You have discovered a very common bottleneck in digital imaging workflows
and your quest for guidelines is to be applauded. It is important to help
your staff understand the requirements of the quality control step, where it
fits into the overall workflow and how to avoid becoming a bottleneck in the
production.
First, define what quality is acceptable in as many areas as you can think
of. Here are a few examples from a typical slide scanning workflow. There
are more, and probably some that are particular to your particular
situation, but this will give you an idea.
-Color, density, contrast and saturation should be close to the slide, or an
improvement on the slide;
-Scan should be in focus;
-No dust when viewed at 25%;
-Proper filename.
As you can see, the word "perfect" isn't in there.
After defining the quality level desired, and reviewing your hardware and
softare, you can develop an efficient QC routine.
Our QC people use a fast image browser (usually Thumbs Plus Pro 7 from
Cerious Software) and a calibrated monitor. They use Thumbs to generate
JPEG derivatives, and QC those instead of spending hours looking at each big
TIFF file. If the derivatives are done correctly, everything you need to
know about the TIFF can be seen there. After Thumbs has generated the JPEGS
for several hundred scans, they use the slide show function (set to manual
advance) to go through them. If scans look questionable in any way, they
compare the slide (on a color balanced light box matching the monitor), to
the image in Thumbs. Thumbs is set to show the filename on the screen along
with a full-screen image. It only takes 5 seconds for an experienced
technician to QC each scan this way.
One thing that will save a lot of time is assigning filenames in a
consecutive manner so the slides can be viewed in the same order as the
scans. If the filenames are not consecutive, a trick is to put (or leave if
its already there), a consecutive number followed by an underscore, before
the rest of the filename. This way the scans, as well as the JPEGS, will
sort in the same order as the slides. It only takes a few seconds to
eliminate that filename prefix later using a bulk utility (like "Bulk
Filename Utility").
Good luck!
Howard Brainen
Digital Imaging Consultant
TWO CAT DIGITAL INC.
14719 Catalina Street
San Leandro, CA 94577 USA
510-940-2670 x201
www.twocatdigital.com <http://www.twocatdigital.com/>
blog: www.digitalenabler.blogspot.com
<http://www.digitalenabler.blogspot.com/>
_____
From: ART LIBRARIES SOCIETY DISCUSSION LIST [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Elizabeth Schaub
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 8:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARLIS-L] digital image quality control guidelines
Greetings:
Please excuse cross posting.
Do any of you have guidelines created for individuals who perform digital
image quality control that you are willing to share? I have a staff member
who performs such work and is a self described "perfectionist." As a result
I am trying to set some guidelines that will result in a reasonable and
appropriate amount of time spent on quality control.
In addition to guidelines, any documentation outlining the "how-to" (if this
information is separate from the guidelines), the processes you include
under the umbrella of "quality control," and any statistics you have
compiled related to this aspect of your work flow would also be appreciated.
Thank you,
/Elizabeth Schaub, Director
Visual Resources Collection
School of Architecture
The University of Texas at Austin
512.471.5003
__________________________________________________________________ Mail
submissions to [log in to unmask] For information about joining ARLIS/NA
see: http://www.arlisna.org/join.html Send administrative matters (file
requests, subscription requests, etc) to [log in to unmask] ARLIS-L
Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html Questions may be addressed to list
owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask]
__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]
For information about joining ARLIS/NA see:
http://www.arlisna.org/join.html
Send administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
to [log in to unmask]
ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html
Questions may be addressed to list owner (Judy Dyki) at: [log in to unmask]
