[Web4lib] sharpening images and OCR

[Robin]

Having used both Omnipage (since about 1995) Abby fine reader, and a
couple of others which came and went, I have to agree about Omnipage.
You really have to go to a professional - level hardware and software
setup to get much better.

And yes - the quality you get out is directly related to the quality of
the original, and if that's bad enough, you'll never be able to get a
good digital result.

Robin Boulton  
IT Manager
St. Charles Public Library District
St. Charles, IL 60174
(630) 584 0076 x 258  
Cell:(630) 918 8738 
http://www.stcharleslibrary.org/
rboulton at stcharleslibrary.org 
-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Gilman, Mark
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 9:28 AM
To: jfitzgibbon at Galwaylibrary.ie
Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Web4lib] sharpening images and OCR

John,

Omnipage is, for my money, the best of the affordable OCR software
packages. I don't know how mucy Abby Fine Reader is, but we looked at
Flexicapture once, and it was pretty steep. Omnipage starts at around
$500. http://www.nuance.com/omnipage/ 

Regards, 
Mark Gilman
 
Municipal Reference Librarian
Urban Information Center
Dallas Public Library
1515 Young St., 6th floor.
Dallas, TX 75201
214-670-1482
http://dallaslibrary.org/cgi/cui.htm
<blocked::http://dallaslibrary.org/cgi/cui.htm> 

 

Message: 2

Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:59:06 +0000

From: John Fitzgibbon <jfitzgibbon at Galwaylibrary.ie>

Subject: [Web4lib] sharpening images and OCR

To: "web4lib at webjunction.org" <web4lib at webjunction.org>

Message-ID:

<45751448A71EAC43962D93D2E8FD46070A6C43 at GCC-EXCHANGE07.galwaycoco.ie>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Hi,

We have just captured photographs from old newspapers that are on
microfilm. We are about to put these images on the Web. What software is
best for enhancing these images? Sometimes, there are black lines going
down through the image.

A second related question is this: we are hoping to OCR some articles
from a TIFF image thus created. What OCR package costing fewer than
2,000 dollars might be best for this task. I suspect that none of them
will be good enough because the original newspaper was in such a poor
state when microfilmed, but, I thought I would investigate it anyway.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

Regards John

 

 

John Fitzgibbon

 

 

w: www.galwaylibrary.ie <outbind://26/www.galwaylibrary.ie> 

e: info at galwaylibrary.ie

p: 00 353 91 562471

f: 00 353 91 565039

_______________________________________________
Web4lib mailing list
Web4lib at webjunction.org
http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/