ABSTRACT
Although digital imaging technologies have evolved and been appropriated over a number of years, and may seem to be present themselves as a mature, stable technology, there are many issues which remain regarding digital image creation, digital image quality, digital image management and digital image longevity. In particular, the issue of accurate colour management, particularly when creating digital surrogates of original objects and documents, remains an area of concern and research. This, in turn, raises questions of quality: how can those creating digital images ensure that they are accurate and truthful representations? The issue of ‘truth’ in visual evidence is one that has a long history, although the tools available to manipulate digital images make it a pressing issue in the current information environment. Aside from these issues of representation and accuracy, institutions creating and dealing with image material should be very careful of legal issues surrounding digital image material, particularly copyright and rights management. Finally, issues of sustainability and longevity are becoming ever more important as institutions realize that digitization is not only about the creation of digital images: digital image corpora require maintenance and management if they are to survive after the duration of the digitization project itself.
