Converting documents into pictures

[markjass]

In 2011 my house was damaged by an earthquake. In July it was demolished and is being rebuilt. I have been photographing the process. My aim is to put together a photo essay and then put it in a book (just for myself). I have numerous documents and letters, some of which are pdf and others which are printed. I want to include these. Am I best off scanning these or trying to photograph them. I will want to be able to manipulate these documents. I use lightroom 6 on my computer. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Mark

[rachel]

I am certain that the quality is much better if you can scan them. However for years I've been without a scanner and so have to use a camera. It often takes several attempts to avoid the document appearing skewed and to get the light right with no shadows and no reflections. After cropping they end up perfectly acceptable for my use and I suppose once you've got the set-up right you can do them all one after another. if it's only for yourself then probably the extra quality you might get from a scanner is unnecessary.

In the end it depends on what's convenient and on how much time and patience you have. I think home use scanners, one sheet at a time, can be incredibly slow and frustrating but if you had access to a big one which could auto-feed the originals through it could save loads of time.

Now tell us more about the eathquake

[MrB]

Converting any document into a PDF should be easy.
Then Photoshop Elements 10 will open PDF files, creating an image (with options for size and quality) for each page of the document. Each image can then be edited and saved in any image format. I can only assume that other versions of PS and Elements will do that similarly.
Alternatively, do a web search for "convert PDF to JPEG", which will reveal other options, some of which work online for free.

Cheers.
Philip

[Loose Canon]

I have numerous documents and letters, some of which are pdf and others which are printed. I want to include these. Am I best off scanning these or trying to photograph them. I will want to be able to manipulate these documents.

Converting to .pdf is easy. What isn’t so easy is writing to an existing .pdf. But it can be done.

Unless you have the capability of reading AND writing to existing .pdf’s (in other words a separate .pdf editing program or Adobe’s Acrobat paid version, which is rather costly), then what I would be looking at is scanning, and/or converting all documents you want to change into something like MS Word (.docx or your fave word processor’s native format) for manipulation. There are some on-line sources for conversions.

If you photograph them or have them in any image format file then you are not going to be able to manipulate them save for how you would edit any image. As an example you don’t want to be dealing with cloning out text and then trying to add text to an image file and making it look right. You want to be able to manipulate as you would in a word processing program.

Then, once you have them the way you want them you can save them back to a .pdf or whatever (.psd, .png, .tif, etc. in Photoshop) for submission to your book publisher. You can even get them to a .jpg if required at that point.

[proseak]

Scanning is way easier - flatbed scanners usually come with OCR software

[Manfred M]

I'm someone who prefers photographing documents to scanning them. This means you need at least a makeshift copy stand (camera with lights with diffusers at 45 degree angles to the document) and a glass cover plate. Once you have the setup, this process is much faster and much cleaner than a flatbed scanner. If the lights are properly positioned, there is NO glare from the glass.

If you go with a flatbed, you have to either be meticulously clean (in my experience that is nearly impossible to do) or spend a lot of time in editing cleanup up the dust.

PDF files can be manipulated in either Adobe Acrobat (the full product, not Reader) or Photoshop.

[xpatUSA]

One of no doubt many alternatives to Adobe Reader is Foxit (free download) which I have on my Adobe-free computer.

But they also do various other products for the PDF format, including an Editor/Creator/Reader (PhantomPDF Standard) for US $89:

https://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf-editor/
.

[Loose Canon]

So Ted?

You have Adobe .pdf files on your Adobe-free computer????

Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

[xpatUSA]

So Ted?

You have Adobe .pdf files on your Adobe-free computer????

Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

Yes and all those TIFF files, too. Terrible, ennit?

[pnodrog]

If you are using Lightroom 6 for editing it will be simplest to scan as jpeg rather than pdf.

[xpatUSA]

Am I best off scanning these [PDFs] or trying to photograph them. I will want to be able to manipulate these documents.
Thanks
Mark

What kind of manipulation did you have in mind, may I ask?

In Foxit Reader today, I was able to select and copy the following straight from a PDF into the clipboard then paste it into FastStone Viewer and then print it:



No doubt other Readers can do that too.

Not saying that's all you need; just mentioning one of the many possibilities.

[mikelilin]

Converting any document into a PDF should be easy.
Then Photoshop Elements 10 will open PDF files, creating an image (with options for size and quality) for each page of the document. Each image can then be edited and saved in any image format. I can only assume that other versions of PS and Elements will do that similarly.
Scanning is way easier - flatbed scanners usually come with online ocr software
Alternatively, do a web search for "convert PDF to JPEG", which will reveal other options, some of which work online for free.

Cheers.
Philip

there are many free pdf to image converters software and tool, you can search in google to choose one. most of them can convert pdf to jpeg, png and tiff.

[Geoff F]

I do quite a bit of this sort of thing for my local history society, Mark, as well as creating 'publications' for my own use; such as personal use wildlife identification guides etc.

The problem with photographing text is that it ends up being pixelated so the text isn't quite as sharp as 'real text'. The same issues occur when scanning documents where you are unable to scan them as text so using a photo type format (like Tiff or Jpeg) is the only option.

I get quite a bit of problems like that with historical work where I have to accurately reproduce a page so OCR scanning isn't an option. However where this is acceptable OCR does produce 'new text' which is perfect. The problem is that it might not look exactly like the original. For example when scanning an advert from an old publication which uses a mixture of type faces and I can't reproduce those fonts or spacings. At least not without a lot of work during editing.

And you do need to have OCR creation software. There are some free options but others are fairly expensive. But certainly worth considering for straight forward text like simple letters and other correspondence etc.

For best results, you will need to use a tripod and careful use of lighting if photographing documents.

Printed material containing photographs is another issue because the images will need to be descreened at a different setting from the text when scanned. So it means some individual work on each element then combining the two for the finished document.

Adjusting the scanning properties to increase contrast slightly will make text, from a document which has to be scanned as a photo format, stand out a bit better. You can lose the background paper while darkening the text. Something which is often desirable when scanning old publications.

I have found that scanning text directly in a PDF format often produces better results; if you have that option available.

So, whether to copy documents by scanning or photographing them is up to you and there are arguments for and against each alternative. Do a few test samples and see which works best for you.

How you assemble your final document will depend on your available software. I prefer Serif Page Plus which is a complete desktop publishing programme or Open Office as an alternative. Microsoft Word, and others, should also work OK. Just so long as you can incorporate text and images together. Preferably with the option to run text around images so your finished publication will look exactly like a professional article from a book or newspaper, etc.

Most publishing software will be able to include PDF material and turn it into the same format which is native to that software. So this shouldn't produce any difficulties; except for understanding how the software actually works!

With a little bit of care, you should be able to create a professional looking publication without too much personal strain.