Our book scanning service is designed around one principle: preserve the book while creating the highest-quality digital record possible.
We use non-destructive scanning methods that allow books to be digitized without cutting, unbinding, or otherwise permanently altering the original volume. This makes our approach particularly suited to rare books, fragile volumes, family collections, historical materials, and other books where preservation of the physical original matters.
Each book is handled with care throughout the scanning process, with the aim of faithfully capturing its pages while minimizing stress on the binding and structure. The result is a high-resolution digital copy that provides convenient access to the contents while allowing the original book to remain intact.
Digitize the contents. Preserve the book.
More Than OCR: High-Quality Digital Images
A good digital book is more than searchable text. We focus on creating high-quality page images that faithfully represent the original book.
Our standard scanning workflow produces images at 300 ppi, with image adjustments applied to improve readability and consistency. Depending on the material, this can include:
- Page alignment and straightening
- White balance and color correction
- Contrast adjustment
- Sharpness enhancement
- Reduction of shadows and uneven lighting
- Correction of page and binding distortions
- Reduction of discoloration from yellowed or aged pages
- Cleaning up visible dirt and imperfections
- Minimizing transparency or show-through from the binding and pages
OCR can make a book searchable, but the quality of the underlying page images is what preserves the visual information of the original. Our approach is designed to deliver a clean, accurate digital representation—not simply a text layer extracted from a scan.
Scanning for Reproduction and Enlargement
Our scans are created with more than on-screen reading in mind. At 300 ppi, our standard output provides sufficient image detail for high-quality reproduction at the original size and can also support enlargement for applications such as printing and display.
When a project requires additional detail, we can scan at resolutions higher than 300 ppi. This provides greater flexibility for enlarging individual pages, illustrations, photographs, maps, artwork, or other detailed material while retaining as much of the original information as possible.
Whether the goal is a faithful digital archive, a high-quality reproduction, or future enlargement and printing, we can tailor the scanning resolution to the material and its intended use.
Digitization for Collections & Valuable Materials
Our non-destructive book scanning service is suitable for far more than ordinary books. We work with valuable, fragile, rare, and historically significant materials, using careful handling and preservation-minded scanning methods to create high-quality digital copies without permanently altering the originals.
We can digitize a wide range of bound and printed materials, including:
- Rare and antique books
- Historical and family collections
- Archives and archival collections
- Illustrated books and art books
- Newspapers and periodicals
- Folios and manuscripts
- Catalogs and yearbooks
- Other fragile or valuable printed materials
The objective is simple: make important materials accessible in digital form while keeping the original intact.
Professional Book Scanning Equipment
We use specialized imaging equipment selected for high-quality, non-destructive book digitization. Our scanning systems are designed to capture detailed images while minimizing stress on the original binding and pages.
High-Grade Book Scanners
We use professional flat and V-shaped book scanning systems equipped with linear sensors capable of resolutions up to 600 dpi. These systems are suitable for delicate, rare, and valuable books where careful handling and consistent image quality are essential.
Our equipment and workflows are designed with recognized cultural-heritage imaging standards in mind, including FADGI and Metamorfoze requirements where applicable to the project.
Custom Camera-Based Scanning Systems
For materials that require greater flexibility or image quality, we also use custom camera scanning systems developed in-house, incorporating high-resolution digital sensors and carefully selected optics.
These systems allow us to tailor the capture process to the characteristics of the material—from standard printed volumes to highly detailed illustrations, photographs, maps, artwork, and other materials where conventional scanning may not provide the desired results.
Resolution When It Matters
Our equipment allows us to scan at resolutions well beyond the standard 300 dpi, when the material or intended application requires it. Higher-resolution capture can provide additional detail for archival masters, detailed illustrations, image reproduction, or future enlargement and printing.
The equipment is only part of the process. Careful lighting, optics, capture technique, image processing, and quality control all contribute to the final digital master.
| Criterion | What to measure |
|---|---|
| Gutter capture | We can capture up to 2mm on perfect flatness with our V shape cradle, nearly 100% of visible with flat, while fold is maintained |
| Page geometry | We scan without distortion when physical correction is applied and we adjust the cameras for near perfect geometry, using allignment techniques. |
| Illumination | Brightness correction is not required on our linear book scanners, for area cameras we focus on achieving the maximum with physical settings, before we implement software correction in required. |
| Skew | We can get close to correcting 45% degrees, before the actual scan will not be clear whether it is landscape or portrait. |
| Color | Color accuracy is achieved using high CRI lighting sources, correct white balance and ICC when required. |
| Yellowed paper | Background normalization without content loss, also available for color scans. |
| Show-through | Amount of reverse-side text remaining is variable, ranging from 0 to around 15% in practice. the value of 15% is what we have seen to be the average in worst case scenarios. |
| Sharpness | Legibility of small text is achieved through sharp scans and resolution. There are some texts that require 400 or 600dpi, because of the small fonts. |
| OCR | Character/word error rate depends on many factors. Also, the advancements of AI make the OCR recognition better. We preffer to have good input scans to help the OCR do it’s job as best as possible. As a general guideline, if we focus on making the scan as good as possible, the OCR will be as good as possible. |
| Edge capture | Content near edges can be preserved with our content mask, which is our proprietary tool that identifies content all the way to the edges, and protects it in the cropping phase. |