Visiting an archive? Doing research with primary sources? There are powerful apps for phone and tablet that make digitization easy.

1. Digitization In
Your Pocket
Using mobile
technology in
primary
source
research
Educational Technology
Raven Bishop
Instructional Technologist
rbishop3@washcoll.edu

2. Our mobile devices can do so much!
• Scanning
• Photography/Video/Audio
• Light Box/Digitally Develop Negatives
• 360 Photography
• Cloud Storage

3. Planning Your Research
Visit…
• What technology can you
bring? Is anything
prohibited?
• What is the space like?
• What is the wi-fi situation?
Outlets?
• How long will your visit be?
• Look up call numbers or
other information in advance

4. What to bring with you…
• Phone
• Tablet
• Computer
• Chargers
• USB drive/hard drive
• Paper & Pencil
• White paper/poster board
• Set up cloud storage in
advance

5. Choosing Software…
• Read the user agreement.
What implications for
copyright and/or privacy do
you need to consider?
• How much does it cost? If
it’s free what’s the “real cost”
(i.e. what do they do with
your data?)

6. Other useful items:
• Portable photo studio
• Cell Phone lenses
(macro/telephoto)
• Portable light

7. CamScanner LightBox
Extra
PicsArt
Today’s Apps:
Qlone

8. Using CamScanner HD Pro:
1. Tap the camera icon to the right of the screen.
2. Position the iPad to take a photograph of the
artifact.
3. Tap the camera icon again.
4. Continue process until entire document is
finished.
5. Tap “Done”.
6. Adjust the edges of the rectangle to the edges
of your document by moving the white circles.
7. Tap “Next Step”.
8. Use the settings to the left and right of the
document to adjust the image quality.
9. Tap “Next Step”
10.The document can be emailed, uploaded to
the cloud or saved to the camera roll.
11.If you have created a CamScanner account,
you can save scans to the app’s cloud
storage.
Challenge 1:
Attribute and Add Tags
1. Scan a document.
2. Tap the “…” icon.
3. Tap the “Attribute” icon.
4. Title the document and add tags. This keeps
documents organized and searchable.

9. Using CamScanner HD Pro:
1. Tap the camera icon to the right of the screen.
2. Position the iPad to take a photograph of the
artifact.
3. Tap the camera icon again.
4. Continue process until entire document is
finished.
5. Tap “Done”.
6. Adjust the edges of the rectangle to the edges
of your document by moving the white circles.
7. Tap “Next Step”.
8. Use the settings to the left and right of the
document to adjust the image quality.
9. Tap “Next Step”
10.The document can be emailed, uploaded to
the cloud or saved to the camera roll.
11.If you have created a CamScanner account,
you can save scans to the app’s cloud
storage.
Challenge 2:
Add Notes
1. Tap the thumbnail image of the document.
2. Tap the “Notes” icon (third from top on the
right—looks like a notebook page).
3. Add your personal notes. These will be
searchable.
4. Tap the “>” icon above your note when
finished.

10. Using CamScanner HD Pro:
1. Tap the camera icon to the right of the screen.
2. Position the iPad to take a photograph of the
artifact.
3. Tap the camera icon again.
4. Continue process until entire document is
finished.
5. Tap “Done”.
6. Adjust the edges of the rectangle to the edges
of your document by moving the white circles.
7. Tap “Next Step”.
8. Use the settings to the left and right of the
document to adjust the image quality.
9. Tap “Next Step”
10.The document can be emailed, uploaded to
the cloud or saved to the camera roll.
11.If you have created a CamScanner account,
you can save scans to the app’s cloud
storage.
Challenge 3:
Use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Technology
1. Rotate the image so that the text reads horizontally
across the page.
2. Tap the “OCR” icon (bottom right, looks like a
magnifying glass with OCR in it)
3. Tap “OK” when pop-up explanation appears.
4. Click “View Texts” .
5. The recognized text will appear to the right. You can
edit the text to fix any mistakes the OCR feature
may have made.

11. Using CamScanner HD Pro:
1. Tap the camera icon to the right of the screen.
2. Position the iPad to take a photograph of the
artifact.
3. Tap the camera icon again.
4. Continue process until entire document is
finished.
5. Tap “Done”.
6. Adjust the edges of the rectangle to the edges
of your document by moving the white circles.
7. Tap “Next Step”.
8. Use the settings to the left and right of the
document to adjust the image quality.
9. Tap “Next Step”
10.The document can be emailed, uploaded to
the cloud or saved to the camera roll.
11.If you have created a CamScanner account,
you can save scans to the app’s cloud
storage.
Challenge 4:
Use CamScanner to Photograph Objects
1. Place the object on the “infinity background” you’ve
created with paper.
2. Use CamScanner to “scan” the object.
3. Use the “batch” setting to take several scans in one
document.
4. Adjust the edges of the rectangle to frame the
object the way you want it.

12. Using LightBox Extra:
1. Tap “Setup” at the bottom of the
screen.
2. Select the type of artifact you are
working with (35mm negative,
slides, or white for other)
3. Turn on “Allow move/resize”
4. Tap “View”
5. You can drag the white boxes around
to position them to best view the
artifact. You can also adjust the size
of the boxes.
Challenge 1:
Looking for Watermarks & Indented Text
1. For watermarks , place the artifact on the iPad set
to “white” and look for watermarks.
2. For indented text place the artifact perpendicular to
the iPad set to “white” and look for indented text
text to appear.
3. Take a picture with another device.
4. You can use a photo editing app to illuminate the
text—go to “tools”, “adjustments” and use tools
such as brightness, contrast, shadows, highlights to
make the text more visible.

13. Using LightBox Extra:
1. Tap “Setup” at the bottom of the
screen.
2. Select the type of artifact you are
working with (35mm negative,
slides, or white for other)
3. Turn on “Allow move/resize”
4. Tap “View”
5. You can drag the white boxes around
to position them to best view the
artifact. You can also adjust the
size of the boxes.
Challenge 2:
Digitizing Slides
This works best in a darkened space.
1. Place the artifact on to the iPad set to the correct
size for the slide.
2. Take a picture with another device.
3. You can use a photo editing app crop the image.

14. Using LightBox Extra:
1. Tap “Setup” at the bottom of the
screen.
2. Select the type of artifact you are
working with (35mm negative,
slides, or white for other)
3. Turn on “Allow move/resize”
4. Tap “View”
5. You can drag the white boxes around
to position them to best view the
artifact. You can also adjust the
size of the boxes.
Challenge 3:
Digitally Develop Negatives
1. Place negative over the white box.
2. Take a picture of the illuminated negative with
your phone.
3. Take a picture of the negative.
4. Bring the negative into PicsArt.
5. Go to “Tools” and use the crop and rotate tools to
isolate the image.
6. Go to “Fx” then “Colors” and select “Negative”.
7. Save a copy.
8. Continue to use the “Tools” and “FX” menus to
adjust the image.

15. Using Qlone:
1. Place object on the Qlone mat on the
turntable.
2. View the object through the app.
3. Press ”Record”
4. Slowly turn the turntable so that the
dome is filled in.
5. Press the “Record” button again to
finish scanning.
6. Touch the ”arrow” to move on to
editing.
7. Edit as needed and touch the ”arrow”
button again to save.
Challenge 1:
On The Go Photogrammetry (3D Scanning)
1. Place object on the Qlone mat on the turntable.
2. View the object through the app.
3. Press ”Record”
4. Slowly turn the turntable so that the dome is filled
in.
5. Press the “Record” button again to finish scanning.
6. Touch the ”arrow” to move on to editing.
7. Edit as needed and touch the ”arrow” button again
to save.

16. Using Qlone:
1. Place object on the Qlone mat on the
turntable.
2. View the object through the app.
3. Press ”Record”
4. Slowly turn the turntable so that the
dome is filled in.
5. Press the “Record” button again to
finish scanning.
6. Touch the ”arrow” to move on to
editing.
7. Edit as needed and touch the ”arrow”
button again to save.
Challenge 2:
View object in AR
1. In the gallery, tap the object you wish to view.
2. Tap the “AR” button in the lower left corner.
3. Point the phone so that you see a yellow box appear
on a blank space on the table.
4. Tap the yellow box. The object will appear to sit on
the table
5. Use two fingers to rotate the object and to pinch
the object larger or smaller.
6. You can walk around the object to view it as though
it is there.

17. 360 Photography
There are many apps
that allow users to take
360 photographs and
videos using their
smartphones. These
can be useful in primary
source research as they
allow users to capture a
space and even “visit” it
via virtual reality (VR).