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Digital Restoration for Damaged Documents

Organized and run by Julia Craig-McFeely, DIAMM, Royal Holloway, University of London (29 June 2006)

The Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM) has pioneered the use of mainstream commercial software to recover damaged and obscured readings from manuscript sources which have been captured by high-resolution digital imaging. As the facilities required to create high quality digital images become more widely available in libraries and other repositories, increasing numbers of scholars are looking to this medium to reveal information that has either been obscured by conventional document restoration processes, or has proved beyond the capacity of conventional restoration to reveal. The main advantage of digital restoration is the lack of invasive procedure on the original document, and the provision of an image that may be more revealing than the original.

DIAMM has been demonstrating the results of digital restoration at conferences and seminars for some years, and this workshop is in response to demand from scholars internationally to learn the techniques and underlying methods of this process. Full training materials and information about creating a suitable 'master' image will be provided. Participants will be given the opportunity to experience and test the tools necessary for enhancement in a tutorial atmosphere, in order to build an understanding of the underlying techniques of digital restoration and to enable them to undertake the work themselves and explore the potential of the software beyond the bounds of the seminar.

Participants were asked to obtain a demonstration version of Adobe Photoshop prior to the workshop and familiarize themselves with its appearance and the functions of some of the tools. For further information see the programme. A list of participants is also available.

The workbook that was produced to accompany the workshop is now available in PDF format (file size 58.27 MB). Ring-bound printed copies featuring full illustrations and gloss cover are available to order (£10 + £1.50 p&p) Please email methnet@kcl.ac.uk to place an order.