS PLUS. Stock Artists Alliance (SAA) has designed a lecture series that will bring digital photographers up to speed on photo metadata, the technique that allows you to imbed bountiful information and technical details of the photo you just took.
This kind of information, imbedded in the data in your digital image will allow you to include information that rides along with each pictures.
This feature becomes especially valueable when you include descriptive keywords so that potential clients, using a search system, now and in the future will be able to select specific images for their publishing projrct.
There’s no chance for such information to be mislayed or misfiled because the metadata rides along with each of your digital images.

It’s easy to project that if such a feature would have been included with analog photos (transparencies) in the past, more follow up sales could have been made. Also slide collections of the last centrury could be sold to stock agencies or donated (for a tax write-off) to museums and historical societies. Not to mention passed on to heirs when the photograspher retires.

Learn when an SAA lecture tour in this series is coming to your area:
http://www.photometadata.org/META-Events


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22 Apr, 2009 | Posted by: psn




COMPARING PHOTO DATA -- Flickr fans quickly embraced the tool this week to run a variety of comparisons, including some photography-specific ones such as bokeh vs. HDR and Canon vs. Nikon. Flickr trends highlighted via Google-based app - The FlickrTrends
application takes advantage first of the API (application programming
interface) at Yahoo's photo-sharing site, Flickr, which can show how many
photos have been tagged with a particular word over a period of time.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-10220937-39.html?tag=mncol;title


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14 Apr, 2009 | Posted by: psn



GET ON THE FIRST PAGE -- A Search Engine Optimisation Toolkit From PhotoShelter, who produces websites, photo sales and archiving tools for photographers. The have released the first free guide to getting photography websites listed on search engines and achieving top results with search engine optimization (SEO).
http://www.photographyblog.com/news/photoshelter_search_engine_optimisation_toolkit/
http://www.photographyblog.com/news/photoshelter_search_engine_optimisation_toolkit/

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08 Apr, 2009 | Posted by: psn



Keywords, and plenty of them are the way to get on the first page of a Google search. But they must be relevant to the site or the page they’re found on. “Stuffing keywords, just for the sake of quantity, doesn’t work. Googles aldorithyms have fidured that one out. Or repeating the same keyword several doesn’t wothk either. In fact you get penialized for it.

Getting top ranking on Google or Yahoo is so elusive because the Net is a moving parade. Once you think you have it nailed down, the wind blows southward and the parade has moved down another street, and you’re still playing the old tunes on your bugle.

I’m convinced the only way in the future for a photographer to consistently gain top ranking on a search (short of investing in AdWords or other similar (costly) features is to specialize your photography. (Be a big fish in a small pond.)

Switch your business philosophy from owning thousands of photos of hundreds of subject matter and all you earn is page 32 of a Google search -- to -- photographing only a single subject (that you love to photograph) -say, blue-eyed Chihuahuas.

Google and the other search engines will have you on the front page every time. But it’s got to be a highly specialized subject, like green-eyed gold fish. (is there such a thing?)

Try it, a search for blue-eyed Chihuahuas – you’ll find a lot of company and from all over the globe.

I’m not sure about the goldfish. But you get the point.

–Rohn psi2[at]photosource[dot]com


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01 Apr, 2009 | Posted by: psn




TAGGING YOUR PHOTOS -- The third international Photo Metadata Conference at CEPIC Congress 2009 - CEPIC is a European Economic Interest Group representing the interests of picture associations, agencies and libraries in Europe, in total 1.053 picture agencies and libraries in Europe, from the smallest to the largest, covering all aspects of photography. Dates June 3 to June 7 2009.
http://www.stockphotographer.info/news/industry-news/815-cepic-congress-2009-dresden


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25 Mar, 2009 | Posted by: psn



SATISFY YOUR PHOTOBUYERS -- Caption and Keywording Guidelines - Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you caption and keyword your photographs: http://www.controlledvocabulary.com/metalogging/ck_guidelines.html


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11 Feb, 2009 | Posted by: psn





FUTURE KEYWORDS How to quickly geotag all your photos on both PC and Mac. While newer cameras and mobile devices will have geotagging capabilities built in, how can you quickly and easily tag the rest of the photos in your collection? To get started, the best software available for this is Google Picassa. It has geotagging capabilities built-in and the process is very streamlined. In addition to Picassa, you need Google Earth as well- this is where you'll get the location information for your photos.
http://photo.blorge.com/2009/02/02/how-to-quickly-geotag-all-your-photos-on-both-pc-and-mac/


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03 Feb, 2009 | Posted by: psn



THE FACE IS FAMILIAR First taste of iLife '09: iPhoto's face recognition. The new Faces and Places feature on iPhoto '09 was definitely one of the biggest news out of Phil Schiller's Macworld keynote. While iPhoto '08 introduced Events, which lets you group photos based on the dates they were taken, iPhoto '09 introduced three new features that got the Mac community buzzing -- facial recognition, geo-tagging, and social network support.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10153818-1.html?tag=mncol


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14 Jan, 2009 | Posted by: psn



NEW TOOL. Keywords are what sells pictures. A website that has potential, not only for finding synonyms, but for getting a lot of information related to a word is http://synonyms.memodata.com/


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22 Oct, 2008 | Posted by: psn



GETTING’ THERE, MAYBE. -- ALIPR - Image Recognition for Keywording - Here's one example of a fairly successful (but by no means exhaustive) result return, where I've checked the applicable keywords but are several others with less than stellar results. This technology is still in the early stages of development.
http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/2008/10/alipr-image-recognition-for-keywording.html


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15 Oct, 2008 | Posted by: psn




FINDING PHOTOS – This Penn State University study is using computer science to keyword photos so that researchers will locate them on the Net.
http://live.psu.edu/story/35158 . Contributor: Frank Nowikowski
TAKEAWAY. Professor Wang is on the right trail. Identifying photos by keywords is much easier on the eyes than searching for photos by visual means.



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16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn



KEYWORD HELPER How to scribble notes onto digital photos - Last week, Nokia of Finland filed a US patent (2008/0215962) on a technique to let users of digital or cellphone cameras make back-of-photo notes for posterity.
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19926735.800-how-to-scribble-notes-onto-
digital-photos.html?feedId=online-news_rss20
TAKEAWAY: If it works, it would be the perfect device for busy photographers who want to remember where what and when with the photo they just took.


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