Digital Scriptorium

1. Resolution.  Given the limitations of readily available equipment, and the size of many medieval manuscripts [>10"], we encourage participants to scan their items at the highest resolution available to minimize future handling.
   
   
2. File Format.  All images should be scanned as .tiff files, in sRGB color space [8bit per color channel].
   
   
3. Derivatives.  Digital Scriptorum will mount 4 resolutions of the images - and therefore will only require the following derivative files to be contributed:
   
   [notation is width x length]
   
   Large - 2048 x 3072 pixels
   Medium - 1024 x 1536 pixels
   Small - 512 x 768 pixels
   Thumbnail - 128 x 192 pixels
   
   To reiterate, regardless of whether the item is 2 feet long or 2 inches - or whether your scanning from originals or film intermediaries - Digital Scriptorium requires 4 images, of each item, in the sizes listed above.
   
   
4. Consistent Width.  For display concerns, it is more important to be consistant with the width than the length - so, on resizing the image, specify the width, and let the length fall where it may [e.g. the thumbnail should be 128 pixels wide - and anywhere in the neighborhood of 192 pixels long
   
   
5. Compression.  All derivative files should be JPEGs with a medium compression level or, if you are using Photoshop, an "image quality level" of 5.
   
   
6. Sharpening.  Mild sharpening of the .jpg files is recommended. In photoshop, use the 'unsharp/mask' function under the sharpening routines menu - with the following settings:
   
   Amount = 50%
   Radius = 1.0
   Threshold = 0.0
   
   If you are using a different image manipulation software package, please contact us, and attach a sample of the sharpened image for review.
   
   

7. Filenaming.   For an image named CU0001.jpg [Columbia item #1], the 4 derivative files should be named as followes:
   
   CU0001.jpg - Large - 2048 x 3072 pixels
   CU0001a.jpg - Medium - 1024 x 1536 pixels
   CU0001b.jpg - Small - 512 x 768 pixels
   CU0001c.jpg - Thumbnail - 128 x 192 pixel
   
   

8. Delivery.  If the images are to be mounted and served from Columbia's server, related images are to be placed in a folder named by item number
   
   [e.g. CU0001, CU0001a, CU0001b, CU0001c are all placed in a folder named 'CU0001']
   
   The folders are then burned onto cds, and the cds sent to Columbia for loading.