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Federal Agencies Digitization Initiative Still Image Working Group — August 2010 |. INTRODUCTION Context The Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials: Creation of Raster Image Master Files represents shared best practices followed by agencies participating in the Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) Still Image Working Group for digitizing cultural heritage materials. This group is involved in a cooperative effort to develop common digitization guidelines for still image materials (such as textual content, maps, and photographic prints and negatives) found in cultural heritage institutions. These Guidelines were prepared by members of the working group during the winter of 2009-2010. This document draws substantially on the National Archives and Records Administration’s Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Archival Records for Electronic Access: Creation of Production Master Files — Raster Images (June 2004), but has been revised and updated in several areas to reflect the current recommendations of the working group and to reflect changes that have occurred in the digitization field during the last five years. Readers will find updated sections covering equipment and image performance metrics, quality management, and metadata in this revision. For more information on the activities of the FADGI Still Image Working Group, please see http://www.digitizationguidelines.gov/. Purpose One of the tasks of the FADGI Still Imaging Working Group is to develop digital imaging guidelines that encourage and reflect collaborative digitization practices among federal agencies (and other interested institutions) in order to provide the public with images of uniform quality, and to provide a common set of practices and technical benchmarks for digitization service providers and manufacturers. In the context of the work of the FADGI Still Imaging Group, some of the primary objectives of these Guidelines are to: # Provide an approach to digitization that is practical today =" Describe technical parameters that promote a “well-defined” imaging environment # Provide a consistent approach to imaging and metadata collection that will be appropriate for a wide range of outputs and purposes = Define a common set of quality or performance metrics to be used in describing and evaluating the digital object, as well as methods of validating those measures to defined requirements = Lay the groundwork for issues the Still Imaging Working Group intends to focus on in the coming months for potential incorporation into these Guidelines, including: metric aims and limits for imaging performance and quality specifications; color encoding accuracy; master and derivative file formats; transmissive image analysis targets; full lifecycle quality management plan; objective and subjective image performance analysis, and embedded/minimal metadata, among others These Guidelines define approaches for creating high quality digital copies of originals used primarily for facilitating online access and hardcopy reproduction. They may be considered appropriate for preservation purposes (to create copies that could replace the original), but this largely depends on the local or internal policies of an organization. Therefore, the recommendations in this document may not be appropriate for all preservation uses (for example, scientific analysis). Master files These Guidelines provide technical approaches to the creation of raster image (pixel-based) master files. In creating master files, the primary objective is to produce digital images that look like the original items and to create a “reasonable reproduction” without enhancement. However, practice may vary from institution to institution regarding the amount of processing or editing that is performed on master files. Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials: Creation of Raster Image Master Files TANTEI P