Digital Ark: St. Florence, Wales: Digitising Objects

Digitising Content Work in Progess    Last Update: 2026-09-04

Pictures

Here are some suggestions on getting digital copies of analog content.

Context: who, what, why, where,..

Sadly having a digital copy of a document or printed picture is only part of the job!

There is a set of information that belongs with the digital copy that is not automatically recorded.

• who is in the picture
• what else of interest is in the picture
• what event does the picture document e.g. holiday in London, or Uncle Fred's birthday
• where was the picture taken
• when was the picture taken
• where is the original document to be found - in case for example that we need a better scan
• who owns/provided the document for scanning

Technically this is context or meta-data and from the view point of creating a digital Ark it is needed!

Having said all that a bird in the hand is worth two in a bush.

Do not reject/ignore interesting / relevant content just because the context is weak. Who knows, some-one else might be able to provide more context if the only could see some content.

So, for future use, I digitised the picture.

Placed a copy of the image in a PowerPoint slide, and added to the slide that information that I was able to squeeze out of my wife and her family.

Not perfect but at least the context has been captured. Ideally the context could be embedded in the image file.
Techie Talk there are concepts such as embedded EXIF data, but it is a bit berdy, and of no use unless you have an active server host that extracts that data on the fly and inserts it into to a web page (one of my goals is too avoid server side processing, so that an offline digital Ark can be created!).

Initially this context was simply written down on a piece of paper whilst interogating the family. And then I digitised the context and created the powerPoint slide.

An easier/quicker solution would have been to place the paper picture on a sheet of clean paper, write the context information next to the picture and then digitise the whole (scan or digital camera).

So the digital Ark has two files for this image.

• the best quality/resolution scan of the original that you can make (at the time!)
• a file that contains the context/meta-data, possibly with a lower quality scan as the link to the original.
  Ideally the context should include the physical location of the original picture so that if you get the opportunity to get a better quality digitisation, you know where to find it!

Context captured to paper, with some identifiable link to the original picture, and then digitised, is better than no context!

The lack of adequate context has bitten me on the bum too often!

Image collage

If you really want to get nerdy, you could write a VBA script to scan all the images in a folder and create a PowerPoint overview

It is a bit like the contact sheet we used to get for a set of negatives, or slides!

Tips and Tricks

Sadly having a digital copy of a document or printed picture is only part of the job!

Imagine that you have a set of printed picture, then you digitise them.

• do you give the digital file a meaningful name
  Some web hosts will ignore case sensitivity in file names.
  My advice, play safe, all file/folder names in lower case only, and definitely no spaces in a file name´, replace then with a hyphen -
• do you give the folder a meaningful name
• do you, somehow, document the who/what/when for each picture. Same for the folder.

If you are scanning say a set of pictures that were take taken at the same time or place, then get a sheet of paper and write on it the relevant information.

Then scan that sheet as well, and place it in the digital Ark.

Devices for digitising

This is some of my experiences gained when digitising my analog picture/film strips/slide.

Scanners

Single sheet documents and prints

I used this single page hand-feed scanner for my collection of family photographs and for single sheet documents.

It has two resolutions 300 dpi quite fast, and 600 dpi much slower.

My approach was to scan family snaps at 300 dpi.
Review the images and then submit the better photographs to a higher resolution scan, either on this scanner at 600 dpi or some other scanner.

Simple documents at 300 dpi seems okay.

Historical documents, use the best you resolution you can!

35mm file strip, and slide scanner

Professional archivists will tell you to clean the film strips and slide first.

They are, in my opinion, basically right.
BUT

I have over 2000 35mm slides. Most of which are snaps, but not particularly important!
My approach was to scan all without cleaning.
Review the scans
Clean and rescan only those images worth the effort.

I have a lot of self-mounted slides. Their casing was too thick for the scanner, so I made a new sledge out of stiff card and two stips of wood.

I used the same approach for my 35mm film strips!
No good for 6*6 strips/slides.

Flatbed scanner with back-light

Not too good with books or magazines, the spine gets opened.

Good for quality scans of single sheets. But slow!

This sanner has a back-light for slides and film strips.
But slow in setting up, you must put the strip/slides in to a special carrier.
Slow in scanning

So I bought an extra set of the carrier so I could load one whilst the other was being scanned.

On delivery the backlight unit was faulty. Replaced under guarantee. Same failure about 1 month out of guarantee.
All in all, for paper sheets/pictures okay, for anything else I found it disapointing.

I bought this scanner because of its film strip/slide capability for 35 mm and 6*6.
Fortuately I was able to scan all my color stock before the back-light failed the second time, after which it was okay for b/w stock.
But I found it way to slow and cumbersome for film strips/slides.

Smartphone

Most have good to very good cameras.

An issue is transfering the images to a PC so that it can be included in a digital Ark.

1) Transfer to a local PC using BlueTooth, or a direct transfer using a cable, or pop out the internal memory card and read it on the PC.
2) Send it via say FaceBook. But be warned unless you know what you are doing it will be reduced to a maximum dimension of 1600 pixels.

You can have a higher resolution if you can set your phones FaceBook app to use HD.
Even more if you send the image as a document (not tried by me yet).

Lighting and Background

Where possible avoid busy backgrounds when photographing content.
Plain black/white/green are usually good choices.

I have three photographers sheets, cheap ones. Plain black, white and green.
I even experimented, successfully, with a green plastic shower curtain.

Lighting is nearly always a problem.
The only advice I can give is to try out as main options as you can until you find a successful formula.
I have a set of 4 semi-profesional lights/stands, and a small ring light for small objects. But I am seldom really happy.