How to use digital asset management for photography
Explore how digital asset management software can advance your photography business through centralized storage, collaboration tools, and more.
How to use digital asset management for photography
Looking for a solution to streamline your photography business? The answer may lie in your file management system. For most photographers, traditional file management is simply not an effective solution. With limited storage space, unintuitive organizational structures, and limited security features, file-sharing services and document management systems simply don't make the cut.
The solution may lie in digital asset management software. Designed specifically for managing rich media assets, digital asset management solutions can boost efficiency, minimize frustration, and contribute to better partnerships with stakeholders, clients, and customers.
Read on to learn all about digital asset management for photography and why it can make such a significant difference in your business
What is digital asset management (DAM)?
Digital asset management (DAM) is a system through which photographers can store, organize, retrieve, and collaborate on creative files such as images, videos, and design files. It also manages documents and internal assets such as branding guidelines, contracts, and any other important digital assets. DAM serves as a single, centralized location to effectively store any assets related to your photography business.
Digital asset management for photographers can store files, including:
- Image assets: JPG, PNG, TIFF, RAW, etc.
- Video assets: MP4, AVI, MOV, WebM, etc.
- Design files: PSD, SVG, EPS, etc.
- Internal files: PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, etc.
Unlike a traditional document management system, digital asset management (DAM) platforms for photographers don’t rely on folder structures to store and organize files. Instead, they use AI-powered search techniques to enable photographers to find assets quickly and easily.
Benefits of digital asset management for photographers
Photographers are switching from traditional file management systems to digital asset management because of its wealth of benefits. When you make the switch to DAM, you can expect:
- Access wherever, whenever: Photographers no longer need access to their personal hard drive or an external server to retrieve assets. Your DAM enables you to access your files from anywhere at any time, via desktop or mobile.
- Simple retrieval: No more need to navigate multiple levels of folders to find the asset you need. With your new photography video management solution, you’ll be able to easily find files based on their metadata or your own custom taxonomy. Better yet, Bynder offers AI-powered tagging and facial recognition to relieve you of the painstaking task of tagging your files one by one.
- Enhanced security: Share assets with necessary stakeholders, clients, and teams without risking the security of your database. DAM offers photographers two-factor authentication and user permissions to ensure partners only get access to the files they need.
- Streamlined content collaboration: Review, refine, and approve images with external parties without ever needing to leave your DAM. No miscommunication, bottlenecks, or disorganized files.
Detailed analytics: Information on how your assets are used was once a mystery. Now, unlock detailed information about how your images are used—and by who. Get information about downloads and uploads, most used images, and other essential data.
Challenges of digital asset management for photographers
As with any new software and processes, there can be a few challenges to digital asset management for photographers. Consider the following before onboarding to your new digital asset management software:
- Managing large content volumes: As your business grows, so will your media library. A DAM solution that doesn’t offer scalable content storage may be a roadblock to your success. Ensure the DAM platform you choose is scalable as you continue to expand.
- Balancing security and accessibility: Inflexible security shouldn't prevent stakeholders from accessing important files. Bynder offers precise user permissions with strong security to allow easy access to relevant files without jeopardizing security.
Integrating with other tools: Your photography business likely already uses an arsenal of design, communication, and martech tools. If your DAM cannot integrate with these tools, it will likely be difficult to adopt.
Digital asset management for photographers: What to look for
Choosing the right digital asset management software for photographers may mean the difference between a frustrating road to asset storage and more efficient workflows. Consider the following DAM requirements when selecting your solution:
- Custom file storage: The best file organization system is one that makes sense to you. Look for a DAM platform that allows you to determine your own organizational structure, create custom taxonomy, and define organizational rules.
- Precise security: Protecting your creative files is of the utmost importance to the success of your business. Look for a DAM that offers enhanced security features like two-factor authentication and user-based permission for precise control over the files each user gets access to.
- Brand management: Whether you’re looking for a system to manage your personal brand or one to manage the brands of your various clients, your digital asset management solution should provide an answer. Bynder offers customizable brand guidelines to store vital assets like logos, brand images, videos, and typography, as well as information about color palettes, tone, and other brand elements.
- Easy integration: Your asset storage is just one piece of the puzzle. Find a DAM solution that’s built to integrate with other tools in your martech stack that are vital to your business.
Automated tasks: Streamline your workflows by automating tedious tasks like cropping, applying logos and watermarks, and resizing. Bynder offers batch automated tasks to manage your most time-consuming responsibilities for you.
Best practices for organizing photos in a DAM system
Ready to onboard your new photography digital asset management solution? Follow these best practices for your best results.
Designate a DAM manager
If you have multiple team members who will use your DAM, it’s a good idea to designate one person as your DAM manager. Their role will be the setup, day-to-day management, and regular maintenance of your DAM. They can ensure that all assets adhere to DAM governance and taxonomy, as well as clear out outdated files and manage storage.
Establish your taxonomy
Your DAM taxonomy is the system through which you’ll group your assets. It’s a set of categories under which you’ll nest all individual DAM assets. Your taxonomy is also one of the tools you’ll use to locate assets within your DAM. Before uploading anything to your DAM, it’s important to set up your specific taxonomy. You can choose to group your files by any taxonomy you’d like: client name, project type, theme, or whatever other system works for your needs. Be sure that your taxonomy is scalable and will be able to grow with you throughout the lifetime of your DAM.
Utilize metadata and tagging
In addition to a custom taxonomy, your DAM allows you to add metadata and tags to each file for future retrieval. It’s important to individually tag each of your files so that you can find them when needed. While this can be a tedious process, it’s important. Fortunately, some digital asset management software, such as Bynder, offer AI-powered metadata and tagging capabilities, as well as facial recognition, to make this a less manual process.
Enable version control
Version control is central to your DAM system, especially if you use your DAM to collaborate with partners. It can help ensure that you’re always using the most up-to-date version of every file and minimize the risk of using outdated content.
Capture your best work with Bynder
When used correctly, a new DAM system can transform your photography business. For the most success, choose the right DAM solution and follow best practices. Bynder is a DAM platform that photographers like you can leverage to organize visual files and improve productivity.
