Types of Microfilm Scanning Services

Microfilm scanning services have many components and options. In addition to straight 16mm and 35mm roll film conversions, microfilm scanning services also include:

Quality control. Generation Imaging practices four phases of quality control: at the scanner operator level, a post-scanning audit, an intense quality control, and a final media check.

Indexing. The sky is the limit when it comes to naming images at Generation Imaging. Using proprietary software designed by Dan Gandul and Damian Hospital, and coded by a programmer who has over 10 years experience in the micrographics industry, your images can be outputted in any format. From breaking rolls by start pages or data entry by names, SSN, drawing numbers, dates, or account numbers, anything is possible. G.I.’s indexing program has multiple modules, including a QC program, which enables the modification of individual images.

OCR (Object Character Recognition). Using propriety OCR software, Generation Imaging can create OCR searchable PDFs, text files, or spreadsheets with the extracted data. Recommended settings: 300 DPI for typed text.

Image processing. From autocropping to duplex image splitting to quality enhancements to changing file formats, a microfilm scanning services company must offer all in one solutions.

Output. CD, DVD, USB stick, USB external drive, FTP, or filesharing are all possibilities.

If you require microfilm scanning services of any kind, please contact Generation Imaging for an estimate. Information needed: how many reels, their type, how many frames are on a reel on the average, file format, naming, and any optional processes. It’s okay if you don’t have detailed preferences:  Generation Imaging can help you decide which microfilm scanning services are best for you.

Microfilm Conversion

A microfilm conversion is another term for microfilm scanning, roll film scanning, and microfilm digitizing. Using a roll film scanner, 16mm or 35mm roll film is transferred from analog to digital. The scanner must be set up to blow the small frame back up to its original document size. Therefore the scanner operator must know the reduction ratio (similar to aspect ratio). Some scanners have auto-detect reduction ratio parameters, but nothing beats the careful supervision and instincts of an experienced scanner operator.

The other factors that a scanner operator must consider with a roll film conversion are frame detection parameters, quality settings, and output naming conventions. Each element requires a combination of technical skill, experience, and creativity. If the detection settings are not properly configured, the microfilm conversion would result in missing images and cut-off images. If the quality settings are not carefully created, the resulting images may be blurry, out of focus, too dark, too light, plugged, or improperly sized. Finally, incorrect scanner output naming settings will ruin the final product by misnaming the files, putting them out of order, or not meeting the client’s specification.

Generation Imaging has the experience, latest technology, and talent to perform any microfilm conversion project that comes our way. No microfilm conversion is too big or too small for us to process. The employees at Generation Imaging have performed thousands of microfilm conversion jobs over the decades, and know the correct way to set up and monitor the scanners. Contact us today for your microfilm conversion quote.

How to Convert Computer Output Microfilm to Digital Image

Computer Output Microfilm (COM) is the most tricky type of 16mm roll film to convert to digital image. Computer Output Microfiche is not problematic, but its roll film version creates numerous issues for roll film scanners not manned by an experienced scanner operator.

The true professional and experienced scanner operator relishes in the challenge of scanning Computer Output Microfilm to digital images because it truly pushes his or her level of technical expertise.

Why is Computer Output Microfilm is different than tradition roll film? Regular roll film has frames containing documents with a clear separation/space in-between each frame. The edges are nice and contrasted from the background of the film. Scanners can be set up to detect on these edges and separate each frame to create individual images.

However, Computer Output Microfilm usually has very thin edges between frames and almost no space in-between them. This is due to how they were created: they were electronic data stored on a PC and were transferred to 16mm roll film.

Depending on the layout of the Computer Output Microfilm, the experienced scanner operator can attempt to detect frames by carefully choosing multiple sense areas, and modifying edge detection filters, but the operator is at the mercy of the nature of COM, and this usually results in missed detection.

Another aspect that is film dependent is if the COM has blips or not. If the COM has small markers on the outside of the frame, it may be possible to detect each image. However even this may not be an exact science due to the nature of COM.

The final method would be to scan strips of several images with a backup over-scan to guarantee that all frames are captured in these ribbons. Then these giant images must be manually split and cropped to create individual frames from the strips.

If you have Computer Output Microfilm to convert, please contact Generation Imaging today,

Florida Microfilm Scanning Services

Scanning Microfilm Helps Genealogists

Scanning microfilm to digital image has helped numerous genealogists, families, researchers, and hobbyists bring the past to life. From personal diaries to church records to birth records to military records to small town newspapers, roll film conversion is the process used to breathe new life into archaic media like roll film.

Generation Imaging has provided this scanning microfilm service to many independent researchers and they have benefited from having the ability to:

- Print images from CD/DVD

- Copy discs to their home computer, other PCs, a network, and even make duplicate copies

- Upload images to the internet

- E-mail images

- Edit and enhance images

Preserving your family’s heritage as never been easier- but only if you can get a hold of the 16mm or 35mm reels so G.I. can commence scanning microfilm to digital image. Almost every library has a heritage room or microfilm/microfiche archive. It’s important to establish a good relationship with your local library and hopefully you could check out media for G.I. to digitize it. Otherwise you would have to implore The Friends of the Library to rely on donations to get your local library to necessary funding to begin scanning microfilm with Generation Imaging.

The cost of scanning microfilm is not expensive with G.I., since we understand the social importance of such a service. G.I. keeps its overhead low in this new economy so you can benefit from the savings.

Let us be realistic: it we are now in the second decade of the 2000s; there is no practical reason to still be using roll film for genealogy if you can digitize the images to PDF, TIFF, or JPEG by scanning microfilm.