Some clients have used it in conjunction with another Lexis-Nexis product, NewsView Connections, to semi-automate Web pages based on published information.

The PhotoView user list doesn't include any major metros, but it does have a nice chunk of the mid-size market.

The company boasts of checking with each installed site every two weeks, and T/One is quick to talk about problems (such as a sticking CD-ROM writer) and what it is doing to solve them.

T/One's associated products -- Robowrap, Photowrap and Trax -- could offer some publications a complete assigning, transmitting and archiving system, but at a price.

For smaller publications who have gotten used to shrink-wrap prices, Merlin's $50,000 to $80,000 entry price may be hard to swallow, even though speed, a high level of fault-tolerance and automation, and reputed good support, account for the cost.

Several weeks after Digital '96, T/One began offering Merlin Light, a turnkey system for $35,000. The cost is reduced by relying on a single Pentium processor instead of dual processors, and starting with four gigabytes of image storage space instead of eight gigs. The market will judge whether this slimmed down system is a good trade-off.

AP's tech support is also a nagging factor. How many photo managers have discovered that when the AP technician arrives to work on a sick AP Leaf Picture Desk or AP Leaf server, all knowledge is concentrated in New Jersey, with the tech following instructions based on a telephone diagnosis?

Support problems aside, one current Preserver user has solved the problem of crowded Leaf Picture Desk storage by using a portion of the Preserver's storage area as a "work in progress" area.

Specific categories of incoming photos are routed automatically into the Preserver archive, where they remain until it gets full and purges the oldest photos unless otherwise instructed.

While it is an effective way to hold on to the advance photos editors desperately want to keep for several weeks, this method works only if you aren't using the Gpib port on the Leaf server for something else (like Autokon output), or have multiple servers.

The system, in use at Newsweek and the New York Daily News, is customized to individual customer needs and workflow. The company's demonstration unit featured a PhotoCD scanner, scanning in each frame of a roll of film automatically.

Frankly, while this system probably is appropriate for large operations, I found it overwhelming. While the search engine appeared comparable to those of other archives, the component-customizable nature of the product makes it difficult to envision its application in smaller publications.

Doing digital
Though many of us have some acquaintance with technology on the "bleeding" edge, two photographers from the Southam Newspaper Group in Canada offered some insight into going all-digital.

Nick Didlick, a senior photographer with the Vancouver Sun in British Columbia, perhaps should have substituted his dress shirt and tie for a collegiate sweater with a D for "digital" on it.

The switch to digital solved a number of problems for the Pacific Press photo staffs. Before, photographers delivered film to a central processing facility, where they literally dropped a bag of film through a slot in a door -- and effectively became divorced from the bulk of the editing process.

Pacific Press photographers also suffered from more than a decade of insufficient capital investment in photo equipment. Perhaps these factors cause Didlick and Rob Galbraith of Alberta's Calgary Herald to gloss over some of the drawbacks of the digital system.

While listening to them recount their achievements, work-arounds and challenges, I was reminded of the process of transmitting wire color in the 1980s. Photographers shot transparency film, made black-and-white separation prints and transmitted the three separations (along with a prayer for decent registration).

The system worked, but it took a lot of effort, and content sometimes suffered at the hands of the technology.

Though no one would mistake me for a budding Luddite, some issues dampen my enthusiasm for the digital camera in its current incarnation:

I'd be aghast if a $500 camera were that inaccurate, much less a system that costs more than $15,000.

Whoops. This means asking photographers -- accustomed to using the technology in newer flash units for precise and worry-free fill-flash exposures -- to return to a more imprecise technology.

Changes in the last decade have allowed photographers to expend more thought on content and less on technique. Using flash technology from the late 1970s isn't impossible, or even that difficult, but it is a definite step backwards.

Didlick also warned about removing a strobe from the hot shoe while it is powered on. Older strobes like the Vivitar 283 flash will toast NC2000 circuits because of high voltage levels in sync circuits. This could yield an unpleasant surprise for a harried photographer.

Holding his hands arms' length apart, Didlick equated this range to negative color film. Drawing his hands to his shoulders yielded the range for transparency film. Digital cameras, he said as he brought his hands even closer together, operated in a range smaller still.

For survivors of an era when all newspaper color was shot on transparency film, going from the freedom of color negative film to the restriction of digital will be a significant price to pay.

The lack of sensitivity of the CCD also requires compromises in shooting technique. Several of the sports photos Didlick showed were taken at shutter speeds of 1/125 of a second -- much slower than most photographers like to use when photographing action.

The low light levels also increase the noise in the blue layer of the RGB image, requiring additional handling to correct this problem.

Both Didlick and various AP representatives crowed about how the wire service used only digital cameras to capture the action at January's Super Bowl XXX. In their zeal, they may not have heard the muttering from photo editors in the audience who had to prepare those images for publication.

I still remember a digital image, taken during college football's regular season, of a backlighted receiver in which the shadow detail was almost completely gone.

They also dropped more than $40,000 for strobe lighting to ensure decent illumination at an arena they cover regularly.

When asked how the cameras were holding up, Didlick implied that they were rugged, but 25 percent of the original batch of PC memory cards hadn't held up. The newer, larger cards have been more dependable, he said -- but at several hundred dollars a pop, this could become a costly new supply category for photo departments.

The best of the rest
The Associated Press multimedia server, which made an appearance at Digital '95, did not show its face in Denver.

An AP staffer said the server would be shown at NEXPO '96 this June in Las Vegas, and allowed as how a reduction in staff at AP's New Jersey offices had slowed progress on some projects.

The server, designed to receive photos and graphics, would be on a standard platform much like the AdSEND receiver now in place at 200 U.S. newspapers. The server has been installed at some sites in Europe and could be in some U.S. sites by the end of the year.

During the annual AP users group session, an AP representative said the server probably would cost less than $12,000, with three concurrent client seats. The first sites to get the server would be required to purchase the hardware from AP to prevent hardware conflicts like those during the AdSEND install.

When asked, AP said it has no plans to expand the storage capacity of current AP Leaf servers. The implication was that no further development of that platform could be expected, with only maintenance upgrades of the software likely.

The on-line AP picture archive is to begin beta testing this summer, with selected clients using dial-up access, the AP said.

It appeared any significant new AP technology would arrive after the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, reflecting a desire of both the wire service and members to avoid the birth pains of new technology during a demanding event.

Finally, an ever-dwindling trade show is a disappointment for Digital veterans. I still can't understand why suppliers like Apple, Adobe and a variety of scanner manufacturers don't take advantage of the gathering to reinforce their message to those who introduced their products into photo labs and backshops of newspapers.

Even so, the hands-on workshops and introspective general sessions still make this event a bargain for photojournalists facing the digital future.

-- Darrell H. Hoemann

Applied Graphics Technologies,
Digital Imaging Systems Division,
(716) 277-1760;
The Associated Press,
(212) 621-1732;
Lexis-Nexis,
(800) 227-9597, Ext. 1819;
SRA International,
(703) 803-1500,
e-mail: frank_roche@sra.com;
T/One Inc.,
(617) 328-6645,
e-mail: pbl@crl.com.

See also: Gill speaks

From THE COLE PAPERS, April 1996, Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved.