Should you migrate from Adobe Bridge to a Digital Asset Management (DAM) Program?

By now most of you know the difference between a browser asset manager ("organizer" would be more accurate) and a catalog asset manager. A browser program such as Bridge is inexpensive and generally easy to use. Search features in Bridge are robust and seem to become even more so with each successive iteration of the program.

But there are serious limitations to a browser program:

Each user must fully index and continue reindexing their Bridge cache locally, and the larger the library the larger each machine’s cache. For example, the cache for JWU’s image library runs to more than 24 gigs -- and that's on each and every user's machine.

After months of fruitless searching the message boards at Adobe and the Internet generally, it seems safe to say that no one really knows exactly where or when Bridge’s cache limit would be reached. Or what would occur when that limit is crossed.

According to Adobe’s user guide for Version Cue and Bridge (May 2009), the cache can contain up to 500,000 items (or properties), although it is unclear what exactly constitutes an “item” – is it all files in the cache, including sidecar files? Does this number include the previews and thumbs, thus cutting the number of images by half?

Finally, what happens when the limit is reached? According to the user guide the oldest items will be removed to make way for the new – is there a message informing the user of this happening? What will happen to the indexing and reindexing process?

Obviously, sharing the library to more than a dozen or so trained users is a very difficult proposition.

Additionally, with a browser you cannot work offline but must be directly connected to the original image source.

If you are working with a a few thousand images shared by only a handful of users such concerns would most likely not be troubling -- particularly if your user-base and image-base would not grow appreciably in the future.

If, on the other hand, your user-base is likely to increase, or if your library has tens of thousands of images and will probably increase by thousands more each year, then an alternative approach to sharing and using a central image library must be given serious consideration.

One obvious choice is, of course, a mature digital asset management (DAM) system.

There are two basic types of DAM systems:

1. Software as a service (SaaS), also known as “hosted provider,” “cloud computing” or “Application Service Providers” (ASPs). All hardware and software reside on the site of the SaaS provider and access is granted through a client branded login page at a customer specific URL. Examples would include Honeycomb, North Plains, OpenText, and DigitalAssetManagement.

2. Installed software. Provides application software and various hardware components, but internal IT typically installs and supports the system in conjunction with the software provider or a third-party implementation team. One example: Cumulus by Canto

These systems have their relative strengths and weaknesses to be sure. The crucial thing to know is that both types of DAM provide incredibly robust features that allow digital assets to be widely shared, distributed and modified by large numbers of users in just about any location.

But there is a price to be paid, literally.

Unless your organization has budgeted thousands of dollars for an enterprise strength asset management system, you'll probably want to take a long hard look at a catalog program such as Expression media from Microsoft.

Next, catalog programs.