Digitization Service

Digitization has revolutionized every part of our lives, making information available with an ease which was even conceived of a generation ago. It’s mind boggling to think about all the ways that digitization makes our lives easier and the sheer amount of information and knowledge the process brings us.

Digitization is the representation of a document, an image or a signal by a set of its points, commonly called samples. Music is a signal that can be digitized and transferred to a CD, photographs and images can be digitized and presented on the internet or paper and documents can be digitized and stored, too.

When digitizing data, the information is converted to binary code, which consists of the numbers 1 and 0. These two numbers are called bits and the combinations of the numbers that make up a piece of information are called a byte. When we see a piece of digitized information in its basic form, before it’s been applied to its intended media, it looks like an endless and confusing series of 1’s and 0’s but to a computer it makes perfect sense!

You probably have a favorite hat with a logo on it. Did you know that it was most likely made by an embroidery machine that was equipped with digitizing software tools? You probably paid less than $10 for that hat but without digitizing software, its cost would be much greater because of hours of labor involved. Digitization saves time, money and materials.

Digitization has been a boon to record keeping, too. Offices that have switched to digitizing their records find that they may have an entire room or two for use. What used to take up valuable space can now be stored on compact discs, taking up part of a bookshelf instead of an entire wall! Doctors who have switched to digital record keeping now find that they can add an exam room and an office in the space that used to be packed with shelving systems holding thousands of pounds of folders full of paper.

Scanning is also a form of digitization. We usually think of scanning as making a JPG or Bitmap of a photograph but the process is now being used routinely by magazines, newspapers and other publications to get crisp, clear reproductions of documents as well as photos and artwork. This form of digitization produces a perfect copy every time, a very important aspect of publishing. In business, paper records are usually kept for a certain period of time then scanned and stored digitally in order to save time and space. It is much easier to search information that has been digitized by scanning then it is to go through reams of paper hoping to find a certain document.

Scanning is also now used to create digital photo albums. Damaged photos can also be “repaired” by scanning and using a photoshop program, something many are taking advantage of now with their treasured family heirlooms. That sepia photograph of your great-great-grandparents need not deteriorate further when you take advantage of digitization!