Imaging Guidelines and Image Archiving Practices

Digitizing Plant Specimens at The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium

Presented by: Michael BevansInformation Manager for Digitization

Background

• Imaging since 1998• Average 35,000 images

per year since 2006• 337,837 specimen images• 27.7 TB image archive

‒ 2.5 TB remaining

Rapid Digitization Projects

• Plants and Fungi of the Caribbean– 150,000 specimen images

• ADBC Plants Herbivores and Parasitoids– 240,000 specimen images

• ADBC Bryophytes and Lichens– 300,000 label images

• ADBC Macro Fungi– 90,000 label images

• 780,000 images• 16 TB– Caribbean and Plants and Bugs• 35 MB per image

– Bryophytes and Lichens and Macro Fungi• 6 MB per image

3 Year Projection

Archive Audit

• Thirteen years of legacy decisions• 2 types of RAW file formats– DCR soon to be obsolete

• Duplicate .TIFF files• Orphaned .SID files– Proprietary web derivative

• GPI scans– High resolution .TIFF files

GPI scans14.5 TB

Free2.5 TB

.TIFF7.58 TB

.CR22.5 TB

.SID.479 TB

.DCR.2TB

Housekeeping

• .TIFF and.SID files offline– All files stored on tape

• All legacy file formats converted to a standard format– Compress large file GPI

scans• 200 MB per image to less

than 90 MB per image

GPI scans7.5 TB

.DNG3.6 TB

FREE19 TB

Archive Policy

• Why archive?– Create new derivatives as technology evolves

• E.g. Higher resolution images online

– Don’t repeat digitization efforts

• Archive original camera capture as .DNG– .DNG is an open license ‘archival’ format– Preserves metadata in the file

• Parametric image editing

– Small file size

Expanded Imaging Capacity

• Low cost, easy to operate workstations– Less than $6000 each

• 21 megapixel camera• Copystand• Lightbox• Laptop

• Small footprint– 2’x4’

Imaging Lab

Standardized Production

• Fixed specimen position• Color bar and scale

included in margin– Standardized exposure

• Simplified file naming– Barcode only• v-081.1-00136401• 00136401

Results of Standardization

• Dramatically reduced user error– Fewer reshoots required

• Increased productivity– From 53 to over 85 exposures an hour*

• Over 200,000 images in the last 12 months – Over 4000 images by volunteers

* Eliminating barcode scanning at capture produces up to 200 exposures per hour

Imaging Workflow

Retrieve specimens from Herbarium

Photograph specimens

Add MetadataCreator, Copyright

ArchiveDNG

Export Derivatives

Batch OCRGrayscale Jpegs

Re-file specimens in Herbarium

Scan BarcodeRename file

Image ProcessingFilename/QC

KeEmu DatabaseFull Size, RGB Jpegs

Data + Jpegs Available Online

New Imaging Workflow

Retrieve specimens from Herbarium

Photograph specimens

Export Derivatives

ArchiveDNG

Filename QC

Batch OCRGrayscale Jpegs

KeEmu DatabaseFull Size, RGB Jpegs

Re-file specimens in Herbarium

Data + Jpegs Available Online

Image Processing

Bar-decode FilerBatch rename

Add metadataCreator, ©

For more information and a complete image processing workflow guide visit www.digitalphotorepro.blogspot.com

Thank you