Digitizing and preserving old media

[technix]

Among my family’s collection, there are some old media: photographs, developed photographic films, family recordings on cassette tapes, out of print cassettes and an old book on the verge of disintegration. I am thinking about digitizing them for preservation. Questions:

1. Should I digitize them at all?
2. Will a normal flatbed scanner, specifically the one included in HP Deskjet Pro M1216nfh, suffice in digitizing the photos?
3. What equipment do I need to digitize the photographic films?
4. What kind of audiophoolery do I need to dip into in order to digitize the cassette tapes? My Cirrus Logic Audio Card for Raspberry Pi is currently my best audio recording device, capable of 24bit 192kHz sampling. Is this adequate? What caliber of tape deck do I need?
5. Should I even try digitizing the book? If so, how? What kind of equipment should I use?

[tggzzz]

Among my family’s collection, there are some old media: photographs, developed photographic films, family recordings on cassette tapes, out of print cassettes and an old book on the verge of disintegration. I am thinking about digitizing them for preservation. Questions:

1. Should I digitize them at all?

Yes, repeat no.

2. Will a normal flatbed scanner, specifically the one included in HP Deskjet Pro M1216nfh, suffice in digitizing the photos?

Yes, but if you can't be bothered to give the specs, why should you expect us to look them up?

3. What equipment do I need to digitize the photographic films?

There is no point in digitising a 35mm chip to more than 3000x5000 pixels. Beyond that you would be digitising grain.

4. What kind of audiophoolery do I need to dip into in order to digitize the cassette tapes? My Cirrus Logic Audio Card for Raspberry Pi is currently my best audio recording device, capable of 24bit 192kHz sampling. Is this adequate? What caliber of tape deck do I need?

Depends on the quality of the source material and what quality you require in the end result.

5. Should I even try digitizing the book? If so, how? What kind of equipment should I use?

Camera or photocopier, as appropriate.

[technix]

Among my family’s collection, there are some old media: photographs, developed photographic films, family recordings on cassette tapes, out of print cassettes and an old book on the verge of disintegration. I am thinking about digitizing them for preservation. Questions:

1. Should I digitize them at all?

Yes, repeat no.

2. Will a normal flatbed scanner, specifically the one included in HP Deskjet Pro M1216nfh, suffice in digitizing the photos?

Yes, but if you can't be bothered to give the specs, why should you expect us to look them up?

3. What equipment do I need to digitize the photographic films?

There is no point in digitising a 35mm chip to more than 3000x5000 pixels. Beyond that you would be digitising grain.

4. What kind of audiophoolery do I need to dip into in order to digitize the cassette tapes? My Cirrus Logic Audio Card for Raspberry Pi is currently my best audio recording device, capable of 24bit 192kHz sampling. Is this adequate? What caliber of tape deck do I need?

Depends on the quality of the source material and what quality you require in the end result.

5. Should I even try digitizing the book? If so, how? What kind of equipment should I use?

Camera or photocopier, as appropriate.

I am on my phone now so copying text isn’t that viable and typing up long spec sheets are error prone. Will post the specs later though.

For the book, will one of those OCR apps on a smartphone work? If so I can use the camera on my smartphone and that app to turn the old book into a text file, and then proofread and reformat it into a modern format e-book.

[CatalinaWOW]

The standard questions apply.  If you are digitizing the pictures to display on a computer screen you need only a thousand or so pixels in each direction.  If you are planning to print a mural for the wall you should go to the original media's resolution in pixels per inch or centimeter.  Only the latter requirement might need more than a standard scanner.

For the family recordings most folks would be satisfied with all but the cheesiest playback quality.  Recording out of print commercial cassetes is only worthwhile if you have a personal interest in the material, or possibly if you think your copy is one of only a few on Earth.

Similar for the old book.  The only interest in a digital copy of an old book is if yours is the only copy or if no one else has digitized it, or if margin notes are from someone of historical interest.  Which means the odds are low that your book is worth digitizing.  If your book is worth digitizing it should be easy to find someone who will do it for you, gratis.

[Halcyon]

1. Should I digitize them at all?

Yes, absolutely. All mediums (digital or otherwise) degrades over time. You'll suffer some losses going from a physical medium to digital (or analog to digital), but after that, provided you don't change the file, rather just keep "refreshing" the digital media with new copies and new formats as technology changes, you'll suffer zero loss to the quality of your photographs.

2. Will a normal flatbed scanner, specifically the one included in HP Deskjet Pro M1216nfh, suffice in digitizing the photos?

You'll want one with a light box for negatives or slides. I remember I had an old Canon scanner that had a light box that produced excellent results.

3. What equipment do I need to digitize the photographic films?

For the most part, a decent consumer scanner will do. For the higher possible quality, scan in 24-bit colour, at the highest DPI and to an uncompressed format (avoid JPEG). Don't skimp on the scanner however, avoid the cheap Chinese rubbish.

4. What kind of audiophoolery do I need to dip into in order to digitize the cassette tapes? My Cirrus Logic Audio Card for Raspberry Pi is currently my best audio recording device, capable of 24bit 192kHz sampling. Is this adequate? What caliber of tape deck do I need?

Any half-decent sound device is fine, it is orders of magnitude better than your analog source. Focus on the deck used to play back your tapes. Make sure you use a good quality tape deck and the heads are clean. I would also put some line isolation transformers between your analog source and your capture device to eliminate any ground loops.

5. Should I even try digitizing the book? If so, how? What kind of equipment should I use?

You could (employ a similar method as you would with photos) but it will be time consuming, you'll also want to use a format like PDF and run OCR over it. But consider, is the book really that important that you need to spend all that time and effort scanning it?

[daqq]

There are companies that specialize in digitizing old media (particularly video tapes and films) that can do it much better than you could without a significant investment of time and money. They can also be relatively cheap.

We had several old rolls of film digitized for my grandma, she was delighted  .

At home, without pro equipment, the audio tapes should be relatively easy, video might be different.

[technix]

2. Will a normal flatbed scanner, specifically the one included in HP Deskjet Pro M1216nfh, suffice in digitizing the photos?

You'll want one with a light box for negatives or slides. I remember I had an old Canon scanner that had a light box that produced excellent results.

My scanner does not come with a light box...

4. What kind of audiophoolery do I need to dip into in order to digitize the cassette tapes? My Cirrus Logic Audio Card for Raspberry Pi is currently my best audio recording device, capable of 24bit 192kHz sampling. Is this adequate? What caliber of tape deck do I need?

Any half-decent sound device is fine, it is orders of magnitude better than your analog source. Focus on the deck used to play back your tapes. Make sure you use a good quality tape deck and the heads are clean. I would also put some line isolation transformers between your analog source and your capture device to eliminate any ground loops.

I found out that my grandma's old deck is working fine. How do I check if it is up to the task?

The cassette deck can be powered with four NiMH AA's or a 6V wall wart, and the Pi can be powered using a battery bank or a 5V USB cell phone charger. Will ground loops form when using those non earthed double isolated power adapters or straight off batteries?

5. Should I even try digitizing the book? If so, how? What kind of equipment should I use?

You could (employ a similar method as you would with photos) but it will be time consuming, you'll also want to use a format like PDF and run OCR over it. But consider, is the book really that important that you need to spend all that time and effort scanning it?

The book is simply out of print and not found in the Shanghai Library system. What I have in mind is those apps that can OCR directly off a smartphone's camera, so I just need to flip through the book with my phone to create a text file directly out of the book, and flip through it again to proofread and format the resulting text.

[technix]

There are companies that specialize in digitizing old media (particularly video tapes and films) that can do it much better than you could without a significant investment of time and money. They can also be relatively cheap.

We had several old rolls of film digitized for my grandma, she was delighted  .

At home, without pro equipment, the audio tapes should be relatively easy, video might be different.

Since you mentioned it, I actually have a composite/S-Video capture card, and my family collection does include a few Hi8 camera recordings. Those devices always gave me headaches because of deinterlacing and the (in)ability of running the capture card at full PAL resolution.

[technix]

The standard questions apply.  If you are digitizing the pictures to display on a computer screen you need only a thousand or so pixels in each direction.  If you are planning to print a mural for the wall you should go to the original media's resolution in pixels per inch or centimeter.  Only the latter requirement might need more than a standard scanner.

For the photos, the target monitor is the 12.9in iPad Pro and the 27-inch 5K iMac Pro monitor. The originals are analog - photographic film and photographic paper.

For the family recordings most folks would be satisfied with all but the cheesiest playback quality.  Recording out of print commercial cassetes is only worthwhile if you have a personal interest in the material, or possibly if you think your copy is one of only a few on Earth.

Some of them are actually mixtapes, and I know that my mom have some emotional attachment to them. What I want to do here is to put those old cassettes into her iPhone.

Similar for the old book.  The only interest in a digital copy of an old book is if yours is the only copy or if no one else has digitized it, or if margin notes are from someone of historical interest.  Which means the odds are low that your book is worth digitizing.  If your book is worth digitizing it should be easy to find someone who will do it for you, gratis.

The book is an interesting case here - I believe it is not the only copy since it was sold in the public, but as far as I can search in the Shanghai Library system they don't have that exact edition, digital or analog.

[Bicurico]

I have had similar thoughts about the preservation of old media.

Both my parents have already died, my mother 34 years ago, my father 4 years ago. 

My father filmed me as a child and of course my mother and himself in the late 70ies and early 80ies with his Super8 analog camera, but only last year was I brave enough to look at the films.

Surprisingly, everything still worked, including the projector. I think I had to just clean it and I am not sure if I had to replace one capacitor or similar.

I watched all films and used the opportunity to record it with my DV8 video camera. Then I transfered the movies to the PC and converted them to MPEG4 in AVI containers.

The quality is not good, there are services that will digitize every frame individually after cleaning the film, etc. But for my needs it is good enough.

It is a sentiment roller coaster to see my mother again after over 30 years. Actually, I wish I had seen the film sooner.

This is to tell you guys, that depending on your personality, preserving audio, pictures and movies can be very important. It keeps the mental image alive of what cannot be brought back.

But: once digitized, you need to maintain the data! And this really sucks! What if the HDD breaks? What if both HDD break (the "in use one" and the "backup" one)?

DVD's? I don't trust them.

CD's? Even worse.

Most CD-R/DVD-R/+R/+RW/whatever have delaminated the data substrate on their own, without any use in less than 10 years. Screw CD and DVD!

I try to keep everything on 3 different harddisks, but still I am afraid.

And here is my final conclusion:

Analog support is much more resilient to damage over time, than digital data!
I have old polaroid pictures from the 70ies, which are still great to look at.
But where are the digital pictures from my phone? Some I deleted by accident, some are scattered in obscure folders and may get lost. Not to mention file formats! What about those old files made in some oscure software? Can't read them back in! What about the data saved on ZIP drives? Tape drives (QIC-80, QIC-159, DAT)?

I think:

- Keep analog support for everything in cool and dry storage. It will last for decates and more!
- Digitize the important stuff, but mostly to enjoy seeing or listening to it. It is much more convinient and accessible on a PC, hands down, plus you don't degenerate the analog masters by handling them.
- Don't get too much digital data or preserving it will be a nightmare!

Regards,
Vitor

[shakalnokturn]

@Victor:

I come to the same conclusion, if it wasn't for the storage volume requirements, I'd be backing-up my whole computer to paper. Prints, punch-cards, whatever... Should be more reliable than any magnetic/mechanical HDD.
My CD-R have mostly survived 20 years now, still I would not trust them on much longer terms.
Backing-up on flash devices left un-powered for storage seems an interesting option, but then you still get the possibility of obsolete software/hardware to read them back much later. (Who can still get data off their ESDI hard drive today? Even if it is the one drive in 100 that still has physical integrity... )

The safe approach is to multiply the copies, the media, and geographical storage locations, but then you reach a point you're almost making your private photos public.

[technix]

@Victor:

I come to the same conclusion, if it wasn't for the storage volume requirements, I'd be backing-up my whole computer to paper. Prints, punch-cards, whatever... Should be more reliable than any magnetic/mechanical HDD.
My CD-R have mostly survived 20 years now, still I would not trust them on much longer terms.
Backing-up on flash devices left un-powered for storage seems an interesting option, but then you still get the possibility of obsolete software/hardware to read them back much later. (Who can still get data off their ESDI hard drive today? Even if it is the one drive in 100 that still has physical integrity... )

The safe approach is to multiply the copies, the media, and geographical storage locations, but then you reach a point you're almost making your private photos public.

I have two ideas for archival: archival-grade microSD cards, and NAS boxes based on open standards and open source. The former is exactly this unpowered Flash devices, and with archival microSD cards they are designed with SLC cells and thicker oxide layer for better power-off longevity. The NAS box allows for a gradual upgrade path so it can be kept up to date with the current technology, allowing dropping deprecated technology through in-place migrating. The NAS box is my current archival system, using a redundant disk array on Broadcom MegaRAID 9271-8iCC as the storage medium.

Speaking of, I have two spare RAID controllers: an Adaptec 6805 and a Broadcom 3ware SAS 9750-8i. Anyone interested?

[schmitt trigger]

I echo all of the previous comments.
Fortunately for all of these old timers, back in the "analog" film days, we weren't image hoarders....a good collection will be a hundred photos or so, whereas nowadays there could be much more than that on a single mobile phone.....

Which brings me to an interesting topic that was brought in a Ted Talk and Bicurico:
Whereas old, old writings in stone from ancient cultures can still be read two or three millennia after they were engraved, the newer and sophisticated storage technologies are quite perishable.
Not only their complexity makes a breakdown inevitable, but most importantly the advance of technology makes them incompatible.

Floppy disks in all its incarnations, magnetic tapes and cassettes, optical media. They are now obsolete or will be soon. One requires specific hardware/software to retrieve them.
Whereas with an old photo, the only required hardware are your eyes 

[CatalinaWOW]

The old has to make way for the new.  All technologies have their way for achieving this.  Paper has fire, flood, mice, bookworms, chemical decay and storage in the Indiana Jones warehouse.  Some of the newer technologies are faster.  Fortunately.  Since no one has time to go back and look at those photos, let alone annotate them with names, dates and places.

Which is a reminder to those who do choose to digitize photos to turn them over and see if the back needs digitized.

[schmitt trigger]

Of course! Otherwise we would still be using papyrus and quill pens.

Nevertheless it is a little ironic that old documents in general, have a longer shelf life than the more modern methods.

[vk6zgo]

 Some years ago, I bought a special slide/ negative scanner to digitise a large number of photo
Using it, I did about half the job & saved them to the hard drive on our then XP PC.

Most less complex  pictures came out OK, but several with rocks having a wide range of both colour & texture variations came out as "best guess" flat brown.
As it happened, the XP crashed, & in trying to get it back, I lost the pictures.

Luckily, I kept the original photos, so if I will be able to do it again.
This time, I will probably use an old fashioned slide duplicator & a digital camera to get the better image fidelity.

Many of the slides are about 50 years old, the dyes are still true colours, in fact, the only imperfections are some dust on them ( & those of the device looking through the viewfinder)

The digitised ones were lost in a couple of months.

[cdev]

Some years ago, I bought a special slide/ negative scanner to digitise a large number of photo
Using it, I did about half the job & saved them to the hard drive on our then XP PC.

Most less complex  pictures came out OK, but several with rocks having a wide range of both colour & texture variations came out as "best guess" flat brown.
As it happened, the XP crashed, & in trying to get it back, I lost the pictures.

Luckily, I kept the original photos, so if I will be able to do it again.
This time, I will probably use an old fashioned slide duplicator & a digital camera to get the better image fidelity.

Many of the slides are about 50 years old, the dyes are still true colours, in fact, the only imperfections are some dust on them ( & those of the device looking through the viewfinder)

The digitised ones were lost in a couple of months.

Down the "memory hole", as George Orwell put it.

If you're going to scan them again, it might make sense to do bracketed triple exposures, two stops each, that way you will be able to extract much more of the film dynamic range.

Its a bit like shooting "raw" images with a better digital camera.

By the way, have you ever tried the two programs which go under the name "testdisk" - They are available on Linux but I think they also are available on other platforms.

"TestDisk checks the partition and boot sectors of your disks.
 It is very useful in forensics, recovering lost partitions.
It works with :
 * DOS/Windows FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32
 * NTFS ( Windows NT/2K/XP )
 * Linux Ext2 and Ext3
 * BeFS ( BeOS )
 * BSD disklabel ( FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD )
 * CramFS (Compressed File System)
 * HFS and HFS+, Hierarchical File System
 * JFS, IBM's Journaled File System
 * Linux Raid
 * Linux Swap (versions 1 and 2)
 * LVM and LVM2, Linux Logical Volume Manager
 * Netware NSS
 * ReiserFS 3.5 and 3.6
 * Sun Solaris i386 disklabel
 * UFS and UFS2 (Sun/BSD/...)
 * XFS, SGI's Journaled File System

PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover
lost pictures from digital camera memory or even Hard Disks.
It has been extended to search also for non audio/video headers.
It searches for following files and is able to undelete them:
 * Sun/NeXT audio data (.au)
 * RIFF audio/video (.avi/.wav)
 * BMP bitmap (.bmp)
 * bzip2 compressed data (.bz2)
 * Source code written in C (.c)
 * Canon Raw picture (.crw)
 * Canon catalog (.ctg)
 * FAT subdirectory
 * Microsoft Office Document (.doc)
 * Nikon dsc (.dsc)
 * HTML page (.html)
 * JPEG picture (.jpg)
 * MOV video (.mov)
 * MP3 audio (MPEG ADTS, layer III, v1) (.mp3)
 * Moving Picture Experts Group video (.mpg)
 * Minolta Raw picture (.mrw)
 * Olympus Raw Format picture (.orf)
 * Portable Document Format (.pdf)
 * Perl script (.pl)
 * Portable Network Graphics (.png)
 * Raw Fujifilm picture (.raf)
 * Contax picture (.raw)
 * Rollei picture (.rdc)
 * Rich Text Format (.rtf)
 * Shell script (.sh)
 * Tar archive (.tar )
 * Tag Image File Format (.tiff)
 * Microsoft ASF (.wma)
 * Sigma/Foveon X3 raw picture (.x3f)
 * zip archive (.zip)"

---

There is also ddrescue and a new one I just saw recently, this is from the debian package..


"Magic Rescue scans a block device for file types it knows how to recover
and calls an external program to extract them. It looks at "magic bytes"
(file patterns) in file contents, so it can be used both as an undelete
utility and for recovering a corrupted drive or partition. As long as
the file data is there, it will find it.

Magic Rescue uses files called 'recipes'. These files have strings and
commands to identify and extract data from devices or forensics images.
So, you can write your own recipes. Currently, there are the following
recipes: avi, canon-cr2, elf, flac, gpl, gzip, jpeg-exif, jpeg-jfif,
mbox, mbox-mozilla-inbox, mbox-mozilla-sent, mp3-id3v1, mp3-id3v2,
msoffice, nikon-raw, perl, png, ppm, sqlite and zip.

This package provides magicrescue, dupemap and magicsort commands.
magicrescue is a carver and is useful in forensics investigations."

[cdev]

Don't trust CDROMs or DVDROMs. the quality of even the best DVDs is variable. I have had DVDROMs that inexplicably developed holes in the recorded area, just like that, holes. areas where the frigging thing became transparent.

It seems that even writing on the top with a permanent marker (thats how I have always labeled them!) can damage some of them.

Are CDs/DVDs better than hard drives in terms of reliability?

Only time will tell.

[cdev]

I have a Epson Perfection 2400 flatbed scanner that comes with a transparency scanner (a lid that contains a film illuminator) It does a great job with transparencies including slides, up to its native resolution of 2400 ppi. Which isnt a huge resolution but its good enough for anything that is going on the web. Its basically HD resolution. A dedicated film scanner is going to be able to give you much better performance but also cost a huge amount. At least three times as much for a decent one. However, you could also make one yourself using a reversed 35 mm lens in front of your digital camera. Such lenses are perfect for what you want to do and are available for very little, due to 35 mm film being out of fashion. You should consider this, you can attach them to the front of a modern DSLR, backwards.

My scanner also has something called "Digital Ice" which substantially reduces the effect of scratches in old film.  It wasn't expensive. Its a good middle ground between amateur and professional equipment that wont break the bank. the scanning software is pretty good and its even available on Linux. Actually, let me revise that, its very good for what it is. Epson has my loyalty for scanners. The Perfection was not at all expensive. I bought it refurbished at the Epson online store. It was maybe $75. Epson may have a similar store in China that sells refurbs. I bet they do. Their driver support is really good.

A 24 bit 192 khz sampling device is probably adequate for digitizing audio. Assuming you record it with care.

A good quality cassette deck is expensive and not so easy to find these days. I have an old sony TCW675 dual deck with digital counters, 100% analog all the way.. But you don't need a dual deck (unless you want to automatically play back two cassettes one after the other.) You just need one good one for digitization. Try to get one with Dolby C and a decent drive system. There is a wide variation in cassette deck quality.

Many old cassette decks would be ideal for duplicating old cassettes if you could find one in good shape.

Among my family’s collection, there are some old media: photographs, developed photographic films, family recordings on cassette tapes, out of print cassettes and an old book on the verge of disintegration. I am thinking about digitizing them for preservation. Questions:

1. Should I digitize them at all?
2. Will a normal flatbed scanner, specifically the one included in HP Deskjet Pro M1216nfh, suffice in digitizing the photos?
3. What equipment do I need to digitize the photographic films?
4. What kind of audiophoolery do I need to dip into in order to digitize the cassette tapes? My Cirrus Logic Audio Card for Raspberry Pi is currently my best audio recording device, capable of 24bit 192kHz sampling. Is this adequate? What caliber of tape deck do I need?
5. Should I even try digitizing the book? If so, how? What kind of equipment should I use?

[Halcyon]

Since you mentioned it, I actually have a composite/S-Video capture card, and my family collection does include a few Hi8 camera recordings. Those devices always gave me headaches because of deinterlacing and the (in)ability of running the capture card at full PAL resolution.

For all analog to digital video captures, I always feed it into a separate device which converts it to DV format, then out to my PC for capture in digital form. I use a Canopus ADVC-500 although the Canopus ADVC-100 is a very good little device (if you can get hold of one).

Not only does it take the analog signal and do the ADC for you, but it also cleans up a lot of the signal and keeps the audio and video in perfect sync.

I know Firewire is old technology, but it's PERFECT for capturing DV or HDV video converted from old analog video sources.

[helius]

Flatbed scanners as a rule do not perform as their specs would make you believe. Few can resolve more than 20 lp/mm, more like 800 to 1200 ppi, even if they advertise 6400. This is a result of the optical design, which has trouble keeping the media flat and cannot maintain a precise focus on the emulsion. For comparison, a high quality lens on a 35mm camera can resolve over 100 lp/mm and the best are around 150 lp/mm.
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/HPScanjetG4050.html
There are exceptions to this, like the Creo Eversmart and Aztek, but they are in the $50k range.

Compact cassettes usually have around 10 bits of resolution and roll off around 15 kHz. The very best decks (studio grade) respond up to 20 kHz when metal Type IV tapes are used, and have SNR as high as 80dB with noise reduction, around 14 bits of resolution.

[cdev]

You're lucky that stuff (and your family) made it through the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in one piece. 

[technix]

You're lucky that stuff (and your family) made it through the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in one piece.

That is the reason why I want to digitize at least some of them, especially the old photos that is becoming more flaky by the day.

[David Hess]

2. Will a normal flatbed scanner, specifically the one included in HP Deskjet Pro M1216nfh, suffice in digitizing the photos?

That flatbed scanner will work fine for photographs.

3. What equipment do I need to digitize the photographic films?

Film negatives require a dedicated scanner or a flatbed scanner with a backlight adapter.

4. What kind of audiophoolery do I need to dip into in order to digitize the cassette tapes? My Cirrus Logic Audio Card for Raspberry Pi is currently my best audio recording device, capable of 24bit 192kHz sampling. Is this adequate? What caliber of tape deck do I need?

Digitizing audio from tape is not demanding.  I used my Yamaha KX-930 to do this before digital recording became common but it was overkill then even with the line input of a dedicated PCI sound card.  If you have the original tape deck used to record the audio, then that would likely be ideal.  16 bits and 44.1kHz or 48kHz are completely adequate.

One thing which helps is to do noise removal after digitizing.  I used Sound Forge which had a function to record the spectrum of noise during a blank part of the recording and then subtract that from the whole recording.  This actually resulted in an improvement over the originals with background noise from things like air conditioning removed.

5. Should I even try digitizing the book? If so, how? What kind of equipment should I use?

A flatbed scanner works for books but if the pages cannot be removed or the spine cannot be bent far enough to lay the pages flat, the scans will be distorted.  There may be software to correct for this after scanning or the spine of the book may be cut off, a table saw works well, to separate the pages.

[cdev]

A foot switch to initiate the actual "scan" action helps a lot when you are doing scanning.

Then you can use both hands to position the material.

Also, there are Linux programs that can automatically clean up (adjust contrast, deskew /crop the pages you scan.

Don't throw away (or damage) your originals!

----

Also, the scanner I have (Actually it is a Perfection 4490 Photo) was both cheap (as a refurb) and has a built in transparency adapter, a good one.. It has a lighted lid for transparent originals.

It came in a plain white box.. which I still have (save it as its good for traveling)


Looking it up it seems like its still a current model.. despite my having bought it many years ago, also it has a native transparency resolution of 4800 x 9600 which is really quite good for something that inexpensive. I still use it a lot.

Seems I got a really good deal by buying it as a refurb.. I paid I think $99 at their (US) online store. There is likely to be some similar outlet in China or especially Japan. Worth trying to hunt down.

(amazon - us)
Price:    $329.99 + $9.49 shipping
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Get it by Feb. 19 - 21 when you choose Standard Shipping at checkout.
Ships from and sold by Shopping_Service_onLine.

    Professional level 4800 x 9600 resolution
    3.4 Dmax for wide dynamic range and greater image quality
    Powerful Epson Easy Photo Fix to restore faded color photos (there is also a Linux app)

    Built-in transparency unit with dedicated light source for better scan uniformity
    Versatile scanning with film holders for 35mm negatives, slides and 2 1/4 " transparencies

Used & new ( from $54.95 + $14.99 shipping

Using that you also can take large numbers of photographic negatives and scan them, and convert to positive. Without having to print them.

It lets you take a bunch of 35mm negatives in the standard length used for contact sheets, and scan them, then the software separates them out into individual frames. the software that comes with the scanner, which they even give you for Linux, (you have to download it) is really good. However, its a binary, so you will need to run it on a i386 or x86_64 machine, not a RPI. Or on Windows or Mac OS X.

Its better than anything else I've seen for scanning transparencies on Linux.