MUST DO: Backup & Archive Electronic Art Files

If you have ever had your computer hard drive or external drive fail, then you know the value of having all your important art files stored on at least two separate medias. That way if one drive crashes you can still recover your files from the second one. For example, each file should be on your computer hard drive plus DVDs, OR hard drive plus an external drive, OR two external drives, etc. And each of those should be located at different sites in case of a catastrophic event (fire, flood, theft, earthquake). A method that many artists use to backup their hard drives is by using an automatic remote backup service over the internet.

Five years ago, I found out the hard way when my external hard drive crashed. I had stored all my art files on ONE external 250 GB drive to make space on my computer's hard drive. A data recovery company was able to recover 90% of the files (was very lucky to recover that many) but my mistake cost me time, the lose of some valuable files, and big bucks ($2500 at $100 a GB). Don't make the same mistake that I made. Backup your files!

Difference between Backing up & Archiving
There is a subtle difference between backing up files and archiving them. Normally when you backup files you are not concerned with saving the files forever. You just want to make sure you have duplicate files in case your hard drive crashes or a catastrophic event occurs. However, to archive art files that are not often used or really important, a person usually wishes to save the files and forget about them until needed many years later.

To archive art and prints for 100 years, they are wrapped in acid free paper and stored in an atmosphere controlled room. Unfortunately there really is no way to archive electronic files for long periods because the media that they are stored on do not have a long life expediency. Read the articles listed below to find out more about the longevity of different medias (CD, DVD, disk drives).* And storing electronic media for a 100 years may be irrelevant because the technology to read those files may no longer exist at the time the art is needed. Therefore, in my opinion archiving art files that are seldom used involves periodically transferring them from old drives to newer ones in order to prevent their loss.

*Data stored on CDs and DVDs can last as little as two years due what is called CD and DVD rot. Of course, most last longer than two years but CDs and DVDs are probably not reliable for long term storage. Read more about it on"CD and DVD Longevity: How Long Will They Last?"

*Some external drive manufacturers will sell an extended warranty for three years but admit that the life expectancy degrades fairly fast beyond that. Some users say that they had their external drives over five years with no problems. I had one fail in 1-1/2 years and another after three years. Several others of mine are still fine after four years. And in case you are wondering, I use many external hard drives (eight at the present). Read more about the longevity of external hard drives on Cnet forum questions and answers "Storage: Is there a life expectancy on external hard drives?"

Automatic Remote Data Backup
The Art of Licensing forums** on linkedin.com and recently yahoo.com have discussed automatic remote data storage sites as an excellent method in backing up hard drives. Some sites are free for limited storage, several cost about $5 per month for unlimited storage, and a few cost more. From the discussions that I have read on the forums, people have varied opinions on which service works for them. Because everyone has different needs, each person needs to make their own decision on which service to use. I suggest that you evaluate each of the backup sites (listed at the bottom of this article) for the following attributes that matter to you such as:
cost,
amount of storage allowed,
stores file types you need such as jpg.  (Read Kate Harper's comments in the comment section.)
security,
ease of use,
speed of backup & recovery,
number of computers you want to backup,

backup external hard drives besides computer hard drive. (Only the CrashPlan service will backup external drives beside computer drives.) And,
ability to fine tune what data is backed up. )Some services will not allow you to choose what data you want to exclude.)

Below are a few articles that may help you make a decision on which service to choose. Even through the articles are for Mac users, I think they also pertain to PC users.

A techradar.com article "6 reliable online backup services for your Mac"

A MacWorld article "Online backup services" that compares seven backup services. Search and link to this article is courtesy of Phyllis Dobbs.

A MacWorld article "CrashPlan review." The reason I included this article is because CrashPlan allows external drive backups and the others do not.


Some Remote Backup Data Services
Amazon 3S: (0.15 per GB storage fee + upload & download fees)
Backblaze: $5 month (unlimited storage)
Carbonite: $4.57 month (unlimited storage)
CrashPlan: $4.50 month (unlimited storage)
DropBox: $9.99 month (100GB storage)
Egnyte: $9.99 month (20GB storage)
Mozy: $4.95 month (unlimited storage)
Jungle Disk: ($2 to $5 per month plus storage fees on Amazon 3S + download & upload fees)
SugarSync: $4.99 month (30GB storage)

**Read "Networking Resource - Art Licensing Forums" to find out about art licensing forums.

Read the comments to this article for more information on remote backup data services.

Comments about this article are greatly appreciated. Click on the comment section below.

Licensing Art to the Jigsaw Puzzle Industry

People love the challenge in putting together jig-saw puzzles and in over 200 years after its inception it is a thriving industry. Jisaw puzzles were originally manufactured to teach children geography in the 1760s ("Jigsaw Puzzle History"). Today children still learn about geography with jigsaw puzzles. Also, with the vast amount of available images on puzzles, assembling them have become a popular form of family entertainment.

Jigsaw puzzles are not only manufactured in the original horizontal format but as ovals, circles, square, vertical and in various freeform shapes depending upon the images place on the puzzles. Some even are three dimensional shapes such as globes, animals and buildings. And puzzles do not always have just a plain 2D picture printed on them but are embellished with glitter, perfume, or with a 3D image. Puzzles are not only made with cardboard but with wood, plastic, and rubber. Note: Wooden puzzles are expensive to produce and they are usually made one at a time. Many times the licensing deal that those manufacturers offer to artists is to put the artists art on their website. "If" the art is chosen by a customer, the manufacturer will product the puzzle and the artist will get paid (royalty or flat fee) for the use.

Puzzle manufacturers normally want art that:
1. has bright and saturate colors
2. have an awe factor such as cute kittens, children playing, beautiful scenery and florals, or landmarks that generates an emotional response in the customer.
3. does not have a lot of "white space." Too much white space makes the puzzle difficult to assemble. But if the painting is of a popular subject or was painted by a well known artist, the amount of white space does not seem to matter.
4. in a rectangular horizontal format which is the most used. However, some manufacturers produce puzzles in other formats as mentioned above so art created in other formats can also be used for puzzles.

Some jigsaw puzzle manufacturers specialize in producing puzzles for different speciality markets such as colleges, museums, children, teens, or mystery while others cater to the general retail market. In order to find out what type of images each manufacturer puts on their puzzles, you need to check out their websites and call them for their art submission guidelines if they are not listed.

Jigsaw Puzzle Manufacturers List
(updated Dec 10, 2016)

• Buffalo Games
• Ceaco
• Elms Puzzles (wooden puzzles)
• Heritage Puzzles
• Lang
• Masterpiece Puzzles
• Melissa and Doug
• Ravensburger
• Springbok
• Stave Puzzles (wooden puzzles)
• SunsOut
• TDC Games
• WellSpring
• White Mountain Puzzles Inc

If you would like to share information about other jigsaw puzzle manufacturers or comment about this article, please click on the comment section below and type your comment.

Photoshop Tip: Four Methods to Extract Images/Icons from Scanned Art

There are times when an artist needs to extract an image from a scanned painting in order to use it on other backgrounds, as an icon for patterns, or in combination with other images from other scanned paintings. In Photoshop, there are many ways to extract image(s) from art or remove backgrounds from the image(s). You can use one or a combination of several methods to get the best results depending on how detailed the image. Below is a short description from Adobe Photoshop's help menu and a link to youtube.com tutorial videos showing how images can be extracted or isolated by using the magic wand & quick selection tools, the color range command, the masking layer method, and the extract filter method.

Magic Wand / Quick Selection Tools
"The Magic Wand tool lets you select a consistently colored area (for example, a red flower) without having to trace its outline. You specify the color range, or tolerance, for the Magic Wand tool’s selection, based on similarity to the pixel you click. You can use the Quick Selection tool to quickly “paint” a selection using an adjustable round brush tip. As you drag, the selection expands outward and automatically finds and follows defined edges in the image."* This is the method most artists are familiar with and use. For simple and mostly straight lined images these tools work very well but for detailed curvy images the outer edges of the images tend to be "jaggy" and needs editing. The magic wand and quick selections tools are in the tools menu. Watch "Photoshop Tutorial - 9 - Magic Wand and Quick Selection Tools" on how to use the magic wand and quick selection tools.

Color Range Command
"The Color Range command selects a specified color or color range within an existing selection or an entire image."* This method takes more time to use than using the magic wand or quick selection tools but it does a better job of extracting detailed images. The color range command is in the select pull down menus. Watch "Photoshop Tutorial: Removing Background from Image Tutorial" on using the color range command.

Masking Layer Method
"You can add a mask to a layer and use the mask to hide portions of the layer and reveal the layers below. Masking layers is a valuable compositing technique for combining multiple photos into a single image or for making local color and tonal corrections."* This method does not extract an image or remove a background permanently and it can be continually edited. This is an easy method to use (similar to the color range command) but can be time consuming. The draw back is that files can get very large if many masked layered images are used in the same file. I do not recommend it to mask icons for patterns. The mask command is in the layer pull down menu. Watch "Basic Masking in Photoshop" on how to mask layers.

Extract Filter Method
"The Extract filter provides a sophisticated way to isolate a foreground object and erase its background on a layer. Even objects with wispy, intricate, or undefinable edges may be clipped from their backgrounds with a minimum of manual work."* I must admit that I haven't used this method and in fact I just discovered it while researching for this article. But I am really excited about trying it because it looks like the best method in extracting art especially if the image has lots of detail on the outer edges such as animal hair. The extract command is in the filter pull down menu. Read Adobe's tutorial "Extract an object from its background" and watch the video "Photoshop Background Extraction - using extract tool" on using the extract filter method.

* description from Photoshop's help menu

Make sure that you look at the comments to see other methods in extracting images!

If you would like to share information about other methods in extracting images or comments about this article please click on the below comment button.

6 Tips in Writing Winning Query Letters to Manufacturers that License Art

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