What are the optimal settings for pages of an old book?

[DBinSJ]

I'm trying to digitize a book that was published in 1921. With the automatic settings on my Galaxy Note 5 camera, the pages are coming out as somewhat gray and yellowish, with insufficient contrast with the black letters, making the text somewhat difficult to read.

When I adjust for contrast (setting at 50) in Gimp, the pages are easier to read but rather than do this for each of approximately 140 pages, I thought I might try using the Pro mode to adjust the settings in such a way that the images might not need to be adjusted.

I'm seeking suggestions as to how I might adjust the settings in order to accomplish this. Any guidance would be most appreciated. (I tried including links to samples of the pages mentioned but the system considered this spam, so I removed them.)

 

[mustang7757]

See if any members have a suggestion.

I'll leave a Link to register so you can communicate here as a guest account you can only post questions but can't reply

https://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=409154

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! What app are you using to digitize? Just the Camera, saving them as JPGs? Have you considered using Google Drive to scan the pages as PDFs?

 

[DBinSJ]

I registered, thank you!

 

[DBinSJ]

I just tried the Google Drive app and am very impressed with the quality of the image, thank you!

What app do you recommend for making adjustments to the image: Lumin PDF Professional or something else?

Also, can you suggest where I would go to learn about the number of images I could safely scan at a time (I am paying for extra space on my gmail account but wouldn't want to crash either drive or my phone)?

 

[mustang7757]

I registered, thank you!

Hi, welcome to AC !

 

[B. Diddy]

What app do you recommend for making adjustments to the image: Lumin PDF Professional or something else?

What kinds of adjustments are you thinking of? Check out JR Raphael's recommendations: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3312819/best-office-apps-for-android.html.

Presumably, you'd want to scan a number of pages as a multi-page PDF file -- I don't think there's a limit you'll be in danger of reaching, according to this relatively old article: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/is-there-a-pdf-size-limit/td-p/4387325?page=1. But there's always the small possibility of the file corrupting as you scan more pages, so you'd probably want to play it safe and scan maybe a chapter in at a time.

 

[Rukbat]

(I changed the name in the first post for you.)

Turn off automatic white balance (or AWB) in the camera app, and balance it on a page in the book. Whatever color it is will appear white. (If you can't do that in the camera app you're using, try installing a different one. Camera FV-5 Lite can do it. So can Open Camera. So can Manual Camera.)

 

[ManiacJoe]

Also be mindful of the lighting conditions. This type of work benefits from lots of light. Daylight balanced light is helpful, but otherwise you can do manual white balance settings on the camera app.

Also, you want to be using a tripod or other support so that you are not hand-holding the phone.