Digital Preservation and Imaging

Preserve what matters, in formats that last

Photographs in attics. Maps rolled into tubes for forty years. Floppy disks holding the only copy of a thesis nobody can open anymore. Aerial views of properties, construction sites, and watersheds that need to be captured before something changes. Historic documents too fragile for a flatbed.

This is the work we do for museums, libraries, historical societies, government archives, surveyors, real estate professionals, insurance adjusters, construction firms, and families with a lifetime of memories sitting in a closet.

What we do

Drone Imaging and Aerial Mapping

FAA Part 107 certified pilots flying high-resolution photo and video missions, orthomosaics, photogrammetry for 3D models, and survey-grade aerial mapping. Property documentation, construction progress, watershed and land-use studies, real estate marketing, and insurance loss documentation. Deliverables in formats your GIS, your design tools, or your listing platform expects.

Photo Scanning

Prints, negatives, slides, and transparencies. Archive-quality capture at resolutions appropriate for preservation, color-corrected and dust-cleaned. Bulk family-archive projects through institutional collections. Output as TIFF for preservation masters and JPEG for access copies, with sidecar metadata.

Document Scanning

Loose paper, bound volumes, ledgers, and meeting minutes. Searchable PDFs with full-text OCR. Indexed and tagged for retrieval. We handle bound material with overhead capture so you do not have to break spines.

Map Scanning and Large Format

Survey maps, plats, blueprints, architectural drawings, and historic cartography. Up to 60 inches wide on dedicated large-format scanners, with color profiles calibrated for archival accuracy. Files delivered as TIFF, GeoTIFF where coordinates apply, and reduced PDFs for distribution.

Legacy Media Digitization

5.25-inch floppies, 3.5-inch floppies, ZIP and Jaz disks, optical media (CD, DVD, Blu-ray), magnetic tape (DAT, DDS, LTO, audio cassette, microcassette, VHS, Hi8, MiniDV), and the occasional surprise format from a desk drawer. We extract bit-for-bit images where the medium permits, then translate the contents into formats current systems can actually read. Failed reads get a documented attempt log so you know exactly what we tried.

Fragile and Historic Document Handling

Conservator-aware workflows for materials that cannot be handled like modern paper. Cotton gloves, weighted snake supports, no fluorescent lighting, no contact pressure for materials that might crack or flake. We coordinate with your in-house conservator or refer one if you do not have one. We will tell you when something belongs in conservation before it belongs in front of a scanner.

How we deliver

• Open formats. TIFF for preservation, PDF/A for archival documents, PNG and JPEG for access. We avoid proprietary formats wherever possible.
• Metadata that travels with the file. Embedded XMP and accompanying CSV or sidecar files. Dublin Core when it fits.
• Multiple copies. Master files on archival media plus access copies you can use day-to-day.
• Catalogs and finding aids when the project benefits from them.
• Chain of custody documentation for institutional and government work.

What we work with

Our customers include local museums and county historical societies, public libraries, special districts, state agencies with archival mandates, surveyors and engineering firms, real estate brokerages, insurance adjusters, construction firms tracking progress over time, and families digitizing decades of photographs.

Service area

The Mountain West, from our home office in Broomfield, Colorado. We travel for drone work and on-site scanning. For shippable projects we provide insured, tracked transit and a documented intake process.

Get in touch

Email hello@alebrijedigitalservices.com, call (970) 237-5600, or write to PO Box 270626, Louisville, CO 80027. We will tell you whether what you have is something we can help with, what we would expect to find, and what it would cost.