Photographs

We use bespoke, high-resolution flatbed scanners and a range of high-resolution cameras, offering non-contact capture of your precious photograph collections. Our equipment can capture single page or double-page spreads creating output formats in TIFF, JPEG (JPEG2000), PDF (PDFA) or any other industry-standard image format you may require. We can also create further surrogate files, such as OCR’d multi-page PDFs, MS Word and eBooks.

All files are captured by our highly trained digitisation technicians using overhead, daylight balanced, non-heat producing lighting, before undergoing a formal quality assurance checking procedure. The final step in the process is the delivery of your electronic files by hard drive.

As standard, TWA survey all material prior to any digitisation project being carried out to ensure that it can withstand the scanning process. If there is evidence of fragility, brittleness, and/or mould, or any other signs of damage to your photographs, such as them sticking together, then recommendations will be made for how to repair and stabilise the content appropriately.

There are many things that need to be taken into consideration when costing your digitisation project, such as:

• Condition
• Scale of the collection
• Photographs needing to be removed from and returned to sleeves and albums
• Photographs being stuck together

Consequently, it’s impossible to give a definitive answer as to cost, but you can get a rough estimate using our digitisation calculator.

Yes, photos are often marked with dates, names and details of places and events, and this information carries huge significance and often sentimental value too. We can capture this data through handwritten transcription during the digitisation process so that it is not lost. Ask us about data capture.