The VRC hosted a series of workshops on managing personal image research archives during Winter and Spring Quarters 2021. Below please find our workshop descriptions, recordings, and PDF of accompanying slides. For more information, please visit our guide to Managing Personal Image Archives or book an appointment with VRC staff to discuss your personal archiving needs.
Recordings and Resources from Winter 2020 & Spring 2021 Workshops
Workshop 1: Introduction to Photoshop for Editing Scanned and Downloaded Images
Friday, January 22, 2021 11am–12pm CST
This workshop will introduce photo-editing for images scanned from publications or downloaded from repositories. We’ll start with image editing basics including adjusting color, shadows, and highlights, stitching images together, and removing imperfections to set a foundation for taking your images to publication-quality.
View the recording of the workshop.
View the accompanying slides and additional resources.
Workshop 2: Photoshop for Editing Personal Site/Archival Photography
Friday, January 29, 2021 11am–12pm CST
This workshop will build off of the basics covered in Workshop 1 (though not a prerequisite), looking specifically at personal photography of sites, architecture, or objects in an archive. We’ll go over editing colors specific to non-scanned images, and cover how to correct distortions and remove backgrounds.
View the recording of the workshop.
View the accompanying slides and additional resources.
Workshop 3: Creating and Customizing Images for Academic Arguments
Friday, February 19, 2021 11am–12pm CST
This workshop will introduce easy methods for creating and/or customizing your own digital images, maps, or diagrams in Photoshop to illustrate original arguments. We’ll cover different workflows using a desktop and tablet, as well as other software options. Great for students looking to create simple reconstructions of sites, architecture, or objects.
View the recording of the workshop.
View the accompanying slides and additional resources.
Workshop 4: Navigating Image Rights and Permissions
Friday, March 5, 2021 11am–12:30pm CST
How do you navigate the rights of artists—and the photographers who document their work—in your dissertation, articles, and/or forthcoming book project? This workshop will be an open forum to discuss attendees’ questions and concerns. Please bring your questions to the workshop or submit them in advance for consideration! By conducting copyright assessments of live examples, we’ll cover an overview of image copyright, best practices for requesting images, and fair use. We’ll also look ahead to tips on tracking permission requests through platforms like AirTable, which will be covered in Workshop 5, Part 2.
This workshop will be led by Anne M. Young, Director of Legal Affairs and Intellectual Property at Newfields. Young is also the author of Rights and Reproductions: The Handbook for Cultural Institutions (2019, 2nd ed., American Alliance of Museums).
To request access to the recording or slide deck, please email visaualresources@uchicago.edu.
Workshop 5: Introduction to Cataloging Resources and Selecting a Platform for Managing Your Personal Image Archive
Friday, April 2, 11am–12:30pm CST
Last quarter we focused on the image files in your archive—metadata is the other major component for maintaining a personal image archive. Art Historians deal with object metadata all the time, so this 90 minute workshop will open with a brief overview of cataloging resources as a way to level-up your metadata game. We’ll spend the majority of the session discussing three different potential platforms for managing your image archive, their pros and cons, and how the VRC can help collaborate. The session will focus on Tropy, a free platform for managing your image archive. It features metadata panels, room to transcribe documents, take notes, and more. Tropy excels at cataloging archival correspondence, so VRC staff created a custom template for cataloging art and architecture to make it a better option to document all your art and architecture photos, too! We’ll also cover Airtable and Google Sheets and strategies for managing copyright metadata for publication projects.
View the recording of the workshop.
View the accompanying slides and additional resources.
Workshop 6: Strategies for Managing Your Research PDFs
Friday, April 9, 11am–12pm CST
Make the most of your research PDFs through OCR text recognition. We’ll look at a variety of software & platforms for editing and organizing your PDFs, including Acrobat, Zotero, Box, Evernote, and more. We’ll also discuss platforms for visual brainstorming and collating information and images, such as Miro and OneNote.