Microfilm and microfiche were some of the best technological solutions for storing large amounts of information in the 20th century. They were used extensively in public buildings, libraries, and personal collections, where they could contain a copy of original hard copy papers in a small format.
What’s more, both microfilm and microfiche were very easy to store and organize, making them a perfect tool for quickly accessing information from a large collection of items.
But with the rise of digital technology, microfilm has become outdated and now mostly sits collecting dust, seldom being used. But even though the technology might be past its prime, the contents of the tapes can be as relevant as ever.
In fact, using microfiche scanning services might not just save the contents but improve the document images as well. Let’s explore how below. But first, let’s understand the main differences between microfilm and microfiche, and the benefits of microfiche and microfilm scanning services.
Difference Between Microfilm and Microfiche
Both microfilm and microfiche are document storage tools that scale down normal-sized documents and allow for the storage of much more information in a small space. But even though the basic principle is similar, they are two distinct types of technology that have their own mechanisms.
Microfilm is a reel of small documents reduced to the size of 35mm or 16mm film. Meanwhile, microfiche is a sheet of small documents that measures four by six inches.
Another area where there are key differences between the two is storage capabilities. Microfilm can store thousands of document images, which was, for a long time, the best possible option. Meanwhile, microfiche can only store dozens or hundreds of images on one sheet, which makes it a bit more limiting.
However, when it comes to grouping documents, microfiche might have some advantages. Since it has a smaller capacity, it typically contains a single batch of related documents. That can be useful when you want to access just a single set of documents instead of having to use microfilm that might store multiple types of records.
When you want to convert microfiche to digital, one thing to consider is that it can be more expensive than if you would like to convert microfilm to digital. That’s because, with today’s technology, microfilm is more convenient to scan, making the job go faster and reducing the costs of the process. However, microfiche scanning services today still offer competitive prices that should be accessible to most individuals and organizations.
How Digitizing Microfilm & Microfiche Can Improve Document Images
Now that we’ve understood how the two formats differ, we need to answer the central question: how exactly can microfiche and microfilm scanning services help improve the quality of the document images?
The answer to this question is quite simple. Since microfilm and microfiche is physical storage method, that means that both of these formats are vulnerable to environmental factors, decay, scratches, and many other factors that can reduce the quality of the documents over time.
And that means that no matter how well you protect your collection, the documents will become harder to read until they are practically incomprehensible.
But when you utilize the help of professionals to convert microfilm to digital, you can take advantage of cutting-edge equipment available today and remove many of the imperfections using specialized scanning tools, innovative software solutions, and the expertise of the experts performing microfilm scanning services who have dealt with issues hundreds of times before.
With the help of computer vision and image processing, the images can actually be enhanced to look better than the original. In order to capture the best quality images from your microfilm and microfiche it is recommended to scan them in grayscale as opposed to black and white. This ensures that more data is captured and increases the legibility of the documents, especially if they are old and faded.
For one thing, all of the scratches, warped images, specs, border issues, and even images that suffer severe damage can be improved and restored to how they looked before.
Then, you can access the documents again on your computer, not having to worry about them decaying or getting damaged. You can also make copies with a click of a button and share them with friends, family, or coworkers.
But that’s not even the biggest advantage of deciding to convert microfiche to digital. With the help of OCR, you can also make the documents fully searchable, which dramatically improves the experience of browsing and searching them.
Instead of having to go through all of the documents to find a specific passage or piece of information, you can search through your entire collection in a matter of seconds, quickly and seamlessly locating any words that you want to find and seeing all the instances that it was used.
That way, a research task that might have taken hours can be done in mere seconds, allowing you to bring the contents of the microfilm and microfiche in your collection into the 21st century.