FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DIGITALCUSTOM & ALINARI REACH DEAL TO PRESERVE AND RESTORE WORLD'S MOST CULTURALLY SIGNIFICANT PHOTOGRAPHS


San Francisco, CA and Florence, ITALY () - DigitalCustom Group, Inc. of San Francisco and Fratelli Alinari of Florence today announced that they have signed a broad alliance to advance the art, science and business of preserving and restoring historical and "heirloom" photographs that have become faded, deteriorated and otherwise damaged. The alliance provides DigitalCustom's restorers with access to Alinari's library of more than 3,500,000 images for reference, and to Alinari's expertise in the handling of historical photographs.

DigitalCustom's President, Jeff Makoff said, "The recent flooding in Europe spotlights the fragility of paper art works, especially photographs. Even when water, light, fire, and mishandling are not factors, we reach the archival end-life of millions of historical photographs each year. Institutions and individuals that are holding historical photographs must take action now to preserve the images. In cases where images are damaged, the damage must be repaired before time makes repair impossible and history is lost. Our relationship with Alinari is a broad partnership that will bring the best quality service to institutional and individual archivists."

Alinari's Information Technology Supervisor, Andrea de Polo said, "For 150 years, Fratelli Alinari has offered only the highest quality photography products and services. We have long recognized that photo restoration and repair are critical services. For this service, it was important for us to work with a partner that was committed to quality, and which also would pay attention to the complex ethical and creative issues in restoration. DigitalCustom's quality, consistency and commitment to photo restoration is unparalleled. It is natural for Alinari to go forward with DigitalCustom to develop the world's leading source for high quality historical image restoration."

About Fratelli Alinari
Fratelli Alinari is the world's oldest firm operating in the field of photography. Today, Alinari is the leader in traditional and multimedia photographic publishing and is a synonym for the highest quality in the production of artistic prints. The unique heritage of the Alinari collections gives life to one of the biggest international centers of photographic and iconographic documentation, with over 3.5 million vintage images from the 19th and 20th century from all over the world. Alinari now operates in broader image and communication fields, and its brand guarantees that an age-old fund of experience will be combined with state-of-the-art technological skills. More than 180,000 of Alinari's images soon will be online and available through Alinari's B2B service for the business (http://business.alinari.it). Alinari's B2E service for students and teachers (http://edu.alinari.it/) already is online, and the database will be translated into 5 European languages by 2003 (Italian, French, German, Spanish and English). Alinari also plays a vital role with its valuable experience in e-commerce, intellectual property, watermarking, cultural heritage matters, high speed communication, security and user authentication, Jpeg 2000, MPEG4, MPEG7, web semantics, pattern recognition, edge detection/wavelet compression and VR-360 navigation. Alinari is located at Largo Alinari 15, 50123 Firenze, Italy. Its corporate Web site is www.alinari.com.

# # #

About DigitalCustom
DigitalCustom Group offers custom digital photo editing and restoration services to photo retailers, marketing agencies, media companies, photographers, in-house corporate creative departments and consumers (through "DigitalCustom" and "Image-Edit & Art"). 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 the company's corporate/professional Web site at www.digitalcustom.com and its consumer site at www.image-edit.com. DigitalCustom's business development contact for Europe (except Benelux countries) is Mr. Aaron Daru, Vice-President of Operations (e-mail: adaru@digitalcustom.com). In Benelux, DigitalCustom is represented by Atento (www.atento.nl). DigitalCustom will exhibit at Photokina in Cologne, Germany (Sept. 25 - 30) (Booth Location: Hall 11.1, Aisle E, No. 063).

Press Contact

Karen Gravelle
DigitalCustom Group, Inc.
187 Pavilion Parkway, Suite 122
Newport KY 41071
Tel: +1 (513) 645-3030
Email: kgravelle@digitalcustom.com

 

Find Us On