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Digitisation

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DIGITAL PRESERVATION SERVICES

UK Archiving provides specialised digitisation services that can be customised to fit your needs and guarantee consistent, clear, and widely accessible archival images.

ACCOMMODATING ALL MATERIALS:
ONSITE AND OFFSITE OPTIONS AVAILABLE

Whether on-site or off-site, we offer tailored digitisation solutions. Trust us to preserve your heritage items with care and expertise, no matter your location.

ON-SITE DIGITISATION

Would you prefer your items to remain within your premises and conduct the digitisation of your material on-site?

Our expert team can set up mobile capture stations at your location and conduct the entire project on-site.

OFF-SITE DIGITISATION

Our most popular option is to have any materials to be preserved transported to our Edinburgh office.

Materials are then stored at our Edinburgh office whilst the digitisation process takes place and returned to you either by courier or by our specialized staff.

What type of material do you want to preserve?

Bound Volumes
Artefacts & Objects
Microfilm & Microfiche
Documents & Ephemera
Photographic Mediums
Newspapers and Magazines
Large Formats Materials

Bound Volumes Description

We digitise materials using Phase One digital cameras, capturing them into RAW image files. RAW files hold unprocessed data and settings from the camera, allowing us to customise images to your needs. We convert them to accessible formats like TIFF, JPEG, or PNG, and create PDF surrogates when needed. Camera settings, like lens, exposure, and colour, can be adjusted per your request, and we can accommodate any file naming conventions.

Bound Manuscripts

Digitising bound manuscripts can involve working with various paper types and volume structures, accommodating complex foldouts. Using self-compensating book cradles and glass platens, we ensure flat, crisp images while interleaving for optimal quality. We capture cover-to-cover content, including spines, and can process single or double pages, splitting pages as necessary. Disbinding services are available upon request.

Visit our Additional Services page for more information.

Bound Volumes – Books, Journals, Burial Records

Digitising an array of bound volumes can involve employing various book cradles, including self-compensating ones with spine bars, V-cradles, and back supporters, along with glass platens when needed. Our process ensures flat, aligned images of each page, including covers, spines, foldouts, and loose materials within volumes. We offer single or double-page processing, with page splitting as needed. Disbinding services are available upon request.

Visit our Additional Services page for more information.

Artefacts and Objects

We digitise materials using Phase One digital cameras, capturing them into RAW image files. RAW files hold unprocessed data and settings from the camera, allowing us to customise images to your needs. We convert them to accessible formats like TIFF, JPEG, or PNG, and create PDF surrogates when needed. Camera settings, like lens, exposure, and colour, can be adjusted per your request, and we can accommodate any file naming conventions.

Artefacts and Objects

UK Archiving possesses the capability to digitise a wide range of 3D objects and artefacts, even those that are old or fragile. Our specialised equipment, including light tents, tripods, and mannequins for clothing items, allow for complete adaptability in preserving artefacts. We can adjust background colours to complement the object and capture from various angles to fully represent all dimensions of a 3D object.

Microfilm and Microfiche

Using our specialised scanning equipment, we can digitise your microfilm and microfiche, converting them into digital image formats such as TIFF, JPG, PDF, and more. This process guarantees digital accessibility for your microfilm and microfiche collections. We have the capability to digitise microfilm and microfiche of various types and sizes.

Microfilm and Microfiche

We have the facilities to scan your microfilm and microfiche into digital image formats, using our specialised scanning equipment. We can convert film into TIFF, JPG, PDF and more, allowing your microfilm and microfiche to be digitally accessible. We can digitise microfilm and microfiche of various types and sizes:

16mm Microfiche A roughly A6-sized microfiche, comprised of negative or positive strips. Each strip can hold up to 60-70 single pages maximum.
35mm Microfiche A roughly A6-sized microfiche, comprised of negative or positive strips. Each strip can hold up to 12 single pages maximum.
COM Microfiche A Computer Output Microfiche, holds up to 270 pages per fiche in an 18x15 grid of negative or positive strips. Usually used to preserve manuals and the like.
COMBI Microfiche A combination of 35mm and 16mm microfiche strips. Typically comprises of three 35mm images in one strip and 36 16mm images over three strips.
16mm Microfilm A 100ft continuous roll of negative or positive film wound onto a reel. 16mm microfilm can hold up to approximately 2500-3000 images.
35mm Microfilm A 100ft continuous roll of negative or positive film wound onto a reel. 35mm microfilm can hold up to approximately 1100 single page images.

Photographic Mediums

We digitise materials using Phase One digital cameras, capturing them into RAW image files. RAW files hold unprocessed data and settings from the camera, allowing us to customise images to your needs. We convert them to accessible formats like TIFF, JPEG, or PNG, and create PDF surrogates when needed. Camera settings, like lens, exposure, and colour, can be adjusted per your request, and we can accommodate any file naming conventions.

Photographs

To capture photographs, we typically utilise 55mm or macro lenses along with a flat camera bed. Items can be placed under glass to ensure a flat final image. We handle photographs with cotton gloves and can capture text on the back of photographs as well as the photographs themselves.

Glass Plate Negatives, 35mm Slides and Negatives

With our extensive experience in digitising photographic slides and negatives, we craft customised camera setups for optimal capture. This usually involves creating bespoke masks to fit the items, illuminating them from below, and employing macro lenses to capture intricate details. For negatives, polarity inversion can produce positive images. We always handle photographic materials with care, wearing cotton gloves.

Lantern Slides

We also offer digitisation services for lantern slides, employing customised camera setups for superior capture quality. Typically, we create bespoke masks for the items, illuminate them from below, above, or both, and use macro lenses for detailed capture. We handle slides with cotton gloves and can include text written on the slide border or present a clean image, depending on customer preferences.

Documents and Ephemera

We digitise materials using Phase One digital cameras, capturing them into RAW image files. RAW files hold unprocessed data and settings from the camera, allowing us to customise images to your needs. We convert them to accessible formats like TIFF, JPEG, or PNG, and create PDF surrogates when needed. Camera settings, like lens, exposure, and colour, can be adjusted per your request, and we can accommodate any file naming conventions.

Documents, Letters, Postcards, Leaflets etc.

For most unbound or loose paper items, we employ a flat camera bed and can capture under glass to ensure a flat final image. When digitising items like leaflets or documents with multiple pages, we can interleave them to clearly display each page. Our processing options include single pages, double page spreads, and page splitting.

Newspapers, Magazines and Comics

We digitise materials using Phase One digital cameras, capturing them into RAW image files. RAW files hold unprocessed data and settings from the camera, allowing us to customise images to your needs. We convert them to accessible formats like TIFF, JPEG, or PNG, and create PDF surrogates when needed. Camera settings, like lens, exposure, and colour, can be adjusted per your request, and we can accommodate any file naming conventions.

Newspapers, Magazines, Comics etc.

Whether bound, unbound, broadsheet, or tabloid, UK Archiving ensures top-tier digitisation for newspapers, magazines, and comics.

For unbound materials, we typically utilise flat camera beds and can capture items under glass to ensure a flat final image. When digitising bound newspapers, we employ various book cradles, most commonly a self-compensating book cradle with spine bars, ensuring cover-to-cover capture, including the spine as needed.

We offer interleaving to clearly display each page and can process items as single pages, double page spreads, and can page split when needed.

Visit our Additional Services page for more information.

Large Format Materials

We digitise materials using Phase One digital cameras, capturing them into RAW image files. RAW files hold unprocessed data and settings from the camera, allowing us to customise images to your needs. We convert them to accessible formats like TIFF, JPEG, or PNG, and create PDF surrogates when needed. Camera settings, like lens, exposure, and colour, can be adjusted per your request, and we can accommodate any file naming conventions.

Large Format Materials - Maps, Plans, Posters etc.

We possess the capacity to digitise items ranging from A2 to A0 in size and can modify our flat camera beds to suit larger formats. For items surpassing A0, we can capture them in sections and seamlessly stitch the images to recreate the original item digitally.

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Start Your Preservation Journey with UK Archiving

Whatever materials you need to preserve, UK Archiving has the skill, equipment, and expertise to digitise your items and preserve them in a convenient and high-quality digital format.

Our staff will take the utmost care to handle and capture any materials you have and produce crisp, consistent images that you can convert, transport, and share easily for many years to come. We have spent the last 30 years honing our craft and becoming a professional and reputable name in the preservation industry.

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