Photographing books, other texts and non-flat photos through glass.

[Keen Learner]

Thank you for that, Brian.

I have just checked in my two books about Canon 70Ds and also online and, unfortunately, it seems that I do NOT have the option to rename the files in-camera.

That is not a problem for me, though, as I can either use (a) "Collections" in Adobe Lightroom CC (which is OK as long as the photos stay in the same Catalogue on the same computer) or (b) batch rename a group in Adobe Bridge CC (for a more permanent solution).

Being a devotee of Excel, I will almost certainly devise some sort of spreadsheet as a failsafe breadcrumb trail back to safety!

Thanks for the tip, though. Much appreciated.

[Dave Humphries]

If I were to make every shot (and scan) a JPEG, won't I suffer losses each time I save the file or would that just be the end format after all manipulation had been done?

If you open a jpg, edit it (in say PS CC), save it, close it, open it (perhaps another day), edit it, save it - repeatedly, then yes, it will degrade with each new save. However, as long as you leave the image open in the editor while making successive saves, it won't degrade. The problems arise with the save > close > open > save sequence, whereas open > edit > save > edit > save > edit > save, will be OK if done in one session. (this is probably what you meant)

I save at jpg quality 9 of 12, or 75%, if you think you might need to do things 'the bad way', you might want to increase that to 10 or 11 (out of 12), but each increase expands the file size.

I have never tinkered with pdf images.

Cheers, Dave

[Mike Buckley]

The issue of degradation occurring with multiple savings of JPEGs in my mind is generally wildly overblown. If you're saving a JPEG so many times when completing this project that the degradation indeed becomes noticeable, your workflow needs to be dramatically improved if for no other reason than to save you huge amounts of time.

[Keen Learner]

Fascinating extra input, Dave. Thank you for educating me on when the damage saving a jpg occurs. I did not know that.

Where or how do you differentiate "jpg quality"?

Put another way, where can you choose your numbers (your "10 or 11 of 12") or your (75%) percentage and is this in-camera or, more likely, on the computer?

I have not come across that either.

I liked your use of "tinkered" (re the PDFs)!

Thanks.

[Keen Learner]

The issue of degradation occurring with multiple savings of JPEGs in my mind is generally wildly overblown. If you're saving a JPEG so many times when completing this project that the degradation indeed becomes noticeable, your workflow needs to be dramatically improved if for no other reason than to save you huge amounts of time.

That makes a lot of sense, Mike.

I would hope to take a series of photos or scans and then do all the post-capture work (if that proves necessary) and then hopefully never ever change anything thereafter but that is probably setting my sights far too high.

I hope to be working on the actual books first in Microsoft Word and then in Adobe InDesign, the desktop publishing software, and I am pretty sure that both of those applications may well throw up a whole load of new issues.

I also want to learn how to design and administer a website and a MySQL or MariaDB database and they may cause me to make changes to my workflow.

Finally, and just when I think I have everything all nicely tickety-boo, the book-printer or book-publisher may come in with a whole raft of new requirements so I am aware that there will almost certainly be many moments of "grief" along the way and I suppose that is actually a pretty good argument for *not* disposing of all the originals.

All food for much thought!

[Mike Buckley]

I highly recommend that you go through the entire process using a dozen images that include the various styles. Create a 15-page book to include a title page and Forward. Get it printed.

You will understand all the considerations to take into account only when you have gone through the entire process. It would be a shame to go through the entire process using hundreds or even thousands of images only to realize that you need to make a major change in Step 2 of your workflow!

[loosecanon]

If using lightroom it is easy to set up the renaming, so long as you have just one image of each page. When importing use copy which opens up the rename options , just make it bookname, sequence as a three figure number, ie starting 001, and then add A for left hand pages or B for righthand pages.

If you want to spend the money Kaiser Photo make specialist copy equipment including book copy holders of various types with glass pressure plates, lighting and even a cover to exclude uncontrolled external light from a copy set up.

Remember a macro lens is designed to produce a flat field and minimise distortions at close focusing distances, and a longer lens reduces the distortion from pages which don't lie flat - a Canon 100mm or Tamron 90mm are ideal.

[Dave Humphries]

Where or how do you differentiate "jpg quality"?

Put another way, where can you choose your numbers (your "10 or 11 of 12") or your (75%) percentage and is this in-camera or, more likely, on the computer?

I have not come across that either.

jpg quality is set whenever a jpg is saved;

In camera, there are usually only three choices, named such as; Fine, Normal or Basic (= Nikon D7100), I always use Fine

On computer (in PS CC), if you have an image open,

when you click Save,
choose the "JPEG (*.JPG; *.JPEG; *.JPE)" from the drop list as the 'Save as type',
another pop up box appears providing 'JPEG Options', in this dialog, I proceed as follows;

Matte = None

Quality = I type 9 in to the numeric box* (instead of selecting from the drop list of named qualities (Low = 3, Medium = 5, High = 8, Maximum = 10). In practice, I note you can also drag the slider on file size scale to change the quality and it actually goes down to 0, I just find it quicker/safer to type 9 in the box.

In Format Options, I leave "Baseline (Standard)" selected, other options are; Baseline Optimized or Progressive - I have no idea if one of those might be better with regard to future editing (perhaps someone else can advise?), since I always shoot RAW**

Asterisk Notes:

* I use jpg quality 9 (on a scale that ranges from 1 to 12) because when I first started serious digital photography, I wanted to know which was sufficient, so I tested the various levels vs the quality (and I knew what artefacts to look for), I could detect no difference between 9, 10, 11, and 12 for displaying images, just an increase in file size. Below 9, I could see a difference. If you might (in future) edit a saved jpg, I suggest a higher number would be safer, as said in my earlier post.

** If I do start processing from a jpg original, I would never edit and save over that original (with same file name), I would always save with a slightly different file name, so if I do want/have to revisit a file, I still have the original to start from, avoiding the 'cascading save' degradation.

However; if I do need to break off an edit session (whether original was RAW or jpg), I save in psd format, then open that up the following day to continue, (I believe) this ensures no loss of quality and also preserves any layers, etc., I might be using.

Cheers, Dave

PS - I definitely support Mike's idea of a short trial run of the entire process, using a cross-section of all original formats; e.g. B&W photo(s), Colour photo(s), a few consecutive pages from a couple of books, map/chart/certificate, newspaper clippings (because you may get moire issues with photos in these), etc.

[Keen Learner]

Wow! You fine gentlemen most certainly open my eyes to more and more very valid considerations!

I can certainly see the value in going through the entire process from start to finish (i.e. all the way to finished book) as a short dummy run but that rather forces me to go and find a book-printer, which is something that I had down for very much later on in the whole process.

This is most certainly an excellent new approach to the whole project so I will bring the whole business of trialling pages in InDesign and then finding someone to print and bind my books much nearer to the top of my To-Do-List. Thank you.

It seems so obvious now!

I will also trial loosecannon's renaming process: I haven't used the "Copy" feature before. Thanks for the tip.

As to the Kaiser copy-stands, I have indeed had a look at them, but only online. I have even spoken to the firm that imports them into the UK when I was trying to find a retailer local to me where I could actually see some for real and fiddle around with them a bit. However, I couldn't believe how incredibly expensive they were so I desisted at that point. From memory their top metal table model was not far short of GBP 5,000!!! That is why I am starting off using MDF rather than what must surely be either the very best hand-crafted German steel or finished off in solid gold! My guess is that they would also be incredibly heavy to move from A to B and so would end up only being usable here at home. I ideally want something that I can transport to other people´s homes.

Thanks for the thoughts about macros and 90-100mm lenses: I will try out all of my lenses and see which ones seem to work best. I may yet go the enlarger lens and bellows route and, for some of the really small items, I may even look at getting a focussing rail (to assist with focus stacking) having spent a lot of last night looking at this very interesting clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzVD95-9YOU

And now to Dave's last post: thank you so much for a real master-class in how to set the quality of jpgs on and off camera.

I have not really ventured into the, for me, still mysterious and rather "frightening" world that is Photoshop. Whereas becoming really proficient in Lightroom seems to award you an honorary MSc, becoming truly proficient in Photoshop seems to elevate you all the way up to PhD status!

A few professional photographers told me right at the very outset of this project that they always did as much as they possibly could in Lightroom and only went to Photoshop on the relatively few occasions when they just could not do what they wanted to do in Lightroom: this was mainly retouching work. I have therefore left Photoshop for "later on", as I am, and I really must repeat this, a complete newbie in all of this stuff and I have so far only just "dipped into" a few pages in my door-stop books on Photoshop although I have done a bit more reading on Lightroom.

That said, I will try out all your steps on some of my "dud shots" that I don't want to keep and then see at what point I can see the degradation in quality appearing on screen.

I had absolutely no idea when I had the sudden brainwave of investing what for me has been "a shedload of money" in top-end digital photography and scanning kit and software rather than constantly paying GBP 375 every 4 weeks for a commercial storage unit for all of the boxes (which are now safely stacked up very high in my garage after their 6-month spell in a giant warehouse) that this "little project" would just grow and grow and grow but then people very much wiser than I have always said that it is the journeying that is so important and such fun in life and not just the arrival at the final destination! So much truth in that!

I am beginning to feel that I will have to keep a chunk of what's left of my savings to throw a *major* garden party at Buckingham Palace for all of you kind folk when my books finally see the light of day! You will certainly deserve a "glorious mention" on my "Acknowledgements" pages!

Thank you again for opening my eyes even wider, all over again.

[Manfred M]

Clive - a few more thoughts to throw your way.

I assume that the books and photos you will be copying are predominantly B&W? If this assumption is correct, then let me throw another "fact" at you concerning the use and quality of jpegs. Most better modern cameras shoot 14-bit RAW images, whereas jpegs are 8-bit, so the largest part of the compression in a jpeg comes from going from 14-bits to 8-bits, and this is where most of the space savings comes from.

The second bit of the jpeg process is the "lossy" compression part. Here the compression algorithms will throw out colour data that is "close" and make them all the same. The higher the compression, the wider the "net" of lumping different shades together and unifying them. When you have three colour channels; R,G and B, you can do a lot of mixing and matching with various results.

Once you go to B&W the situation is a bit different. In a "pure" B&W situation all three colour channels should have identical values for each tone in gray scale, so the amount of of data that can be thrown away in lossy compression is rather limited and I find less discernible differences between high and low quality settings. You might want to test this yourself to see how this impacts your work. Real life is going to be a tiny bit more complicated, as real paper is not pure white and will have some levels of yellow and red in them. Photographic papers often contained "optical bleaches" which fluoresced under UV light and look a touch bluer; but given the age of the documents, the likelihood of optical bleaches still being in the papers is low as they tend to deteriorate over time.

The other fallacy out there is that re-saving a jpeg will result in additional data loss. This is simply not true, so long as you save at the same quality level. You can test this yourself, take a jpeg and re-save it 100 times and compare the two images. They should be identical. Running the same data through the same compression algorithm will give you identical results.

Your comment about how commercial photographers rarely use anything other than Lightroom for their work. I'm willing to bet that you spoke to wedding or portrait photographers, not landscape or fine art photographers. The wedding / portrait business market means that the photographers have to get the shot right in camera as they simply do not have the time to do a lot of retouching.

Landscape and fine art photographers spend almost 100% of their time in Photoshop and will only use Lightroom as a raw converter.

If you go the copy stand and bellows route, I also suggest you look at using an enlarging lens (via an adapter) rather than a normal camera lens for your work. Enlarging lenses are designed to work with a flat image and have very even (minimal lens vignetting) lighting. The Schneider-Kreuznach Componon lenses are stunningly good. The 50mm lens is designed to handle FF / 35mm format. One other thing to watch for with bellows is ensuring that they do not creep. Mikes previous comment on lens creep on zoom lenses can be an issue with cheap bellows where you can get focus creep.

You had also asked about multiple cameras in tethered shooting in Lightroom. No, one camera at a time. I personally rarely use Lightroom for this type of work as I find it unreliable / unstable and I lose camera connectivity quite frequently. This usually means I have to restart Lightroom to try to get it back and sometimes, I have to reboot the computer to do so. I've pretty well 100% switched to Phase One Capture One for tethered capture.

[Saorsa]

That seemed odd to me so I checked the US Manual on line. It seems that the Canon Method provides for creating and naming folders under the DCIM folder.

It appears that the technology for this project will be less important than workflow once you get started.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Clive,

Artefacts are created with each jpg created, based on what they were created from, if that changes, as it will when you close the file, then re-open it to edit further (this would be bad workflow practice) - the image will degrade on each 'cycle'.

Something Manfred said cannot always be taken at face value, I have highlighted the relevant part that causes this to potentially be untrue. It is also possible Manfred and/or you might have mis-understood me.

The other fallacy out there is that re-saving a jpeg will result in additional data loss. This is simply not true, so long as you save at the same quality level. You can test this yourself, take a jpeg and re-save it 100 times and compare the two images. They should be identical. Running the same data through the same compression algorithm will give you identical results.

jpg compression works by assessing the image in 8 x 8 pixel blocks.

It is my belief/experience that if you do anything to the image that results in a change in where the blocks of pixels are counted from*, or what they contain**, the 'data will change', resulting in a different result from the compression algorithm for each 8 x 8 block, this will also assess the jpg artefacts leftover from last time (if file closed and re-opened). It is also likely that changing the quality setting or format will also result in a different answer and this may compound the problems, creating more artefacts on the next generation.

* e.g. cropping the image, especially from left or top edges, if I were to guess
** e.g. rotating to get the image vertical - or applying any perspective correction


I have no experience of working with monochrome jpg files, so I'll defer to Manfred's knowledge and experience on those.

That said, I will try out all your steps on some of my "dud shots" that I don't want to keep and then see at what point I can see the degradation in quality appearing on screen.

I have a background in broadcast TV and have been trained to look for compression artefacts, if you don't have that knowledge, you may not spot the differences between say; 9, 10, 11 in jpg quality and indeed, they may not even be noticeable after one pass, you may need to do say 3 passes, each time editing along the lines of what I have said will 'stress' the jpg compression algorithm. If I were you, I wouldn't bother, just use, say 10, or 11 - or, avoid the problem by using another format and/or using jpg, but with a workflow that avoids '~ save > close > open > edit ~' repeatedly.

So, to give an example, this is what you should NOT do if working with jpg;
a) photograph or scan and save as jpg, repeat for all pages in a book
b) open each file in turn, rotate to get vertical and save as jpg, close file
c) the following day, open each file in turn and crop to standard size, then save as jpg, close file
d) open each file in turn and do something else; e.g. adjust colours, etc., then save as jpg, close file

Now the chances are, you'd open each file and go through those steps and do them all in one edit session (that is best practice), further - it doesn't matter if you Save repeatedly while the image remains open in the edit (this is where you could do it 100 times without degradation).

I hope that clears up any possible confusion.
Cheers, Dave

[Keen Learner]

Please forgive me for the very long delay in reverting to you all: it was due to my end-of-week childcare duties and then trying to investigate NoSQL "document stores", and MongoDB in particular, as potential non-relational database repositories for organising and sorting through all of my (and other people's) inevitably jumbled-up memories whilst I am doing all of the photography and scanning work.

First to Manfred:

Yes, you are right that almost everything (apart from all my Pa's and my own colour transparencies and a few books) will be in B&W.

I was very interested to read all you wrote on the steps that are taken between RAW and jpg and then the "lossy" compression.

Well wagered as you won your bet! I had indeed been speaking to (a) a professional portrait photographer and (b) a professional wedding photographer! So, top marks for guessing right there!

As I do not intend to do any enlarging of my photos for the foreseeable future, I had not given any thought to using enlarging lenses and therefore had not come across Schneider Optics. I have noted the name and will pursue this as so much of my future photography work will be dealing with flat format subjects.

Thank you for the warning about "creep" on bellows-mounted lenses as well as on any zoom lenses that are used pointing vertically downwards.

I have been lucky so far in not having had all that many connection problems with Lightroom: this is possibly due to either the quality of my new USB 2.0 cable or the fact that, due to its long length, it is a powered cable.

I had not heard about the (Danish, as I have just discovered) "Phase One Capture One" tethered camera software but I am making a note of it now just in case I have problems in the future using Lightroom for this.

Then to Brian:

I have just re-checked my "Canon EOS 70D Digital Field Guide" and it seems that every time the camera has stored 100 files, it then creates the next numbered (as opposed to renamed) folder thereafter. There is also the possibility of using "Auto Reset" and "Manual Reset", but once again, it seems, using numbered rather than renamed folders.

Then to Dave:

You have been "Clarity itself!" Thank you for going to so much time and trouble.

I can obviously see that it would be best workflow practice to work on one photo at a time, do everything needed to it and then not re-open and re-save it again but my fear is that, as I learn, so I will want to revisit what I do (and have done!) to the photos, as my skill level will (very hopefully) be far higher at the end of the very last "millionth" photo or scan than when I did the first ones. There was a helpful comment earlier on in one of the posts above suggesting that I end up with all scans and photos in just the one format so I may now look at taking all my shots in dual RAW and jpg formats so that I can go back to the original RAW file if I make a real mess of any of the jpg files and have to start all over again from the RAW file. My initial instinct was to avoid this due to the sheer number and size of the dual files and the resultant very heavy demand on disk storage space (even though I have no less than seven external hard drives at the moment to give me "belt and braces" cover as they fail so often).

It will take me a wee while to get cracking on all of this (as I have a great many other pressures on my time) but I will most certainly report back to the Forum if I stumble across anything that I think might be of interest or help to anyone reading this thread in future.

My thanks again for everything that everyone has contributed so far. It has been a truly positive experience for me and I am very grateful to everyone who has rushed in to help.

[felixmo]

I copy a few lines from my earlier (and first) post to the "New Member" Forum, just as background for this new thread in the "General Photography Discussion" Forum.

***

"My main current interest is therefore in photographing the widest possible number of our family's own possessions, very much including old documents and photos, some of which date back to the last century.

The reason I have invested in two "identical" Canon EOS 70D camera backs, two "identical" Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Lenses and two "identical" UV filters is to use them to quickly take simultaneous photos of all the opposing pages, two at a time, of, say, a handwritten diary.

For that purpose, I need to design, and then have fabricated somewhere in the UK, a hinged "book cradle" (to allow for books where the pages do not open out completely flatly) with appropriately-sized clear glass "plates" to press the pages down in such a way as to avoid all distortions in the images I take."

***

I have found someone today, who may be able to fabricate a wooden "cradle" for me so that is a major leap forwards but the issue of what sort of glass, the thickness and where to acquire it from all remain to be answered.

What sort of glass should I try and acquire that will not lead to distortions or artefacts in the photos that I will be taking?

I have been told by the owner of a top-end photo-lab that I should avoid so-called "non-reflective glass", as its often acid-etched or specially coated surface will apparently play havoc with my end-results.

What thickness should the glass ideally be or, if I go for the "Low Iron" glass that someone suggested I try, maybe I will not have all that much choice as to the thickness, as it might just come in one standard thickness?

I would be most grateful to hear of how others have surmounted these issues and send my thanks in advance for any comments back.

[felixmo]

I live in Sydney Australia and wanted to digitise my library of books and magazines. Flat bed scanners take too long so I was seeking a quicker solution. I found a product in the US that may suit your purposes. It works a treat. The guy behind it, Jonathon Duerig is extremely patient and gave me lots of help making sure I set everything up correctly and now I have scanned a 500 page book in a little over half an hour. You can either buy the product or go the site where there are guides as to how to build one yourself and what materials you will have to gather. Here are the links:

http://tenrec.builders/

and

http://www.diybookscanner.org/archivist/

I copy a few lines from my earlier (and first) post to the "New Member" Forum, just as background for this new thread in the "General Photography Discussion" Forum.

***

"My main current interest is therefore in photographing the widest possible number of our family's own possessions, very much including old documents and photos, some of which date back to the last century.

The reason I have invested in two "identical" Canon EOS 70D camera backs, two "identical" Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Lenses and two "identical" UV filters is to use them to quickly take simultaneous photos of all the opposing pages, two at a time, of, say, a handwritten diary.

For that purpose, I need to design, and then have fabricated somewhere in the UK, a hinged "book cradle" (to allow for books where the pages do not open out completely flatly) with appropriately-sized clear glass "plates" to press the pages down in such a way as to avoid all distortions in the images I take."

***

I have found someone today, who may be able to fabricate a wooden "cradle" for me so that is a major leap forwards but the issue of what sort of glass, the thickness and where to acquire it from all remain to be answered.

What sort of glass should I try and acquire that will not lead to distortions or artefacts in the photos that I will be taking?

I have been told by the owner of a top-end photo-lab that I should avoid so-called "non-reflective glass", as its often acid-etched or specially coated surface will apparently play havoc with my end-results.

What thickness should the glass ideally be or, if I go for the "Low Iron" glass that someone suggested I try, maybe I will not have all that much choice as to the thickness, as it might just come in one standard thickness?

I would be most grateful to hear of how others have surmounted these issues and send my thanks in advance for any comments back.