Recommended best practices for digital image capture of musical scores

Like other complex visual articles with small details, musical scores are difficult to capture and present well in digital form. This article presents methods that can be used to reproduce detail and tone from printed scores for creating archival images, based on best practices commonly used by the library community. Capture decisions should be made with a clear idea of the purpose of the imaging project yet be flexible enough to fulfill unanticipated future uses. Options and recommendations for file formats for archival storage, Web delivery and printing of musical materials are discussed.