PLUS for Lightroom

[Tim Armes]

Hi all,

Some of you may be interested in my new Lightroom plug-in for embedding PLUS licenses into your image metadata:

http://www.timothyarmes.com/blog/2009/10/plus-for-lightroom-manage-your-rights/

Tim

 

[Asher Kelman]

Kudos, Tim, for keeping folk up to date.

 

[Doug Kerr]

The PLUS license data scheme

In the Pro-business section (to which I am not authorized to post, presumably owing to my blessed state as a non-professional), Tim Armes advises of a Lightroom plug-in he has developed for embedding PLUS license metadata into image files.

Until this, I had been unaware of the PLUS license data program.

Have we seen here a discussion of this important program? If not, perhaps Tim would be kind enough to provide one.

In any case, here is a link to the PLUS program site:

http://www.useplus.com/index.asp

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Tim,

I've never used Plus but am interested. Do you also have a plugin for Photoshop or one that works with Capture One? Is the question even appropriate?

With this plugin, does one have the choice of several forms of consent depending on the client? So a school photo, for example, might have built in rights for the School not given to other clients.

Asher

 

[Tim Armes]

I had been unaware of the PLUS license data program.

Have we seen here a discussion of this important program? If not, perhaps Tim would be kind enough to provide one.

Certainly.

First, let me state that PLUS is many things:

The PLUS coalition is the non-profit organization responsible for the creation of the standard. People tend to refer to the coalition as simply "PLUS"

PLUS is the system of standards for communicating and managing image rights.

Within the PLUS system, we have the PLUS Standards, and the PLUS Tools. The PLUS tools include the web based and downloadable tools. The major web based tool will be the PLUS Registry, which will dramatically increase demand for embedding tools. At that time, people will shift to embedding a License ID and Image ID into every file, which will point to remotely stored, secure metadata.

The PLUS standard is used for clearly and unambiguously defining communicating usage rights for digital images, making it easier to manage image rights using automated or manual processes. The PLUS standards allow rights metadata to travel within image files using XMP, and to be efficiently stored and accessed in all types of databases and applications.

Phew.

So, PLUS is all about communication the rights that you're selling. The usage rights may be encoded and embedded into your image files, thus helping to ensure a clean and unambiguous workflow.

I was very impressed when I came across PLUS. I think that this quote really puts their success into perspective:

“PLUS has achieved what some believed was impossible. Photographers, illustrators, publishers, designers, art buyers, picture editors, museums, librarians, artist reps, stock agencies, standards bodies, attorneys, educators, archivists and application developers joined forces and cooperatively developed a universal language for image licensing. As a result, the PLUS standards support any and all image licensing models, and will benefit every professional involved in creating, distributing, using or preserving images, for many years to come.”

The result is impeccable. I highly recommend playing with the on-line license generator to see how easy it easy to produce an image rights license - even a very complicated one.

Or, for a more fluid experience, use my plug-in from within Lightroom

Hi Tim,
With this plugin, does one have the choice of several forms of consent depending on the client? So a school photo, for example, might have built in rights for the School not given to other clients.
Asher

The license rights are defined at the moment of export, so you'll export one version of the photo for each client, and each can have it's own image rights.

Tim

 

[Asher Kelman]

The license rights are defined at the moment of export, so you'll export one version of the photo for each client, and each can have it's own image rights.

So for Photoshop or other programs how does one link to Plus? Are you suggesting that we open ip the image in Lightroom always? What about Capture One? Nicolas always seems to start with Capture One.

Asher

 

[Tim Armes]

So for Photoshop or other programs how does one link to Plus? Are you suggesting that we open ip the image in Lightroom always? What about Capture One? Nicolas always seems to start with Capture One.
Asher

I'm not suggesting any such thing, I'm simply saying that I've written a Lightroom plug-in for those that may find it useful. I don't know what other 3rd party integrations exist for other programs.

If all else fails the solution is to save the image normally, create the license on line using the aforementioned link, then embed the license into your image using their free software. Obviously it's not as slick as an integrated solution, but they'll be more of those as time goes on.

Tim