by way of highly resilient system configurations, which mean that it will continue to deliver pictures for you even in the event of many major equipment failures. With fast increasing image flow growth, your existing systems may be struggling. You need to meet production deadlines, consistently, with quality pictures. With Picdar’s flexible, scalable and resilient Picture Desk, you can.
Picture Desk has the simple-to-use functionality to help you sift efficiently through the huge volumes of images that you receive each day. You can use those you need now, and route those that others need to see, by simple drag and drop.
You can archive or park those of longer term interest – with a single mouse click. After a safe pre-agreed period of time, you can let the system automatically scrap those you will not need.
The system’s flexible workflow tools allow you to integrate efficiently into production workflows.
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Pulling together images from all sources
Picture Desk automatically loads images received from photographers on location and external agencies via traditional wire feeds, ISDN, modem and email, and from in-house scanning departments and CDs. Every image is indexed by a powerful database structured to match IPTC and your own business requirements. Text supplied with the images is immediately mapped into the database and is available for searching, together with any extra information added by users.
Instantly pinpoint the best images
With some users receiving more than 10 images per minute at peak times, Picture Desk is designed to manage the flow, and provide the tools to find the most relevant, eye-catching pictures.
Picture Desk offers powerful flexible searching, designed specifically to help find images quickly and easily. It includes tools to handle plurals, synonyms and misspellings. It is simple to pull together shortlists of possible images, and you can view the results of several different searches at once.
If you are waiting for specific pictures, you can set up persistent searches to alert you as soon as they arrive. Busy editorial personnel want to see the images that are relevant to them, rather than searching through hundreds or thousands of irrelevant ones.
Managing the image flow
Each image is held just once by Media Mogul, even where several titles and publications use it. Published images – and any that you consider to be of long term interest – can be archived automatically or by the click of a mouse. Picture Desk also allows for “parking” of images for stories, such as court cases, which build up over time. Each user can have a parking zone and parking quota, so they don’t block the system with too many unrealistic parking requirements. Other images are removed automatically after a preset “weeding period” to free up space for new ones. The architecture is designed specifically for the high churn rate of picture desks.
Full workflow integration
Picture Desk integrates flexibly with editorial workflows and systems. Its FastFlow™ options provide extra functionality and boost workflow efficiencies. For example, ordering options allow users to communicate their image choices and cropping and placement requirements. Interfaces with image manipulation products (such as Adobe Photoshop and Agfa’s IntelliTune) and with editorial systems (such as QuarkXpress) streamline your workflow.
Extraordinary resilience
The Picture Desk architecture is designed from the ground up to provide highly resilient solutions. It has been engineered specifically for environments receiving large numbers of new images over short periods, a very high rate of automatic age-based deletions, and large numbers of concurrent users requiring rapid delivery, especially at peak times. The Picture Desk is typically implemented in a resilient configuration to ensure that most hardware failures will not interrupt service.
Your choice: from multi-title support
If you are a large publisher with several titles, Picture Desk’s options, components and modules unite to form a solution unique to your needs. This, combined with Picdar’s support and picture desk expertise, saves you time and money.
…to solutions that appeal to smaller operations
Picture Desk’s range of editions also address the requirement for simpler solutions and moderate levels of requirement. These editions enable companies who require hosted, entry level or workgroup solutions to benefit from the solution’s exceptional functionality, sophistication, and speed. Although Picture Desk can be used as a stand-alone application, it works best alongside Picdar’s Media Mogul® Digital Asset Management solution, which can link the images together with the text and other assets that were published with them. Together, the two form a complete workflow support system for all types of digital assets, from reception and selection of images and other assets, to logging their use in conjunction with text, and subsequent archiving and later re-use.
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Picdar helps The Economist find the ideal pictures and graphics 
RNLI get rapid response from Picdar's Media Mogul 
Image flow using email 