Workflow

Every single page has been scanned page by page with a resolution of 720 dpi in greyscale mode. For fastening the scanning process, only the stripes with the specimens have been saved. These raw scans have been corrected in angle, turned around and then cutted into separately pieces. The resolution has been reduced and the color mode changed into RGB. A sample has a point size around 80 pixel height, the width resulting out of the length of the sample. The name of the typeface has been searched in the database using CocoaMySQL, a graphical frontend. The UID gives the name of the picture file. To decrease file size, the image was sent to ImageReady and saved with the option “JPEG low” (compression rate: 10 of 100). Raw scans have been untouched for other usage. Furthermore, the main book and all of the seven additions have been scanned in a color version with 150 dpi and RGB mode to write PDFs.

 

 

Four questions and the answers

1. When the pages of the Seemann have been scanned, what was the reason not to make samples sizes similar?

This would have resulted in a larger amount of work. The samples are all in the same scaling. Even these samples are not really similar to each other in the book.

 

 

 

2. Why was’nt color used, although the pictures are stored in RGB mode for the web?

The type samples in the Seemann book are printed in black, and showing the paper color is irritating in comparision with digital samples.

 

 

 

3. Why greyscale, not bitmap mode?

The letters of the typefaces with their specific surface are better to recognize, while the tone of the paper is shown. Most of the internet browser can’t work with bitmap images.

 

 

 

4. Why did vectorisation not work?

Although high resolution of 720 dpi was used, the results were not usable.