Guide to Imaging: Getting Started

Please consider attending a VRC workshop, or schedule a custom workshop to fit your department’s needs, where we will cover in-depth image-editing processes for scanned images, personal photography, and custom digital drawings. Outlined below is some preliminary information on checking your images, digital image vocabulary, and software resources.  

• Wipe down the glass of an overhead or flatbed scanner before placing your object on it/underneath, ideally with a microfiber cloth. This can help decrease the amount of editing needed later to remove dust particles.
• If scanning a bound volume on a flatbed scanner, place the book perpendicular to the light source of the scanner bar. Pushing the book as flat as possible will reduce shadows.
• Back the scanned page with a solid-colored piece of paper to keep text/images on the reverse from bleeding through.
• If the image spans the gutter of a book, scan the pages separately and stitch together in Photoshop. This will help reduce shadows.

Archives and museums will allow different equipment to be used in their space. Assess the best possible environment you can create for capture based on the equipment you are able to use and what is allowed in the space.

• Archives typically make snakes, beanbag weights, and foam wedges available. Use these to get pages to lie flat and adjust the angle of bound volumes so that you can capture an image straight-on.
• Small tripods and copy stands are not always allowed, but can be a good option to capture better photos if available. Alternatively, you can practice some mind-body awareness to make your body like a tripod. Plant your feet, engage your core, hold your arms stead, and breathe evenly.
• Use a small level that can attach to your camera’s hot shoe mount.
• For objects behind glass, try to take a photograph on a slight angle that doesn’t capture the glare. It’s easier to keystone the image back into a flat plane than it is to Photoshop out a glare that captures a reflection of yourself.

Keeping an original copy of your images (without edits, annotations, etc.) is an important part of maintaining your archive. While we cover how to increase the overall quality of images through Photoshop, saving an original to return to will allow it to be reverted in case an image is saved over or corrupted in the editing process. 

Refer to Managing Personal Image Archives for resources on organizing a personal image collecting, file naming conventions, and cataloging guides.

• jpg: jpegs are a smaller size than most formats, but will decrease in quality over time when edited and resaved. If jpegs are necessary, save with the least amount of compression using your editing software.
• tiff: tiffs will take up more space, but will not degrade if edited and saved. The VRC recommends downloading images and saving processed images in tiff format. 
• RAW: when photographing, RAW can act as the “negative” of the image. Export copies of edited images to an editable format, and keep RAW files as originals. 
• png: usually images formatted for the internet, it’s a compressed format similar to jpg. 

Capturing images with an iPhone

Apple products are set to capture in HEIC (High Efficiency Image Format), though settings can be adjusted to capture in the “most compatible” format, which will save images as jpgs. The VRC recommends capturing in HEIC, as the files are compressed and take up about 50% less space than a jpg file while maintaining the same level of quality. Similar to RAW files, HEIC files need to be exported to a different format to be edited, used in slides, and published.

• Check pixel size of images from desktop, Adobe Bridge or Photoshop
• DPI/PPI: (dots per square inch/pixels per square inch), the on-screen resolution of an image, this can change based on the size of the image
  • For example, a 2448 x 3264 pixel image will appear as 34 x 45 inches at 72 ppi, but at a higher ppi resolution (300ppi), it will appear as 8 x 10.5 inches. 
  • The ppi cannot be increased while keeping the pixel dimensions. Increasing both the ppi and the pixel dimensions will decrease the quality of the image.

• LinkedIn Learning: Photoshop, SketchUp, Procreate etc.

Explore the Storage and Backup page for more information on storing original and working copies of image files and them backing up.