Blog #15: Project Log

Here's a sneak peak at the fruits of my labour - about 5 - 6 hours of scanning. Plus post-processing time, in which the scans are lightly edited in Photoshop.

My hope is to have the entire book in a pdf and available on my website by Tuesday.

I'll talk a bit about the scanning process on Tuesday, but I probably won't be able to go into much detail, so I'll do it here.


How to scan archival material:

1. Get the item that you're scanning. At the archives you need to fill out an item request form.
2. Go to the scanning room. Turn on the computer and the scanner and wait 5 minutes for them to start up. While waiting, clean the scanner to remove any dust or particles.
3. Place your item in the scanner, being sure to line it up so that the image is as straight as possible. Open up the scanning program. Make sure that the correct parameters are set and that your file is being named and numbered appropriately (for example, the image above is uas041b06CANRECEIPTBOOK001 - the first part is the call number of the item, the second part is the title of the book, and the last part is the scan number).
4. Do a preliminary scan to create a preview of the image. Zoom in. Use the marquee tool to select what you want scanned and to crop out any excess grey areas. Now you can create the actual scan!
5. Open up the scan in Photoshop and make correction with the brightness and contrast. This is to improve readability and reduce bleedthrough.
6. Repeat!