Specifics of Imaging Practice

In previous papers on electronic imaging and the arts,' I have covered such topics as viewer perception, definitions and distinctions for archival and derivative quality images, descriptive documentation, and the many issues of electronic publications and work environments for research and education. Some of these are theoretical topics, but generally I have favored considerations that are well tethered to practical decision-making in museums and archives. In this paper, I would like to bear down even more on specific practices that in our experience have an important bearing on the resulting image resource and on the future value of visual collections converted into digital form. Taken individually, some of these practices - such as photographic problems, color matching and transformations - seem like minor points, and often are. They are rarely the beacons of technological excitement. In the aggregate, however, they can make an enormous difference.