At DT, we endeavor to turn imaging best practices, standards and guidelines into realistic workflows that ensure consistent high quality results. While often viewed as the gold standard, FADGI is not all encompassing, leaving out several media types. Arguably the most glaring omission is the baked good.
With any media type, initial focus and framing is key. In this instance, critical focus was determined to be on the peanut butter shortbread cookie. Utilizing a technique such as focus stacking (Z axis stacking for the highly technical) might have returned superior results, but the other cookies are still very sharp visually. As mentioned earlier, FADGI does not mention a PPI target in reference to baked goods, so we opted to fill the frame with the napkin. The resulting image is roughly 550 PPI, falling between the requirements for “Documents (Unbound): Manuscripts and Other Rare and Special Materials” at 400 PPI, and “Prints and Photographs” at 600 PPI.
White balance and exposure were both set based off patch 15 on a Golden Thread OLT target, and using the Linear Scientific curve in Capture One. While sugary and crisp, there were no specular highlights on the baked goods themselves, so we could avoid visual artifacting in the bright highlights which can accompany the Linear Scientific curve. A small tweak of the exposure value to get in spec, and utilizing the ICC profiles gets us to FADGI 4* Delta E*(a*b*), Color Delta E* 2000.
FADGI Compliant Image
While the end result image is largely compliant with the FADGI guidelines, the visual appearance was lackluster, failing to bring out the sweet translucent reds of the jam, or the crisp golden brown of the toffee snickerdoodle. The Maraschino Shortbread cookie with chocolate chips looked pasty and the Alfajores looked dry. In short, none of the cookies were well represented by our guideline.
TASTY 5*
In light of the above testing, DT is exploring an addendum for the FADGI 2016 document, specifically with respect to baked goods. We aim to have this align with ISO 22000:2005 for food safety management, as well as general imaging standards.
In the interim, for your baked good digitization projects, we would recommend the 5 star TASTY scale in place of FADGI: Tenderness, Aeration, Sugar, Texture and Yeast. For more traditional digitization projects, DT is always happy to provide high quality solutions with support for all your technical requirements.