Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

[William Shaw]

Is this an efficient workflow for archiving paper copies of British birth certificates?
1) Scan both ends of this extra-long form as temporary tiff files, then stitch both sides together with Panorama Stitcher and archive single tiff as original.
2) Convert tiff to pdf using Preview and store pdf as Reunion Document. Add auxiliary scans such as annotated envelops or notes on back as additional pages to the pdf.
3) Cite pdf in Reunion as Birth Source.

This seems to create large files though, as the pdfs are still fairly large. Should I convert them to black and white instead of keeping the color of the red ink entries and the background sepia these hundred-year old certificates have gained?

Thank you for any advice.

Bill

[A Hougie]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

I do not bother scanning the reverse - it is standard printed text that doesn't provide any actual information, so I just scan straight to PDF. I like them in colour but again that isn't information and is just my personal preference.

[William Shaw]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

I do not bother scanning the reverse - it is standard printed text that doesn't provide any actual information, so I just scan straight to PDF.

My mistake: both ends, not both sides. My scanner is too small to scan the entire document.

[A Hougie]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

My mistake: both ends, not both sides. My scanner is too small to scan the entire document.

Sorry for misunderstanding. For these older ones, which are long and narrow, a single A4 (or US letter) scan will not work. I do something similar to you but I have access to a Windows PC as well as my Mac and do my scans to jpeg and stitch them together in Windows. I don't then convert to PDF but use the stitched jpeg.

An alternative might be to take a photo on a phone and crop?

[alan]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

My mistake: both ends, not both sides. My scanner is too small to scan the entire document.

I'm using an Epson Artisan multifunction printer and my UK certificateswill just about fit on the scanner to take a copy. I usually leave it in a.jpg format.
The only thing that I cut off/crop is the front (left) edge as per the attachment below;

[Tom Robinson]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

It would be worth experimenting with the Notes app on an iPhone — it has the capability to straighten and clean photos:

https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/ios-11-document-scanner-notes/

[A Hougie]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

I'm using an Epson Artisan multifunction printer and my UK certificateswill just about fit on the scanner to take a copy. I usually leave it in a.jpg format.
The only thing that I cut off/crop is the front (left) edge as per the attachment below;

UK certificates come in more than one size. This looks like a modern A4 certificate. Historically (and sometimes even now) they came as much longer and much thinner.

[Jan Powell]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

Is this an efficient workflow for archiving paper copies of British birth certificates?
1) Scan both ends of this extra-long form as temporary tiff files, then stitch both sides together with Panorama Stitcher and archive single tiff as original.
2) Convert tiff to pdf using Preview and store pdf as Reunion Document. Add auxiliary scans such as annotated envelops or notes on back as additional pages to the pdf.
3) Cite pdf in Reunion as Birth Source.

This seems to create large files though, as the pdfs are still fairly large. Should I convert them to black and white instead of keeping the color of the red ink entries and the background sepia these hundred-year old certificates have gained?

Thank you for any advice.

Bill

I don't scan them at all.

Instead I use either of two methods, whichever produces the better result:
* I use my iPhone to photograph the whole certificate. Standing high above helps, either on a chair if the cert is on the table, or laying the cert on the floor and standing over it. Then I use the crop facility on the phone to take out the excess (table, carpet, whatever).
* Use the panorama setting on my iPhone to photograph the cert. This requires a steady hand and a keen eye to make sure you follow the "horizon" line on the phone.

After that, it is easy to import the image to Reunion in the usual fashion.

I've also had success with these methods when photographing parish registers, ships registers, Intentions to Marry, etc. Any document too large to scan.

[John Hill]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

UK certificates come in more than one size. This looks like a modern A4 certificate. Historically (and sometimes even now) they came as much longer and much thinner.

When the certificate is too long I scan one end then the other, and join them at the pixel level with a graphics app.

[jbastin]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

Is this an efficient workflow for archiving paper copies of British birth certificates?
1) Scan both ends of this extra-long form as temporary tiff files, then stitch both sides together with Panorama Stitcher and archive single tiff as original.
2) Convert tiff to pdf using Preview and store pdf as Reunion Document. Add auxiliary scans such as annotated envelops or notes on back as additional pages to the pdf.
3) Cite pdf in Reunion as Birth Source.

This seems to create large files though, as the pdfs are still fairly large. Should I convert them to black and white instead of keeping the color of the red ink entries and the background sepia these hundred-year old certificates have gained?

Thank you for any advice.

Bill

When I have a document that is difficult or not possible to scan, whether because it's too large, a page in a book or some other problem. I use Scanner Pro by Readdle on my iPhone.

https://readdle.com/scannerpro

It does an admirable job, enabling me to move the size and shape of the image on the screen, getting just the content I want. It enables saving the document as a PDF, which I frequently then save in DEVONthink on my Mac to enable use of its OCR capability.

This method has enabled saving many documents that could not be obtained any other way.

Hope this helps.

[William Shaw]

Re: Best Practice for scanning British birth certificates?

ScannerPro works really well for what it does and I use it for recipes, clippings, posters, etc. I've committed to having a solid archive (in tiff) of all the paper entrusted to my physical library in case of fire, so they are scanned, where I can reduce complications with lighting, shadows, creases and folds. My research over the years suggests the best formats are tiff for archive, pdf for document publication (such as Reunion) and jpg for graphic elements such as photos.

However, "...over the years..." runs back to before the Mac even existed and I was hauling around a 35pound Compaq Portable, so my research may be a bit dated; hence my question at to any consensus on what current best practices might be.

Bill

[alan]

This looks like a modern A4 certificate. Historically (and sometimes even now) they came as much longer and much thinner.

In case it is mis-leading, this certficate is a UK long version. and all I did was to bend under the left hand edge (which has nothing on it all) and it fits my scanner. Later versions were more of an A4 size which again can be scanned perfectly.
As a matter of interest, some Aust. (Comemorative) birth certs. are available in a size more like A3. My g/son's was and I had to take it a print shop with facilities to scan and stitch into one document (A4). The join is hardly noticeable.
Alan