CONTEMPORARY METHODS OF DIGITIZATION: Digitization process, archival methods and documentation of films, photographs and various other conventional and digital sources.

INSTEAD OF A PROLOGUE

A book missing from the internet.

Nowadays where technology is advancing at a fast pace, it is a fact that many technologies are becoming obsolete immediately and many data, analogue and digital based on these, are becoming inaccessible and will be lost permanently.

Every day a large number of photos either in the form of print or digital from legacy devices, files, videos etc. are deleted or destroyed without any substantive method of recovering them. This phenomenon occurs not only privately but also in the public sector, in companies, archives, libraries, and in almost any form where archival material exists.

Digitizing, archiving and documenting.

This book describes a fully documented and thorough method of digitizing, archiving, and documenting material from various digital and analog sources. In order to save this material from deleting, destroying or storing it in inaccessible sources and media, and to create digital libraries with a structured, and most likely long-term, future use.

What can you expect.

You will not find historical data on file storage formats or other issues, as well as analysis of handling old devices and methods as this is not its purpose. Only information necessary to substantiate the procedures is provided.

There are many methods of digitization available for us, but there are no substantial and detailed ones adapted to our needs. The book is about to fill that gap.

The book was completed in 2019 after three years of research, (with some corrections and additions in 2020) and published in April, 2020.

The second edition with corrections, improvements and additions was published in September 2023.

Panagiotis Zigouris

[email protected]

Contents

INSTEAD OF A PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

1. EQUIPMENT

2. SCANNER

3. COMPUTER

4. PROJECT MATERIAL

5. BUILD FOR THE FUTURE

6. SIZE AND FILE RESOLUTION

7. JPG AND TIFF

8. RESOLUTION (COLOR DEPTH) 24 and 48bit

9. SIZE, STATISTICS, TIMES AND TOTAL SIZE ON DISK

CHAPTER TWO

10. FILM 135 SCANNING - PROCEDURE, METHODS AND RESULTS

11. FILM 126 SCANNING - PROCEDURE, METHODS AND RESULTS

12. FILE SIZE, SCANNING TIME, RESOLUTION, FORMAT

13. PHOTO SCAN (10X10, 10X15, COLOR, BLACK & WHITE AND VARIOUS SIZES)

14. UNSHARP MASK AND COLOR RESTORATION

15. SCANNING 126 SLIDES

16. SCANNING POLAROID PHOTOS

17. RESISTANCE TO TIME OF AN UNDEVELOPED 135 FILM

18. RESISTANCE TO TIME OF AN UNDEVELOPED 126 FILM

CHAPTER THREE

19. PROCEDURE, RESOLUTION, LOSSY FILE COMPRESSION

CHAPTER FOUR

20. ARCHIVAL FOLDER STRUCTURE - DOCUMENTATION

20.1 FILE SECURITY AND ENCRYPTION

21. CLASSIFICATION ISSUES

22. RECONSTRUCTION OF A PHOTO ALBUM

CHAPTER FIVE

23. STORAGE OF NEGATIVES AND PHOTOS

24. DATA STORAGE - CREATION OF BACKUP COPIES

25. STORAGE DEVICES

26. RECORDING ON CD / DVD

27. RECORDING ON ΒLU-RAY

28. INDICATIVE LIFE SPANS OF MAGNETIC AND OPTICAL MEDIA

29. HARD COAT TECHNOLOGY

30. M-DISC TECHNOLOGY

31. LIGHTSCRIBE TECHNOLOGY

32. HARD DRIVES (INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL, HDD - SSD), NAS, CLOUD

33. HUMAN PERSON CLOUD

ANNEX

34. FILE TRANSFERRING FROM OLD TYPE MOBILE PHONE, NON-SMART

35. TRANSFER OF A VIDEO CD (VCD) TO FILE

36. VHS CASSETTE DIGITIZATION

37. AUDIO TAPE DIGITIZATION

38. MAGNETIC TAPE DIGITIZATION

39. VINYL RECORD DIGITIZATION

40. FILE TRANSFERING FROM 3.5 AND 5.25 FLOPPY DISKS

41. SUPER 8 FILM DIGITIZATION

42. THE ZIP DRIVE

43. THE VIDEO BACKUP

44. TAPE BACKUP OR TAPE STREAMER

EPILOGUE

NOTE

Websites and pages are constantly changing either by moving, alternation or content update, by migrating or by becoming dead links after a long time. I had personally made a digital copy of all websites I am referring to this book using the Wayback Machine. www.webarchive.org.

All you have to do is copy and page the link to their page to see the archived version.

For webpages depicting information or products that archiving was not possible (e-shops like Amazon or eBay) or other type of dynamic pages I provide search keyword to Google it / Bing it.

I believe that in such manner the book becomes future proof to some point.

Wayback Machine can be used also for your personal needs e.g., to store your own webpages in case your site eventually shuts down or for webpages that you particularly want to store for indefinite time for archival purposes or for providing future references to those.

CHAPTER ONE

THE PROJECT WITH DATA AND NUMBERS

An introduction:

Photos, negatives, videotapes, vinyl records, etc. must be digitized, now or even yesterday.

Humidity and many other factors, environmental and non-environmental, work against them.

Tomorrow, in a month, in a year, etc. they may no longer have the same quality or be completely lost.

1. EQUIPMENT

Without substantially expensive equipment I was able to produce professional-grade material. This was, after all, a bet that this kind of work can be done in the home environment without having to resort to expensive solutions such as photo and negative scanning services and above all to create a fully structured and functional digital archive with own means. In detail the equipment used, below.

2. SCANNER

With an average price in 2019 of 155 to 180 euros, the Epson Perfection V370 Photo is an option for daily use, with the capability of scanning negatives. Epson's perfection series consists of models ranging from simple use to V550, V700, V750, V800 and the V850 flagship model, which are purely for professional use.

The V370 is the first of a series that can be used for demanding tasks such as this project and is also a cost-effective solution, without lag and potentially reliable since, as I mentioned later in the statistics, it carried out about 18000 scans and it continues to work smoothly.

Tech Specs:

Epson® Perfection® V370 Photo

Technology

Scanner type

Flatbed scanner

Scanning Resolution

4.800 DPI (Horizontal x Vertical)

Optical Resolution

Main 4.800 DPI x Sub 9.600 DPI

Optical Density

3,2 Dmax