Sep 012011
If you want to contribute an item to the AAF Collection and you have a scanner connected to your computer, you can use it to scan each page of the item. If it is too large for the scanner bed, you may wish to use a digital camera instead. See How-To: Photograph Items.
Here are some recommended settings and tips if you use a scanner to scan your document.
- Choose the option for True Color mode.
- Scan at original document size (100%). Please do not enlarge or reduce the image.
- Choose a scan resolution of 150 dpi (dots per inch). If you are scanning photographs, consider 300 dpi unless the resulting files are too large.
- Use a descreen filter if you are scanning a magazine or newspaper. This eliminates the interference pattern you might see on your scanned images. Magazine descreening is typically 133 lines per inch (lpi) while newspaper descreening is 85 lpi.
- Scan to create a JPEG (.JPG) image file. If you can, set the JPEG quality level to 80% (better). This results in a slightly larger file, but the quality is better. An ideal format would be to create a TIFF (.TIF) image file. TIFF is a loss-less format, meaning the image can be changed and re-saved without losing image quality, as JPEG would. However TIFF files tend to be very large and the loss of quality with JPEG is not significant.
- Number your image files consecutively. This will help the curator create a PDF document. For example, name your files page001.jpg, page002.jpg, page003.jpg, and so on.
- Scan all pages of the document. Include blank pages, and even the inside cover pages, and the back cover. Pages can then be combined correctly into a PDF document and facing pages will continue to face each other, as in the original document.
- Try to keep the pages of the document straight and aligned consistently while scanning. This helps the curator from having to rotate each skewed image.
- If a page does not fit completely on your scanner, scan it in portions. The curator will either stitch the portions together to make a single page, or create several pages in place of the single large page.
- An excellent program to view and organize image files is XnView, available for free at www.xnview.com.