On 11/02/2011, Tom Fine wrote:

> I can't see how a camera would be faster, but whatever. By the time
> you get a cover placed, the camera set up, the shot taken and the
> image-editing done, I can't imagine it saves much time, for an
> admittedly inferior image quality. The exception would be
> 3-dimensional objects like some opera boxes or big 78 albums.
> Especially in the case of 78 albums, very hard to get them to sit on a
> scanner without doing damage. Same goes for some but not many
> gatefolds. One place you might do much better with a camera is
> shooting for deadwax scribe marks on an actual record, sometimes that
> scans OK but often not. Better scans for stamped marks, it all depends
> with hand-scribe marks, if they're deep and wide they scan fine, if
> they're light and thin they don't, in my experience.
> 
> The Epson unit I have does fine with any cover I've thrown at it so
> far. Sometimes the widest side needs to be sure to be running
> left-to-right on the glass, but usually the whole thing fits. I'm not
> worried about absolute edge-to-edge anyway, most of the time the edges
> are scuffed or cracked and get cropped anyway. Very few albums in my
> collection have vital info going all the way to the edges, although
> some definitely do as this is a distinct graphic style that was used
> over the years.
> 
What dpi are you scanning at? 



> I tried the camera mounted on a copy stand method, figured out things
> like how to light it and how to set up tape marks so you could be
> reasonably sure the alignment would be right from one cover to the
> next and front to back, but the results were inferior to the scanner
> and I found it quicker to just keep raising and lowering the scanner
> lid. An old, old scanner would be so slow doing the scan that it would
> consume too much time, but modern units are speedy. What's really
> speedy is a large-scale pro-grade color copier/printer/scanner if you
> are lucky enough to have access. We have a Ricoh unit at work that's
> super-fast but alas its maximum height is 11.5 inches or so, width
> goes out to about 18 inches but that height gets you in too many
> cases.
> 
> -- Tom Fine
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Don Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2011 4:18 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] create quality album cover photos
> 
> 
>> On 09/02/2011, Tom Fine wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Randal:
>> 
>> This might be a perfect use for a Nikon DSLR with Nikon's
>> remote-control software. Canon and others may now have similar
>> systems, but I am only familiar with the Nikon. Basically, the Nkon
>> camera becauses a USB capture device and the software controls
>> camera
>> parameters and can pull the image directly to the hard drive,
>> directly
>> into Photoshop with recent versions.
>> 
>> That said, I've never tried it your way, I've always had very good
>> results with a large-format scanner, late model Epson to be exact.
>> My
>> latest twist is to scan black and white back covers directly into
>> Acrobat in OCR mode so that the text becomes searchable and
>> exportable. It's not perfect but the results are legions better
>> than
>> they would have been a few years ago. I can't see how using a photo
>> stand would get better or quicker results than a large-mode
>> scanner.
>> For the number of albums you're doing, surely there's budget for
>> one
>> of them. By the time you get set up to do the photo stand thing
>> efficiently, you'll end up spending nearly as much for
>> camera-control
>> software, lighting, diffusion glass, etc.
>> 
>> A camera will be much faster than a scanner, but lower in
>> resolution.
>> 
>> Are big enough scanners currently available? A 12" sleeve is wider
>> than
>> A3.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> -- Tom Fine
>> 
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Randal Baier" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 4:44 PM
>> Subject: [ARSCLIST] create quality album cover photos
>> 
>> 
>> I'd like to ask my esteemed colleagues how to get quality album
>> images
>> using a decent digital camera and a good copy stand.
>> 
>> Our library archives is doing a digitization project involving the
>> photographing of about 1200 albums, mostly 33 1/3 LPs, but some
>> 78s.
>> We're using a copy stand and plan to get a diffuser (or museum)
>> glass
>> so that the albums can be flat. We do have a light meter and a good
>> digital camera, so really the preparation and proper workflow is
>> what
>> I'm interested in.
>> 
>> We're hoping that image capture rather than scanning will get us
>> better results.
>> 
>> This is just a request for upfront advice so we can capture these
>> images properly.
>> 
>> I'm pretty impressed with the images on the Birka Jazz Archive
>> site,
>> for instance. We need to capture images in high res formats for
>> both
>> web display and projection.
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> Randal Baier
>> Eastern Michigan University
>> Regards
>> -- 
>> Don Cox
>> [log in to unmask]
>> 
Regards
-- 
Don Cox
[log in to unmask]