Digital photography under special low-intensity lighting

Images of flood-damaged codices taken with a digital camera by the Department for Conservation of Books and Manuscripts of the Fachhochschule of Cologne in 1999. Various wavelengths emitted by a low-intensity lamp were tested, with ultraviolet illumination at 366 nm chosen in most cases. Image processing undertaken by the Parallelo firm, Florence, permitted the areas of writing to be separated from the background and improved the uniformity of the lighting of the images. The relatively low resolution of the details is not suitable for eccessive enlargements.