Perian, Regarding scanning dpi, check the de facto best practices published by National Archives. http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/digitizing-archival-materials.html It covers all the materials and provides an easy-to-use guidelines (page 52 -58). The scanning quality can be varied regarding materials and size.
If your institution is capable, you might consider using JPEG2000, instead of TIFF. Yan Han Systems Librarian The University of Arizona Libraries -----Original Message----- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Potts, Megan H. Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 9:34 AM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Archive materials - image sizes? Hi Perian, I would recommend scanning at 600 dpi if you can afford it. It's best to scan only once, and at the highest quality you can. That way, your images are 'use neutral,' meaning they can be used and re-used for a variety of purposes. I prefer master images of archival documents to be 8-bit grayscale or 24-bit color and 600 dpi, because these settings are more able to capture detail in deteriorating, faded, or soiled materials, not to mention messy handwriting! Keep the 600 dpi TIFFs as archival copies, and then make 300 dpi JPEG derivatives as needed. I hope this helps! Megan Potts Digital Asset Specialist Corning Museum of Glass pottsmh at cmog.org -----Original Message----- From: Perian Sully [mailto:psu...@magnes.org] Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 11:24 AM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: [MCN-L] Archive materials - image sizes? Hi all: We're currently having a debate about the appropriate scanned image sizes for archival documents. Our scanner doesn't scan into RAW, so we're batting back and forth whether to save the master TIFFs as 600 or 300 dpi. On the 300 side: 1) many of our archival materials were already scanned at 300 dpi (that being the original size I designated, but we've a long way to go yet) 2) the majority of our reproduction requests are for 300 dpi JPG 3) storage space concerns 4) archive materials are mostly documents and don't necessarily need 600 dpi treatment 5) since the documents aren't "precious" like the 3D materials and photographs, we can go back and rescan if we really need a 600 dpi JPG (ie. handling concerns aren't as great) On the 600 side: 1) scan once and be done with it 2) we do sometimes receive 600 dpi JPG requests 3) storage is cheap 4) make sure the master TIFF is as high as quality as possible, since we don't have RAW to fall back upon We're also thinking about scanning the documents at 300 dpi, and photographs and 3D materials in 600. What do other institutions do? Any best practices we should fall back upon here? Thanks in advance! Perian Sully Collection Information and New Media Coordinator Judah L. Magnes Museum 2911 Russell St. Berkeley, CA 94705 510-549-6950 x 335 http://www.magnes.org Contributor, http://www.musematic.org _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
