This week I used the book scanner in the Special Collections Reading Room to scan a photo album about the San Antonio Canyon. The digital surrogate is in individual TIF files that I will learn how to combine and convert into PDF files when I come back from vacation on June 19th. Normally when I scan resources with the book scanner, the digital surrogate is in PDF format. However, making the digital surrogate start off as a TIF file is a slightly different process that I prefer.
The process starts by aligning the page you want scanned on the book scanner (in this case making sure there is no glare on the images from the light in the room) and importing the image from the scanner into Adobe Photoshop. Cropping and rotation may be required for fine tuning but other than that I saved and labeled the image correctly and proceeded to scan each individual page. I did the odd pages first so that I wouldn’t have to keep rotating the photo album, and then after all of the odd pages were complete I went forward with the even pages.
Since my resource was a photo album, TIF files (in my opinion) are more clear and in depth than PDF files. The high resolution (600 dpi; Color Photo) captures the perfect essence of each photograph along with the typed out captions that are cut out of paper and glued near the images. This photo album has been my favorite resource thus far to create a digital surrogate for because I love photography. I took a photojournalism class in middle school and ever since I have considered photography one of my favorite hobbies. The elements of photography that show up in this fellowship are elements that I will always cherish.