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Brackett Preservation Lab: Photo, Document, and Video Editing Software

The Brackett Preservation Lab is a DIY, self-service space for the IRSC community to digitize their analog and print memorabilia.

Adobe Creative Campus

Indian River State College is proud to be an Adobe Creative Campus. The computer inside the Brackett Preservation Lab has the following Adobe software installed for your use:

  • Acrobat Pro
  • Lightroom Classic
  • Photoshop
  • Premiere Rush

Adobe Express is available in the browser in the BPL.

Vivid-Pix RESTORE

The Brackett Preservation Lab offers Vivid-Pix's RESTORE software to easily retouch scanned photos and documents. It also has a robust metadata feature that allows you to enter metadata for many fields that are then bundled and stored inside the digital file. Simply right-click Properties on the file to see its detailed metadata.

Tutorial videos for using RESTORE are available to view on their website.

Basic Video Editing with Elgato Video Capture

BPL users can clip videos using the Elgato Video Capture device and software. This digitizes VHS, DVD, Hi8, and Mini DV videos. Easily clip the video's beginning or end for a clean mp4 file. See detailed Elgato Video Capture instructions here.

Metadata

Metadata is data about data. The two types of metadata of most concern for people working on personal archiving projects are administrative and descriptive. Administrative metadata includes information like the file type, file size, and creation date. Descriptive metadata provides information about the artifact or memory, such as who, what, when, where, and why the file is about.

One easy step that makes organizing and searching for files much better is to rename the individual files. Do not change the file extension (.jpg, .pdf, .mp4, etc.), just the file name. "If the photo is important to you, you should rename it with a descriptive name, something that tells you about the content or subject of the photo. There are several ways to rename a file. You could single-click the file icon and type in a new name. On a PC, you could right-click the file to highlight it and select “rename” from the drop-down menu. On a Mac, you could control-click the file, select Info, and change the name in the “info” window" (Ashenfelder, 2013).

illustration of file names

How to Embed Metadata into Image Files

Add metadata on your PC

  • Right-click on the image and select “Properties” 

  • In the window that appears, you can change the file name, add tags, write a description, etc.

Add metadata on your Mac

  • Open the “Photos” app and double-click on any photo to view it

  • Click the “Info” button in the toolbar (you can also use the shortcut: Command+I)

  • Now you can edit any of the following:

    • Title
      Tip: To quickly add titles to photos directly in the main Photos window, choose: View > Metadata > Titles, click the field that appears under the photo when you hover your mouse on it, and then type a name.

    • Caption

    • Keywords
      Try to reuse the same suite of keywords for your images as this will help standardize your data.

    • Location
      To change a location, search for a different location or drag a pin on the map. You can not assign a location if your computer is not connected to the internet.

Add metadata using Photoshop*

  • Drop an image file into Photoshop

  • Click on “File” in the top menu, then select "File Info" from the drop-down menu

  • Add info to any or all of the fields, i.e. title and author information, a description, and copyright information

  • Save your work!
    To make sure your metadata saves, do not select “Save for Web” — this will erase the metadata from the image in order to save it at the lowest file size possible.

  • * Photoshop uses Adobe’s Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) to embed metadata into files. "XMP is a file labeling technology that lets you embed metadata into files themselves during the content creation process."

(Artwork Archive, 2021)