Slides for Digitisation 101 workshop as run at NDF 2017 ndf.org.nz

1. DIGITISATION 101
#NDFNZ
Supported and hosted by

2. DAVE SANDERSON
PROJECT LEADER | COLLECTION IMAGING
@thebiglankyape
dsanderson@aucklandmuseum.com

3. MAARTEN HOLL
DIONNE WARD
MELISSA IRVING
Health & Safety // Housekeeping

4. PROGRAMME FOR THE MORNING SESSION:
9 – 10:30 Introductions, expectations for the day and session no. 1
Project planning and setup considerations
10:30 – 11 Morning Tea (Oceania)
11 – 12:00 Session no. 2
Imaging standards, formats and equipment
selection (assessing needs for collection type)
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch (free reign – meet back at Registration Desk)

5. PROGRAMME FOR THE AFTERNOON SESSION:
1:00 – 1:15 Reviewing the morning and any Q&As
Setting the scene for the afternoon
1:30 – 2 Practical session no. 1
Look at tethering and lighting basics
2 – 2:30 Practical session no. 2
Shooting a 3D object
2:30 – 3 Afternoon tea (Oceania)
3 – 3:30 Practical session no. 3
Shooting artwork/flat 2D items/quick negatives overview
3:30 – 4 Exporting and publishing of your data
4 – 4:30 Review the day and Q&A session

6. PROJECT PLANNING
You’ve got to ask the obvious questions –
Do you need to digitise it at all?
If so,why?
What’s your end game? (You need to know what you
want before you start)

7. Why? Prototype
Cost
• Equipment
• Storage
• Salaries
• Consumables
Scope
Project
Plan

8. MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR IT
DEPARTMENT

9. WHY?
‘It’s what everyone is doing’ is not good enough…
(especially if you’re doing 3D)
End use is critical
(can you use it – check your copyright)

13. PROTOTYPING
• Test different objects – solid representation is key
• Test different equipment options – experience helps to narrow
things down sometimes
• Look hard at your software options
• Look hard at your data movement
• Time it end to end – cost it out (time, $ and people)

14. COSTING IT ALL
It’s really easy to miss hidden costs that will sting later

15. COSTING IT ALL
• Equipment (and its replacement)
*review here against costs from your prototyping
• Staffing
• Software
• Ongoing costs to maintain your digital files ‘forever’
• If it’s not forever, what’s the cost to decommision?
• OPEX vs CAPEX funding – is what you’re making an
asset/collection in its own right?

16. STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
Your work is a much easier sell if you’re getting behind
and directly linked to your organisational strategy

17. BEFORE YOU START PRODUCTION
• Set up your metrics
• Set targets (but make them realistic)
• Find your balance between numbers, motivation and
ambivalence
*institutionalisation is your enemy
• Inspiration for yourself and leadership for your time is your rocket
fuel

18. ANALYTICS
We’re all accountable to someone…
Numbers and analytics are your power

20. 10:30 – 11

21. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
• Go back to your ‘why’
• Technology marches on, aim high
• Moderation is key if you’re producing temporary
content

22. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
• At Auckland Museum we’re using mainly Canon,
some Hasselblad – 50MP is about the standard
• Some outliers…

24. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
• Is everyone playing along nicely?
• Standardisation of EVERYTHING is absolutely key
• If different areas are working differently, ring-fence
yourselves (back to your scope)

25. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
• Where and how are you storing it?
• Think about digital preservation basics
• Min. 3 copies, min. 2 places, 1 offsite at all times
*how do you sync it?

26. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
We save 4x file formats for each image:
• RAW (Canon CR2)
• DNG (Adobe proprietary RAW)
• Vanilla 8-bit Uncompressed TIFF
• JPEG (and derivatives)
Metadata – get your metadata sorted!
NO Photoshop & destructive editing

27. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
Scanner resolution (ppi = pixels per inch):
300ppi = 3,000 x 2,400 pixels
600ppi = 6,000 x 4,800 pixels
1200ppi = 12,000 x 9,600 pixels
*Remember most printed work only has print resolution of approx 300dpi (dpi = dots
per inch)
8inches
10inches

28. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
Camera resolution 50mp 8688 x 5792 pixels
300ppi = 28.96 x 19.3 inches
600ppi = 14.48 x 9.65 inches
1200ppi = 7.24 x 4.83 inches
*Remember when you reprint an image from 50mp it’s easy to reach large sizes and
that same 8688 x 5792 pixels is equivalent to over 8k screen
??inches
??inches

29. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
If you’re getting serious, consider a DAMS system?

30. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
• Instigates a consolidated approach to media creation
across the whole organisation @ AWMM
• Forms a good starting point for genuine digital
preservation
• Major driver for digitisation standards

31. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
• Unique name for each file – ‘uniqueID_001, _002 etc.
• Filename cross checked several times through end-to-end
process
• Named at point of capture
• File name directly relates to each object

32. STANDARDS, FORMATS & EQUIPMENT
• Look for JHOVE and DROID if you want to get geeky
and validate your files
• Look into PREMIS metadata schema

33. RESOURCES
• https://pinboard.in/u:imagingservices
• Digital NZ- http://www.digitalnz.org/make-it-digital
• http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/digitize-technical.html
• https://www.metamorfoze.nl/english/digitization
• http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/guidelines/digitize-planning.html
• http://en.nationaalarchief.nl/sites/default/files/docs/guidelines_digitisation_photographic_materials_0.pdf
• https://luminous-landscape.com/scannerless-digital-capture-and-processing-ofnegative-film-photographs/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miI4kcH_S1g&feature=youtu.be
• The AIC Guide to Digital Photography and Conservation Documentation
• http://imagemuse.org/
• NZ Photographers of Cultural Collections
• GLAM Digitisation (Australasia)
• Rijksmuseum guide to 2D and 3D digitisation

34. 12noon - 1

35. 12noon - 1
RECAP // Q&A

36. 12noon - 1
PRACTICAL SESSIONS
1 & 2
Tethering & Lighting Basics

37. 2:30 – 3

38. 12noon - 1
PRACTICAL SESSION
3
Artwork/2D/Negatives

39. EXPORTING & DATA PUBLISHING
• Capture: DSLR Remote Pro
• Import, Process and Export: Adobe Lightroom
• No editing done beyond final review of white balance and embedding of
a series of tags:
1) Auckland War Memorial Museum
2) Collection Department (eg Natural Sciences)
3) Collection Area (eg Marine)
4) Photographer name (eg Jennifer Carol)

40. EXPORTING & DATA PUBLISHING
• Think about the effect your post-production is going to have on
the longevity of your digital files
• Photoshop is fun (too fun at times) but editing can damage your
files and steal time you could have been using creating more
work

41. EXPORTING & DATA PUBLISHING
• File formats for the web:
• Almost always JPEG – JPEG2000 if you want to do something clever.
• Set your resolution accordingly (72ppi / 96ppi)
• Think about how ‘big’ your image wants to be? 1000px, 2000px, full res?
• Please do not watermark your images – very out of date
• Looking into IIIF for universal sharing of images (http://iiif.io/ )
• How do you want to share and license? Digital New Zealand and Creative
Commons
• Usage and Image rights go hand-in-hand with digitisation!

42. EXPORTING & DATA PUBLISHING
• Ask yourself how proprietary your platform is?
• Can you move on?
• Does it share via APIs? Can you leverage the data ecosystem
(Digital NZ, Google, Wikimedia)

43. EXPORTING & DATA PUBLISHING
If you’re doing crowd sourcing or user contributed
content – know before you start if you plan to keep the
info, and how you plan on treating it
*Plug for Adam Moriarty’s 2017 NDF talk

44. RECAP // Q&A