Image Database Software Program

If you use digital assets to sell products online (or offline) your brand can benefit from an image database software program. Using this type of software for digital asset management (DAM) can help you increase collaboration between teams, secure your images and protect your brand, and streamline your e-commerce operations. 

Instead of using scattered and unreliable image storage (across computers and external hard drives), you can leverage a searchable, shareable library that simplifies how your content gets to market. Let’s talk about what image database software is, the main benefits of using it, and some top use cases for your business. 

What is image database software?

Image database software is a tool that gives you a searchable, shareable library for all of your images. From here, you can distribute the files to any person or system you want to. This technology can be used to manage hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of images. Some companies manage millions of digital assets with their image database software. 

You can use this software to manage many file types — from standard hi-res images to 360º spin photography. It can also help you transform and reuse content. You’ll be able to convert images and videos to other formats on the fly. Your image database will also give you version control so that your whole business only has access to the most up-to-date image files.

Image database software also solves one of the biggest challenges in managing images — assigning consistent and useful metadata. With the help of artificial intelligence (AI), image database software can be enhanced with AI-powered image recognition tools to auto tag and organize a whole library of unstructured images. 

Companies find this is just one of many tangible benefits they gain from their image database software. 

Benefits of searchable image database software

Image database software gives you one centralized hub that stores, manages, and distributes your images. With that foundation, you can save costs on image production, secure and protect your brand, and increase productivity across your distributed creative, marketing, and sales teams. Here are the most common benefits companies experience:

• Organization. Metadata attached to each image allows assets to be organized into categories, or curated into collections for specific users.
   
• Security. Roles and permissions control what images are available to different users.
   
• Easy retrieval. Search tools provide teams with clear and reliable access to the assets they need when they need them.
   
• Enhanced collaboration. Version control tools identify the most current file iteration, to facilitate seamless handoffs across team members, departments, and regions.
   
• Brand consistency. Access to approved, on-brand imagery allows your teams to tell a cohesive and accurate story across customer touchpoints.
   
• Workflow efficiency. Self-service access eliminates bottlenecks around content retrieval and distribution.
   
• Analytics. Tools that track asset usage can provide insights into the value of certain images.

These benefits can show up across a number of business use cases. Here are some of the main reasons companies use database software to manage their digital images.

Top use cases for digital image database software

One of the most common use cases for digital image database software is to manage product images for e-commerce. When you’re responsible for content production at scale, it’s essential to have a centralized and easily searchable hub for your digital images. This technology can streamline your marketing, sales, and creative processes while simultaneously improving your ability to publish and distribute digital images at any step of the customer journey.

Some companies choose to use a high volume of stock photos and digital image database software can save them from expensive legal trouble. With a digital image database, you can control who uses your stock photos, how they use them, and where the images are used. It’s also easy to tag your stock photos with metadata to make it easy to find the right photo quickly and set notifications for license expirations.

Another reason to use image database software is for brand management — it helps you take control of your narrative with one platform. Using a library of approved images, your teams can present a recognizable and uniform brand identity across all your channels and platforms. This leads to a consistent customer experience that builds brand loyalty with every interaction.

If digital images are an essential part of your business, the right software can transform your image library from a messy liability into a strategic asset.

Could your company benefit from image database software?

Companies of every size use image database software to streamline their e-commerce operations, protect and build their brand, and save costs on content management by automating some manual processes. You get to decide if you’re ready to evolve and simplify the way your organization handles digital images.

If you’re ready to explore a new way of managing images, Acquia DAM (Widen) meets the image-management needs of over 800 of the world’s most respected brands. Request, watch, or click through a free demo to see how Acquia DAM can create a central hub for your digital images that helps you bring order to the content chaos.

Note: This article was originally published on Widen.com