This article by Jan Eskildsen (picture), www.graffo.dk, has been published in the design magazine Enter.

Danish version available here

YaWah what?

Today, digital images are used almost anywhere. The effect of this rapidly growing use is an increased demand for solutions which make handling, organizing and distribution of high quality digital images a quick and simple task.

Image agencies, advertising agencies and other professionals who in their daily work handle, distribute and display images – online as well as offline – should do themselves a favor and check out the imaging software from YaWah.

Quietly and almost unnoticed the Danish software firm has reached the very top of the imaging software world with an imaging server which in one blow solves all the problems that advertising agencies, marketing departments etc. are faced with every day. YaWah.com is owned by Kristian Ottosen and is resident in Denmark .

Recently, version 3.0 of the eRez – which is the name of YaWah’s imaging software – was released for sale. eRez is a unique combination of a “lightweight” web-based image database and a high performance imaging server which provides images on demand for all media in a professional quality.

The release of this new version took place while the American space agency NASA placed its first order of the eRez imaging server at YaWah after having searched the market.

In competition with American and other providers of similar systems, the Danish imaging solution was picked as a platform for the Rapid Response system which currently provides rescue services, scientists and others access to very large satellite images in real-time.”     

However, the solution from YaWah.com primarily has a more “down-to-earth” function – which is to ensure prompt access to pictures, graphic files and documents via the Internet.

Solves a number of tasks

The principle behind the eRez imaging server is no less than brilliant. A “mother image” – typically in a TIFF format – in a high resolution and in the largest size possible is kept on the server. This image serves as the foundation for subsequent image versions used for display on websites and for download in vast number of formats, with different color profiles, clipping path, resolutions etc.

Hereby, the eRez imaging server solves two important tasks which are usually connected with a lot of work and potential mistakes. The eRez 3.0 can be used as a stand alone image bank or as an integrated part of an existing Digital Asset Management or Content Management system. The eRez 3.0 is platform-independent and is installed problem-free on all common platforms.

- One of the ideas behind eRez is to make it as simple and fast to change the size, cropping, resolution etc. of a picture as it is to change the font and font size of a text, says Kristian Ottosen to Enter.

- With the eRez and the FSI Viewer images can be displayed on the Internet with a far greater level of detail than we know from printed media. Our big “Blue Marble” picture of all the world’s countries would thus be three to four meters wide, if we were to print it in 300 dpi. That is a difficult one to squeeze down in a mailbox. To put it on the edge, you could say that on today’s cell phones you can see more details in an image than you can on a matching 300 dpi print.

- Using a cell phone, a photographer on the job can easily upload his pictures to the newsroom. With eRez installed the news media are then able to present their readers with the possibility of zooming in on the elements in the pictures.   

- Today, it is possible to make professional, high resolution three-dimensional photos for about 1,500 DKK pr. take and then display these photos on the Internet with the eRez and an FSI Viewer. This opens up new possibilities to displays products online, says Kristian Ottosen.

And as a matter of fact, there are already a lot of businesses using these opportunities. 

A user’s story

The Danish loudspeaker manufacturer DALI A/S is one of the good examples of the effect of using the eRez imaging server. The company develops and produces loudspeakers in price ranges from 150,000 DKK a piece and downwards. With distributors and sales organizations in 40 countries, DALI has a great need for pictures, advertisements and other sales materials in many different versions. Before, DALI’s advertising agency produced up to 20 cd-roms a month which were then sent by courier service to partners all over the world.

In September 2003 DALI implemented the eRez imaging server in cooperation with the company’s advertising agency. This turned out to be a decision with a dramatic effect. After a couple of months the distribution of image cd-roms stopped completely – instead, the files were downloaded from the imaging server. Consequently, DALI effectively brought down the cost of finding, storing and sending the materials.

Lykke Hilfeldt, marketing coordinator at DALI, tells:

- Since we implemented the eRez imaging server, we have experienced a large increase in the exposure that our products receive in magazines all over the world. Now, the press has access to our pictures 24/7 – which means that our pictures are chosen before others’.

- As such, we experienced a full return on investment within a few months and today the imaging server is a strong tool in our daily work. Before, we had to scale and optimize our images before displaying them on our company websites. It took days from the finish of the photo shoot to the time when the pictures were actually online. Now, new pictures are displayed within hours after the photo shoot and at the same time they are available to our distributors.

The fact that pictures can be downloaded from the eRez with the correct color profile is of great importance to DALI – colors are everything when a 150,000 DKK loudspeaker with a precious wood cabinet is to be presented on print.   

Other companies, for example the Danish auctioneers Bruun Rasmussen, Playmobil and Dell, use the eRez imaging server for catalogue production and for extensive online display.

A world of possibilities

If you go in-depth, the eRez 3.0 is a world of opportunities. For example, it is possible to generate slideshows and display them on a website, convert image series into 3D animations and to crop pictures before you download them.

One of the many new features is an interface to PDA and Smart Phones. Gigabyte-sized (!) images are displayed promptly in full size or in the slightest detail on cell phones with a UMTS, GPRS or even a GSM Internet connection. As such, proofs and check ups can be performed independent of time and place.

A great feature is the new search function which facilitates searches in both the metadata of images and text, for example PDF-files. The search function can be compared to the more advanced Internet search engines which feature sorting by relevance among other things. The eRez 3.0 search function helps you find the right picture, graphic element or text document at the speed of lightning.

Another new module in the eRez 3.0 creates an instant, zoomable preview of PDF, EPS and Illustrator files, making it possible to evaluate each document in detail quickly and precisely.

Like the prior version, eRez 3.0 is also ready for installation on all common platforms and is easily implemented into Content Management systems and Digital Asset Management systems. The software comes with a full installation program which makes installation and configuration a quick and painless task.

The eRez imaging server is an exiting product and YaWah is a worthy representative of the new Danish innovators which develop productivity enhancing software for creative minds.

Visit www.yawah.com. Here you can test the eRez 3.0 and download a free demo-version.

Captions:

On yawah.com you can find some amazing high-resolution photos shot with a Imacon camera back. Here you can see the picture in a “normal” version and in a zoomed-in version.

If you visit yawah.com you easily find their world map, which you see here. You can zoom in more than 8,000 percent.