This section includes useful information, guidelines and documentation for digitized photographic heritage, metadata treatment, indexing and archiving.
Open Access spectral data for documentary heritage digitisation
Interesting research done at KU Leuven’s Imaging Lab, by making spectral measurements on digitized heritage objects in order to develop a procedure for faithful reproduction which can by used in a wide range of data. The dataset resulting from the investigation is also available as open data via Zenodo.
Read more and access all information HERE
Digitization with PhaseOne photocamera
This is a report from expert Photoconsortium member CRDI, about the characterisation and recommended procedures for photography digitisation: a complete analysis of the digitisation system: optics aberration, MTF, OECF, Noise, Colour profiles, etc., in order to optimize the capture:
- Device characterization and recommended procedures (PDF, 4 Mb)
Input profiling with a colorchecker, by Bruno Vandermeulen – KU Leuven
The ColorChecker fromX-Rite is an industry standard color reference chart used for color control and evaluation. The ColorChecker Passport comes with calibrating software, is easy to use and to implement in a workflow. This factsheet will guide you step by step through the different stages of creating a custominput profile and applying this to your RAW images.
Download PDF, 204 KB
Digital Imaging Tutorial, the Cornell University Library
This resource offers basic information on the digital process from basic terminology, Metadata, technical infrastructure, quality control and many more. It is a tutorial that enables to understand the digital process and the use of digital imaging to convert and make accessible cultural heritage materials.
Download as a PDF, 3.86 MB
Access online HERE
ANSI / NISO Z39.87 data dictionary
This is a dictionary of technical metadata that contains those elements needed for the interpretation of the image, the quality assessment and the preservation. This standard, recognized as ISO 14721 since 2003, is based on the elements that should have a master image and although it is independent of specific image formats, it is inspired on the metadata of some specific formats, mainly TIFF and JPEG2000.
Download PDF, 459 KB
Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials: Creation of Raster Image Master Files
This document offers shared best practices followed by the United States Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) Still Image Working Group for digitizing cultural heritage materials, a group dedicated to develop common digitization guidelines for still image materials (such as textual content, maps, and photographic prints and negatives) found in cultural heritage institutions.
Download PDF, 5.43 MB
The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes
Stulik, Dusan, and Art Kaplan. 2013. The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Conservation Institute.
The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes is intended for practicing photograph conservators, curators, art historians, archivists, library professionals, and anyone responsible for the care of photograph collections.Its purpose is to aid in the formulation of analytical questions related to a particular photograph and to assist scientists unfamiliar with analysis of photographs when interpreting analytical data. The Atlas contains interpretation guides with identification of overlaps of spectral peaks and warnings of potential misidentification or misinterpretation of analytical results.
General factsheets from EuropeanaPhotography project
EuropeanaPhotography project was the mother of Photoconsortium association. In 2012-2015 the project digitized ca. 450.000 vintage photographs to be published online and then shared to Europeana. During this period a wealth of expertise was matured and captured in various documents. Here few key factsheets on digitization and metadata:
- Practical recommendations for digitization (PDF, 63KB), by Bruno Vandermeulen – KU Leuven
- General recommendations for digitization (PDF, 69KB), by Carles Mitjà and Bea Martínez – CITM/UPC
- Digitization systems and procedures in photographic image archives (PDF, 149 KB), from a workshop in Girona
- Metadata transformation and ingestion (PDF, 88KB), by Nikos Simou – NTUA
- Indexing and multilingual support (PDF, 69KB), by Nacha Van Steen – KMKG
