Digitizing the Past
When my grandmother passed away a few years ago, a couple dozen snapshots she had taken in the 1940s and 50s came into my possession, mainly because the subjects of these pictures were unfamiliar to my family. (Of course, I was interested in keeping them for their historical value alone.) Soon after I acquired them, I made color photocopies on glossy paper for display purposes and buried the originals in a folder in my closet. Since I know so little about preserving photographs, I often worry about how long the originals will last in my possession.
The digitization assignment provided me with an opportunity to help preserve the originals in an alternate form–as image files. Earlier this week, I began the preservation process by scanning over a dozen of the originals, using 48-bit color, and saving them as TIFF files. My choices in depth and file format were dictated by my desire to preserve as much information about these snaphsots as possible. For the same reason, I chose to scan the pictures’ backsides (many of which had handwritten notes) and refrained from cropping the images.
After an hour or so of making TIFF files, I chose one of my favorites to adapt for display purposes. This image depicts three women sitting in front of a sign that reads “MEN WANTED.” For the sake of faster downloading, I saved it as a PDF file. Since PDF files don’t seem to represent images in 48-bit color (and color is unnecessary for viewing what is essentially a black-and-white image), I saved the PDF file using a 6-bit gray scale.
For the PDF file, I also cropped out several elements that were in the original TIFF file. I removed the snapshot’s paper border because it does not really add to the image. I cut out a small letter “S” that appears at the rightmost edge of the sign because it slightly detracts from the “MEN WANTED” message. Also, “1945″ had been scrawled on the image’s bottom left corner. Normally, I would want to display such a detail because it helps date the image; however, the back of the snapshot reads “44,” so I decided to eliminate the possibility of any inaccuracies by cropping out the handwriting on the front.
For the sake of preservation and easy access, I’m glad to have this image and its cousins digitized. After reading about digital preservation, however, I realize that even image files require effort to preserve. Once I’ve finished scanning all my grandmother’s pictures, I’ll make sure to save them on my hard drive and on a CD. Even then, I’ll routinely make backups of the images and review my hard drive and CDs for signs of degradation.
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