I was wondering what agencies without digital enhancement and storage systems (such as MoreHits-Adams) do with their latent photographs. We have the Morehits system but, the cost of upgrading has become nearly impossible due to lack of funding.
Are there agencies out there using CA-dye staining and ALS without a digital enhancement/storage system? If so, how is this being done? How can you show the integrity of the images? Do you make hard copies for your files?
My preference is to stay with digital. Any suggestions how to wean my section off of Morehits?
I have a friend at a neighboring agency whose Department took a firm stance on who needed access to the digital images. It's a smaller Department and only 2 personnel have access download images to the specific hard drive on the server where the digital images are stored. From there, the images are backed up to an external hard drive daily. This external hard drive is accessible for the images to be viewed, copied, etc, with the originals still safe and untouched on the server.
Its a simple system protected by little more that a rigid Departmental Policy, but that's about as much or more that a lot of other evidentiary items I suppose.
I'm sure this could be attacked in some form or fashion, but I've not found too many things in this profession that can't be.
There are a variety of ways to store images securely without using applications such as MoreHits or DIMS. Currently, we use nothing more than Photoshop, 3rd party plugins, and a few free (or nearly free) programs as our digital image clarification and storage system. I feel confident that our system is every bit as secure as any 3rd party program, and for significantly less cost.
You can insure original image preservation through the use of file hashing and permissions on windows folders. You can verify the integrity of your images using file hashing. IMO, you can do everything (and more) in Photoshop (with couple sets of 3rd party plugins) that you can do in a clarification program like Morehits.
I'm not trying to knock MoreHits or DIMS or any other program of the like. They are great for users who dont have the time or know-how to manage everything themselves. But, IMO, for a lot less money you can build a system that is more robust and equally effective.
There are two issues - image processing and image archiving.
For image processing, there are tons of choices, from freeware like the Gimp and Image-J to commercial image editing applications like Photoshop to commercial image processing applications like Image Pro Plus. My preference is to use Photoshop and a few plug-ins for most of my image analysis work - others may have different preferences.
For image archiving, I have recommended a best practices method that involves archiving the original digital files, only working on copies, using valid forensic porcedures and having all processes repeatable and verifiable. None of the asset management systems provide anything that can't be done with your server in this regard. To archive the original digital files, create a folder for a given year, within that, upload each case in a folder with the case number as the folder name. Have that all on a server that is on a mirrored RAID. Restrict permissions so that 1) the drives are read/write but NOT re-write; 2) permissions are restricted to only those who have a need to access these files. Now, archiving is as simple as drag and drop, files cannot be overwritten, and access is restricted - and the cost is only the cost of the hardware. To only work on copies, I suggest dragging the images to your own desktop and open them from there - this creates a duplicate image to work on, and the original file is untouched. The valid forensic procedures generally are qualitative adjustments and not content changes. And, the ability to repeat or verify adjustments comes by always doing basic adjustments the same way with the same tools - and more complex adjustments, have notes that enable repeatability - in Photoshop the notes may be adjustment layers, duplicate layers, layer masks, or the history log - so no writing/typing is even necessary.
It's really a piece of cake to have an excellent workflow without any asset management system. In my opinion, it's actually simpler, less expensive and more efficient to use this simple hierarchical filing method over the other systems.
George
I can resist anything except temptation - Oscar Wilde
has become nearly impossible due to lack of funding.