Scanning music scores (revised January 2019)

I make big use of score-sharing websites - IMSLP and others - to get hold of public domain scores that I would never have found in the second-hand music shops or music libraries I used to visit in the UK.  Most have, alas, now closed down or restricted their activities.  However, although much music is now available from these sources, few people contribute new scores.  I encourage anyone who has old scores that are not already available online to scan and upload them before they crumble away.

There are many different methods for scanning, and many different programs and apps to help you do it.  My own technique for scanning music (as of January 2019) is:

Method 1a - for iPad/iPhone:

• Use the excellent Scanbot app (available in free or paid versions) to photograph/scan the black and white pages (I use the middle quality setting on the paid version).  I then set the filter to Black and White, and then crop the pages - I usually only leave a small margin, as much old music was printed on large sheets of paper, and most end-users will want to print onto A4 or read on a tablet.  Then you set the title and save the document.  Note that with this app you need to be careful not to save until you have completed all these steps: once the document has been saved and processed, you can only rearrange pages and add new ones.  
• Download and install the PDFOptim app (it is not free, but not expensive).  Then share your scan from Scanbot as a pdf to this app, and optimise it to monochrome at 300dpi quality.  This will produce a good printable/readable black and white score with file sizes around 30kb per page
• Share the resulting optimised file with your preferred cloud drive.  I use Google Drive because it has an efficient app, but there are plenty of others.
• Add the work directly to IMSLP.  To do this you will need an online cloud manager that will provide links with .pdf filetypes (which Google Drive doesn't do).  I therefore access it via StorageMadeEasy in my browser.  You can get free access to a limited number of cloud drives using its file manager, and it will give you a shareable link that you can drag and drop onto the IMSLP 'Add Scans' page (using modern skin).
• If you have colour title pages that you want to make available, I think it best to scan and save them as separate files - not everyone will want them.  It is possible to merge them with the compressed B&W score pages using ILovePDF or similar apps.

Method 1b - for Android tablets/phones

• Use the Android Scanbot app, as above (note that you save individual pages rather than mark them 'Done'), but save the PDF files to device - unless you have the option to share directly with a PDF compression app.
• Instead of PDF-Optim (which I don't think is available for Android) I use the IlovePDF which uploads to its own servers and then sends the files back, rather than doing the work within the device).  Using the 'Recommended' configuration you can reduce the files to around 300kb  per page, and you can save them on device or on a cloud drive. 

Method 2 - the method I used before I had a smartphone or tablet - which will give the best quality for A4 scores that will easily lie on a flatbed scanner:

• Scan the plain title pages and music sheets with a setting of Black and White (not grayscale) at 300dpi - this gives a readable output, and keeps the file sizes down.  I use a standard A4 size scanner, but would use a larger one if I had one!  It can be difficult to position large-size sheets on the scanner to get all the content in - and for those, Method 2 is better.
• If there is some good cover art, scan this and upload as a separate page in colour so that people have a choice of whether to view or download the larger file.  Note that one of the major score contributors, the Eastman School of Music Sibley Library does this, as here.  You can see from the stats on this this example page how many more people download the music than the cover art.
• I have the excellent PaperPort software (an old version that came with the scanner) to manage the scanning process and process the scanned pages.  The features I use are:  
• rotating the pages (sometimes you have to scan pages upside down); 
• erasing marks on the scanned pages and black areas around the edges of your scans.  Remember that printing ink is one of the most expensive fluids on the planet.
• aligning the pages vertically where they have been scanned crookedly.
• putting the pages in the correct order (stacking them).
• After doing this I end up with a stack of sheets on the Paperport desktop.  I then print this stack using a virtual PDF printer.  I use the free PDFCreator which will create a single PDF document out of the stack, that is ready for uploading.  Note that the printer settings should match the scans - so set the printer quality as  Black and White, 300dpi.  This is really important as you will otherwise end up with a far larger file than you (or the end user) need.
• If you follow my suggestions, other than the colour cover art page(s) each black and white sheet should add no more than about 70Kb to the file size (eg, a recent scan of a six-page 19th century salon piece which I did resulted in a file of 384Kb).  Again this is important as making the files too big wastes bandwidth (for uploading) and space on servers and local storage media.
• Finally, when naming files, put the composer's surname first, followed by the work and opus number if possible - eg.  'Grieg - Piano Sonata Op. 7.pdf' .  This will help anyone downloading the file to their digital collection to identify it.  File name lengths are not as restricted as they once were.

Method 2 - for large pages and scores bound in books which cannot fit a flatbed scanner:

• Using wireless digital camera (or camera fitted with Eye-Fi card), photograph pages of score using text setting.
• Upload to computer or tablet.  I use an Android tablet with the excellent MDScan app.
• Import photos into scanner app and crop, then process as black on white.
• Upload processed scores to cloud storage via wi-fi (if processing done on tablet)
• Process using A-PDF to Black/White (see below) to reduce file size.

When handling scores scanned by others, you may find that they have not followed the above suggestions, and you may be forced to use a file that is much larger than it need be.  A particular problem is with scans done in colour where the background comes out as cream or yellow.  This makes them very hard to print in black and white.  I recommend processing the file before printing with the interesting A-PDF to Black/White software which will analyse the files and convert the backgrounds to white.  You will need to test each file out to get the right setting so that you do not lose any faint content or convert areas of scanned 'dirt' or shadow turned to black.  This software is also very useful for processing scanned manuscripts where the composer has written in pencil or a colour other than black.