Kirtas Bookscan Editing

Purpose: To make a first cut cleanup and edit of digitally scanned files processed by the Kirtas book scanner in preparation for optical character recognition (OCR) and file delivery via the Internet.  Steps below apply specifically to image laden yearbook files.

Log on to the editing workstation located in the Scanning Room (username= BigScanner; domain =FoglerLibrary)

Open the Bookscan Editor software by clicking icon on desktop

I. Batch Run Editing

• Select File --> Open --> My Computer (renamed Kirtas1 on desktop) --> K: drive --> "Books Scanned In" --> Prism [date]
• Resulting folder should have raw images and a thumbnail subfolder.
• Highlight thumbnail folder but do not open
• In resulting dialogue box click "open images processed" (not the 'open' button)
• Pages will load in left-hand navigation window.  This will take a minute or two. Drag the right edge of the bar out in order to display pairs of left and right pages.
• Select a left side page (eg.000046.jpg) somewhere in the middle of the document to serve as a template (least amount of curvature due to binding). 
• Icons appear across the top of the application window.  Generally work left to right through the icons for the various processing steps.
  • Rotate image - 90 degrees counterclockwise
  • If applies, Clamp removal (draw box around the clamp marks to remove using the draw tool)
  • Deskewing - select high open from dropdown menu
  • Crop - select manual; place drawing tool marker in upper left and draw around page; double click
  • Brightness - skip
  • Sharpen - skip
  • Text - skip
  • Remove background segmentation (applies to text only objects)
  • Select bitonal (text only)
  • Reduce to grayscale (for objects without color images)
  • Remove speckles - not useful; may remove periods on letters
• Repeat steps above for adjacent right side page (eg. 000047.jpg)
• After both page sides have a template click the verify parameters icon; resulting screen will display the changes you made and give you a change to tweak crop settings, etc.
• Output
  • Uncheck "Covers only" box in top left of screen
  • File format: Tiff (usually for bitonal text image)
  • Uncheck "LZW compression." ("No compression" should be checked.)
  • Resolution: 300 DPI (dots per inch); if higher quality required set at 600 DPI
• When parameter settings confirmed, click "Run Batch" icon.  Once started this process cannot be interrupted or saved part way.  It will take approx. one hour to run while the "Output" subfolder is created.   NOTE: Do not minimize the application window while running the Bookscan Editor software as it will shut the process down.

II. Individual Page Editing

• Reopen folder using path: My Computer --> K: drive --> "Books Scanned In" --> Prism [date] --> Output -->
• Select/highlight but do not open Temp... folder
• Pages will appear again in left-hand navigation bar.  Scan through, looking for pages that are crooked, clamp markings, skewing, multiple page edges, etc.
• Click page for right-hand editing display and select editing tools from icon bar as needed.  Note: icon arrangement slightly different from batch run mode.  Hover over icons with mouse to see function(s).  Most commonly used:
  • Deskewing (under Rotate icon) - select icon and resulting dialogue box places page in box with "dial" to align page.  Tip: to no align with outer edge of book as this may not be straight.  Do not overdo as may cause stretching of content.
  • Cropping - select page and then the crop icon.  This will open the raw image file for cropping.  Adjust as needed then save. May take a few seconds.
  • Erase tool - use for removing clamp images.  Select radio button to remove content inside drawn box. Click apply.  Draw box and click delete. Neutral color step???
• Work will be automatically saved from one session to another.  Simply note what page you left off with.
• When done with individual editing, drag completed yearbook folder from "Books Scanned In" to "Finished Books" folder. (Open two copies of K: drive file structure to accomplish drag and drop).
• Place physical volume in shelf labeled finished to be returned to Special Collections

TIPS:

1. To restore use of the frozen scroll bar in the page navigation window, catch the beige edge of the area with your mouse.  Contrast is very light so hard to see initially.
2. Quality control - Highlight thumbnails in left margin to control a range of pages while holding down the shift key
3. For speckled markings on margins, best to draw tightly around the centered text and remove outside margins.  For stray marks that appear on pages, encircle them and delete inside.

OPTION: Superbatch - can save templates for multiple year books in order to perform the "Run Batch" process against multiple volumes for overnight processing.

• Save parameters in job.xml
• Open Superbatch
• Add folder with the raw images