DigitalCustom and Fratelli Alinari of Florence, Italy also released the first comment draft of their jointly-drafted "Model Ethics Guidelines on The Use of Digital Photo Restoration, Repair and Reconstruction Techniques for Archival and Preservation Purposes." This comment draft is intended to start a general discussion among archivists and editors on the appropriate use of digital editing procedures to preserve historical photographs for archival proposes. The sponsors expect that, as with the journalism ethics guidelines, this comment draft will lead to generally accepted principles of photo restoration ethics.

DigitalCustom's President, Jeff Makoff said, "The power to edit a historical image brings with it the ability to manipulate history. Archivists and digital artists should discuss, and ultimately agree on, what is appropriate - especially because the digital artist and the person responsible for historical preservation often are different people. Our first comment draft raises issues that commonly arise in the photo restoration process. We look forward to discussing, debating, expanding and refining these guidelines. When we see who is interested, we plan to assemble a panel of leading archivists to work on this project."

DigitalCustom's co-Chairman and CTO, Barnabas Takacs said, "Preservation, restoration and archiving of photographs is a timely topic. Each day more of the world's important photographs move past their archival life. It's time to discuss how best to handle deteriorating images so that we may preserve history, while respecting age."

Andrea de Polo of Fratelli Alinari in Florence, Italy said, "As one of the major historical image archives in the world, Fratelli Alinari takes a strong interest in these proposed guidelines. It is important for viewers of historical images to know what they are seeing so the information conveyed by the image is truthful. We will work with DigitalCustom, as comments come in, to create comprehensive, workable guidelines."

A copy of Release Version 2.0 of the model journalism ethics guidelines is available online at www.digitalcustom.com/howto/mediaguidelines.asp

A copy of Comment Version 1.0 of the model photo restoration guidelines is available online at www.digitalcustom.com/howto/restorationguidelines.asp

About DigitalCustom

DigitalCustom Group offers custom digital photo editing, photo repair and restoration, and "photo-to-fine-art" services to a wide variety of businesses and retailers in the U.S., Asia, Europe and Latin America. Under an agreement with Italy's Fratelli Alinari (www.alinari.com), DigitalCustom has reference access to one of the world's largest collections of historical images. DigitalCustom's corporate offices are in San Francisco, California and its worldwide customer service facility is in Cincinnati, Ohio. More information about DigitalCustom Group is available on its Web site at www.digitalcustom.com.