A Plan for Presenting Digitized Photographs on the Web for Special Collections

by Georgen Gilliam

Goals:

• to create digital exhibits of thumbnails linked to larger images;
• to provide images linked to web registers to facilitate access to collections;
• to provide sufficient information with each image that any patron coming to the image from the web would be able to know where she is and navigate from there;
• to expend the minimum of staff time.

Plan of action:

Images will be scanned with relevant information from the register, manipulated in Photoshop as needed, webpages created, and linked from other places on the website. Based on a checklist, work will undergo quality review at the end of this process.

Images should be scanned with the relevant information from the register.

Each image will include the collection name and number, the folder number, and USUSC. It may also include the full textual description from the register, as the curator decides. This information will be part of the image, not just text on the webpage.

This provides several benefits. Images "taken" from the website will have our information unless someone goes to the trouble of removing it with image manipulation software. This isn't exactly "watermarking," but it helps. Many patrons wishing to have copies or more information may print out the photo without noting the collection or the number. With the information directly on the image, the curator will have enough information to find the original.

Technical details: The specific process for each project will vary. A general plan follows.

• To create textual description to be scanned with each image, separate and space out the image description on the print register using several carriage returns, then cut apart the descriptions and use them as identifying captions as you scan the images. The curator will decide exactly what caption will be used for each project (You'll have to think about line width.) This will be laid next to the photograph on the scanner so that the information becomes part of the image. If the photographs have already been scanned without the inclusion of this information, it will need to be added in Photoshop (details below);
• Scan at 400 ppi;
• Scan in RGB color mode (even black and white images, because of bit-depth information);
• Adjust range of tone minimum to 9 and maximum to 247 to prevent "white-out" and "black-out."

Image manipulation

The images will be resized to be a two standard size and formats: a larger image of higher quality (jpg) and a small thumbnail (gif).

Technical details:

• Resize image in Photoshop to create the larger jpg.
• (Image -> Image size; width 600; height automatically proportional) I suggest we use 600 pixels wide; if an image is smaller than that to begin with, we'll use its original size (you can't resize up - it just gets blurry), which will mean individual attention;
• If image does not have identifying information, this will need to be added.
• Increase canvas size (Image -> Canvas size;
• click white box on top row; increase height;
• make sure background color selection is white and foreground black).
• Add text (check with curator). You can cut and paste from the register, add line returns, change font size.
• Then they are saved as jpgs (image may need to be flattened first; quality 8);
• Save with a sequential number as the file name, not the folder no. For example, the first image of the collection will be 0001.jpg; the second 0002.jpg. (This means that they need to be scanned in the order that they are listed on the register!);
• A copy of this is printed out and the filename written on the printout;
• Next create the thumbnail:
• the image will duplicated (Image -> Duplicate) and
• duplicate resized to 200 ppi wide,
• Crop text off
• mode changed (Image-> Mode-> Index color),
• exported as a gif (File->Export->Gif89, nothing transparent)
• Save gif under the filename with the same number as the jpg, with "thumb" at the end. For example, jpg 0001.jpg will be saved as 0001thumb.gif.

Ideally these images would be stored on the I:drive, but I don't think there will be room; we'll probably have to use zip drives, but the systems people might be able to help with this.

Webpages created

Each large image will be mounted in a webpage that includes navigation and a logo of Special Collections. The navigation will include our basic web navigation, plus a link to the register, to the thumbnail page of images, and to the previous and next image in the series. Each webpage will also include Dublin Core indexing including information about this collection. Each template for each collection will be reviewed by the curator before we create the pages; we will have to make some decisions about constancy of design of all these digital collections, etc.

Each thumbnail image will be posted on a postage stamp-type page and linked to its larger version. This page will include all the navigation of the large page and also can be listed under digital exhibits and linked to from the register.

Technical details

• I will create a small logo for these pages and create a template web page;
• Get feedback/consensus on the template;
• I will then get help in writing a program to automatically generate these webpages. Being able to do this depends on the images being numbered sequentially;
• These pages will be uploaded onto the web;
• The printouts and zip disks(?) will be forwarded to me and I'll upload the images.

Linking the pages

To facilitate access, the pages will have to be linked from the website in several places.

Technical details

• This will pretty much have to be by hand. Each listing of each image on the register will be linked to the larger jpg.
• Links to the thumbnail page will be provided on the register and the digital exhibits page.

Quality Review

Each page and link will have to be checked to make sure that it is fully operational. Hopefully a student can do this. Anyway, it would be good to have another set of eyes involved here.

Technical details

• Create a checklist including:
• Is the description on the register actually linking to the correct photograph?
• Is the thumbnail linking to the correct large image?
• Does the label with the image correctly match this image?
• Does the image look stretched or deformed?
• Is the quality sufficient?
• Do the "next" and "previous" links work?
• Do all the other links work?
• Any changes can be recorded on the image printout and returned to me. If rescanning is required, I'll talk to Dan.