As a blogger and not a columnist I am feel like my job is to mostly give you some news and quick information and then point you in the proper direction to get all the rest of the information you need.  So when it comes to DAM, Digital Asset Management, I suppose I could write out an entire artical outlining what it is, how to use and and much more…but if you realized there were entire 300 page books on the topic, you can see why I must only give you the most important part.

The skinny on what DAM is exactly is quite simple, it is a way to store and catalog digital files like photographs, videos, music and anything that you have a large quantity of really.  It is found in many programs and other programs are made just for it.  It is used for many different reasons and in many ways like helping one go through a project to find which photographs he enjoys more, to make a persons library searchable by metadata, or just like any other business you need to have an easy way to go through your files in order to sell, print and otherwise enjoy your photography.  We take thousands of photographs of hundreds of things in many different formats and we throw all of this information into folders on our computers.  How many of you have huge digital photo libraries on your computer that you can barely use because things are in un-named folders or have less than proper metadata or a number of other things.  Wouldn’t you love to have all your photographs neatly sorted, easy to search and always accesible?  Ya me too, that is what DAM does.

My last bit of advice is going to be checking out the “The DAM Book” by O’reilly written by Peter Krogh.  It is a fantastic way to teach yourself what DAM is all about and how to get your photo libaries where they should be.  GO….Get it now, get your stuff organized!