Formats

Capture standards are boring and they matter. These are ours; we will work to yours instead if you have them written down.

Capture

Loose paper

400 ppi, 24-bit colour, relative to the original size. Greyscale only where the original genuinely has no colour information.

Bound volumes

400 ppi on a cradle, opening angle limited to what the binding allows. No flattening, no disbinding.

Photographic prints

600 ppi, 48-bit colour, with the print border included.

Negatives and plates

2,400 ppi transmissive for 35 mm, 1,200 ppi for larger formats and glass.

Microfilm

Captured frame by frame at an effective 300 ppi of the original document.

Oversize

Maps and plans to A0 on a copy stand, or stitched from overlapping captures with the overlap documented.

Files

Preservation

TIFF 6.0, uncompressed, one file per image. JPEG 2000 (lossless) where storage is the constraint and you have agreed to it in writing.

Access

JPEG at quality 85, long edge 3,000 px, derived from the preservation file.

Text

Searchable PDF/A with an OCR layer for typescript. We do not claim OCR on handwriting and will not sell it to you.

Colour

Adobe RGB (1998) embedded, with a colour target captured at the start of each session and retained with the batch.

Naming

Your reference if you have one; otherwise collection-box-item, zero padded.

Delivery

Two USB drives, posted separately, each carrying the full delivery and a manifest with checksums. Online transfer is available for access files; preservation masters usually are not worth the upload for either of us.

What we do not do

Conservation treatment — we stabilise nothing and repair nothing; if an item needs a conservator we will say so. Audio and moving image. Anything that requires cutting a binding. Web archiving. And we do not host your files: the delivery is yours, and we delete our working copies three months after sign-off unless you ask otherwise.