Welcome to the DAHL Tutorials and Trainings!

Because everyone learns in their own way and at their own pace, the DAHL is committed to providing a range of opportunities for developing your digital art history skills. To that end, each category of digital art history listed here will include multiple approaches to learning opportunities, outlining written training literature available online or locally in the DAHL or library; straightforward video tutorials; and more extensive training opportunities for those wanting to take a deeper dive. All training pages will also explain how each category below is relevant to art history, and examples (both simple and more advanced) drawn from what our students are producing as well as from more advanced research projects by digital art history scholars.

  • Archival (involving the description, organization, and discovery of things such as objects, artists, materials, or movements)
  • Dimensional (representing the physical aspects of an object or space to convey scale, materiality, or something lost)
  • Spatial (using maps and other technologies to represent or explore spatial relationships)
  • Temporal (employing timelines and other methods to represent the evolution and movement of objects, creators, and concepts over time)
  • Network-based (analyzing--via data + text analysis and other means--and visualizing the connections between people, objects, concepts and movements)
  • Visual (utilizing photographic and other technologies to reveal aspects of objects that can't be easily be "seen" otherwise)
  • Storytelling (transforming your research into audio and visual stories using podcasting, film, website, and other technologies)

    (Note: Spatial Art History tutorials are now available, with more tutorial pages by topic coming soon!)

Guide to Visual Presentations

Check Out Our Guide To An Effective Visual Presentation!

Guide to Visual Presentations

Tutorials and Trainings

The DAHL hosts a variety of trainings, tutorials, and workshops for students both in and outside of Art History. Some of these are in-person, and others are digitally through text-based or video-based tutorials. In-person consultations are also available to all students who are interested in using digital humanities methods in their project.

Guide to Visual Presentations

Interested in learning more about how digital art history might intersect with your research? Do you have questions about how to get started on a class assignment that involves digital methods and tools? Check out our Guide to Visual Presentations which guides you through quality considerations for visual media, tips for searching in search engines, visual media resources, and digital imaging. This is a great resource for creating a class presentation as well as general tips for finding and using better art history images. 

Digital Art History Lab Workshop Series

The DAHL hosts workshops to get students acclimated to using digital tools. In the Fall of 2024, the DAHL hosted a Close Looking workshop that walked students through how to use digital tools such as Juxtapose JS, Google Earth, and spotlighting on PowerPoint presentations. The DAHL is hosting a 'Far Looking' workshop in the Spring of 2025. Stay tuned for additional details, including what software students will be learning and the catering choice (hint: it rhymes with 'Baco Tuddha).

Text Tutorials

The DAHL has compiled a large amount of text-based tutorials. These tutorials are helpful for getting your foot into the door of digital art history, but please do not hesitate to reach out to the DAHL if you face any issue while working through a tutorial or implementing a software into your project.

Powerpoint 'spotlighting' - How to highlight certain aspects of an image on Powerpoint

Making a GIF in Powerpoint

Juxtapose JS - You can use Juxtapose to overlay one image on top of another. Great for showcasing visual similarity or difference in presentations.

Timeline JS - Very accessible tool for temporal art history.

Github and KnightLab for image storymap - Storymap JS is an excellent tool for showing detailed aspects of an object. However, it is finicky because of how it interacts with Github! If you have any issues setting it up, please feel free to contact the DAHL.

ArcGIS - ArcGIS is the premier spatially based digital humanities tool!