Scanning Guidelines

1
Scanning Guidelines

• How to Guidance from WHO Working Groups
• WiLSWorld Conference
• Madison, July 26 2006

Krystyna K. Matusiak UWM Libraries kkm_at_uwm.edu
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Scanning Working Group

• The group formed in February 2006
• Group members
• Krystyna Matusiak (chair), UW-Milwaukee Libraries
• Keetra Baker, Winnefox Library System
• Debbie Cardinal, WiLS
• Mary Forer, Marathon County Historical Society
• Andy Kraushaar, Wisconsin State Historical
  Society
• Sharon Schwartz, Oshkosh Public Library
• Pat Tuchscherer, UW Digital Collections Center
• WHO Digital Imagining Guidelines, a draft version
  of the groups work is available at
  http//wisconsinheritage.org/pr/

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Purpose and Scope

• Purpose
• To assist the participants of Wisconsin Heritage
  Online (WHO) in creating digital representations
  of their collections
• To provide a set of scanning and image processing
  guidelines for digitization projects that can be
  undertaken in-house by the participating
  institutions
• Scope of the document
• Focuses on tasks and specifications necessary to
  produce digital images for immediate use and high
  quality archiving
• Provides recommendations for digitizing
  two-dimensional analog formats
• Does not provide guidelines for audio and video
  at this time

4
General Principles

• Create digital objects that are accessible and
  interoperable across platforms and devices
• Ensure a consistent, high level of image quality
  across the cultural heritage collections
• Create digital objects that support intended
  current and future use
• Build a repository of digital master files to
  facilitate reprocessing and maintaining digital
  collections over time
• Provide derivative access files for current use

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General Principles

• Use-neutral approach
• Supports both current and future use
• Avoids rescanning in the future
• Includes the notion of digital master files and
  derivatives
• Digital master files
• Created as a direct result of image capture
  process
• Should represent the visual information of the
  original material
• Serve as a long term archival file and a source
  for derivative images
• Derivative images
• Created from digital master files for specific
  use including access images for Web delivery

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Planning Phase

• Assess the source collection
• Decide to scan from original or intermediate
• Scan from the most original source
• Every generation of photographic copying involves
  some quality loss
• Establish file naming convention
• Use 8.3 convention
• Plan for archival storage of digital masters
• Evaluate your hardware
• Use a computer dedicated to digitization
  initiatives
• Calibrate monitors
• Select scanning equipment

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Image Capture Guidelines

• Photoshop configurations
• Check the Color Settings menu
• Choose a wide-gamut RGB color space for capturing
  and editing master files
• Use Adobe RGB (1998)
• Configure your scanner
• Set the histogram before scanning
• Use standard targets
• Kodak Color Grayscale Q-13

8
Scanning Guidelines

• Specifications and Resolution Chart

9
Creating Digital Masters

• Minimum requirements
• Save in non-proprietary format, such as Tagged
  Image File Format (TIFF)
• Save as an uncompressed file
• Use IBM PC encoding byte order
• Use color rather than grayscale when color is an
  integral part of the original object
• Do not save any enhancements in an archival copy
• Use 8.3 file naming convention

10
Image Enhancement

• Images can be corrected for artifacts acquired
  during the scanning process and to remove dust
  marks, scratches, etc.
• Original master files should be saved intact
• Enhanced copies should be saved as separate files
  (service copy) or
• Both original master file and a service file are
  saved in the same file, but with separate layers
• Minimum enhancements
• Rotate and crop
• Optional enhancements
• Adjust levels
• Adjust color balance
• Sharpen

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Creating Access Files

• Access Files Chart