Focus Stacking for Museums

Abstract:

Focus stacking is often thought of as a specialized tool for naturalists looking to get up close and personal with various flora and fauna. For a museum without large natural history or miniature collections, is there a case to be made to include focus stacking into day to day image capture? As image size and quality constantly increase, often the only hindrance to image usability is sharpness. Traditionally, using smaller apertures to gain a larger depth of field has been a reasonable workaround, but diffraction and exacting sharpness standards are making this technique less and less viable. Focus Stacking has the potential to give a second life to your images. From picking out new details, to limiting object handling, this technique can have wide reaching implications for your institution. Using practical examples from the collection of the Portland Art Museum, I will describe the practical advantages, imaging procedures and post processing workflows to help you make the most of this process. 

Delivered as part of Digital Transitions Department of Cultural Heritage’s Project Lemonade Webinar Series, May 2020. A version of this talk was also presented at the DTDCH West Coast Round Table event at Pepperdine University in March 2020.

High-quality Imaging in Small Museums: Making It Possible

Abstract:

Images are the cornerstone of a museum’s community-focused presence. They allow museums to share their collections in new ways, provide new insight, and bring increased visibility to otherwise hidden objects. As web, marketing, curatorial, and research demands continue to grow, so does the pressure on imaging programs large and small. Often for underfunded and under-resourced programs, there is every opportunity to struggle with the demand placed on them, yet they manage to thrive. This panel will share strategies used by the Portland Art Museum, The Spencer Museum of Art, the Davison Art Center at Wesleyan University, The Digital Imaging Lab at the University of Southern California, and The Frost Library at Amherst College to grow their imaging capabilities and produce excellent images despite constrained budgets, limited staff, and less than ideal space. Learn from real-life case studies, videos, and time lapses from our studios, commiserate with fellow photographers, and take home practical strategies you can apply in your own imaging practice.

Delivered at MCN 2019 in San Diego CA. Co-Presented with:

-Rob Lancefield, Head of IT, Yale Center for British Art

-Ryan Waggoner, Creative Services Manager, Spencer Museum of Art

From Request to Ingest: Creating Ordering and Tracking Systems to Make Your Museum Imaging Workflow Work for You.

Abstract:

Images are a critical component of any 21st century museum. With increasing demands for images in the digital world, the deluge of requests can leave the various staff involved in imaging feeling as if they are barely treading water. This panel will discuss how MoMA, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, and MIA have recently implemented different systems with varying levels of complexity that all have the goal of providing necessary information to everyone along the imaging pipeline, track progress, and enabled timely communication between the teams involved. This panel will discuss the decisions, implementation challenges, and progress of their various systems and show how software solutions can make tasks more human centered. The audience will see a range of solutions from ones with complex integrations to ones that can easily be implemented by small team or a single person.

Delivered at MCN 2018 in Denver CO. Co-Presented with:

-Dan Dennehy, Head of Visual Resources at Minneapolis Institute of Art

-Justyna Badach, Head of Imaging at Philadelphia Museum of Art

-Kurt Heumiller, Studio Production Manager at MoMA