Digital Imaging and Archiving

George C. Yang

• Photodocumentation in the clinic
  
  
  
  • Facial, oral cavity, neck lesions
    
  • Preoperative facial analysis
    
  • Sinonasal, otologic, or laryngologic findings
    
  • Radiologic findings
  
  
• Instant review of images for preoperative counseling
  
• Intraoperative digital image capture and digital video recording
  
• Postoperative documentation
  
• Self-evaluation of surgical technique
  
• PowerPoint™ presentations
  
• Digital images inserted in referral letters

The following factors may influence camera selection.

• Should be a minimum of 1.3 to 8 megapixels.
  
• 1.3 megapixels is adequate for publication quality as well as presentation quality for PowerPoint.
  
• To enlarge a photograph to a 5 × 7 inch print, a minimum of 2 megapixels is needed; for an 8 × 10 inch print, 3 megapixels is needed. A 5 megapixel image can be enlarged to 11 × 17 without graininess.

• Quality lenses help to increase the quality of photographs in conjunction with the resolution.

• Digital cameras have two types of zoom: digital and optical.
  
• Optical zoom allows for enlargement of subjects without any loss of resolution.
  
• Digital zoom requires lowering of resolution to enlarge the subject.
  
• The less expensive cameras may not have optical zoom.

• Less important criteria are the batteries, memory type, and price. Compact flash, smart media, secure digital, memory stick, or XD picture card (Fujifilm U.S.A., Inc.) have different costs for the same amount of memory. The battery type directly affects cost and flexibility.
  
• Digital cameras expend battery life extremely quickly, so it is important to have a backup power source to ensure continuous use of the cameras.
  
• Cameras that use AA nickel metal hydride batteries have a unique advantage over cameras that use lithium ion batteries because the AA nickel metal hydride batteries are cheaper to replace.
  
• Currently, it costs about $35 to $45 for a single lithium ion battery alone versus $15 to $30 for four AA batteries with charger. Therefore, multiple sets of AA batteries can be purchased and charging while the other sets are in use. In an emergency, alkaline AA batteries can be used; however, these batteries will last for only a handful of pictures before running out of power.

• Flatbed versus Slide Scanner
  
• When selecting a scanner, the type of media to be scanned will determine whether to purchase a flatbed scanner and/or a film/slide scanner. A flatbed scanner is primarily used for prints, whereas a slide scanner is suitable for 35 mm slides or negatives. High-end flatbed scanners have the ability to scan slides or film. However, if an entire slide collection is to be scanned, then a dedicated slide/film scanner would do a better job.

• Resolution
  
• Most flatbed scanners have a true hardware resolution of at least 300 × 300 dots per inch (dpi). Film scanners can scan to a resolution of over 3000 dpi. Memory cost can be quite high when scanning film because a slide/film scanner can acquire a very high resolution digital image.