Creating digital images can capture specific aspects of a certain item. It can capture the color and some of the size and texture. However, there are certain aspects ignored in digital images. Digital images need help capturing the sound and all the different sides of an item, making it hard for a researcher to get the true nature of it. Rather than digital images, video would be a better alternative for a historical researcher. Not only can videos capture the same aspects that digital images can and do it better, but they can also depict the sound and all the sides of the item. Videos can give researchers more material to work with.

Missing information in digital images can lead to misinterpretations from the viewer. The Conway article states, “Representation is an intentional relationship between the maker and the viewer, fraught with the potential for communication problems ranging from misinterpretation and misunderstanding to falsehood and forgery.” (3) These misinterpretations can lead to bad practices as historians, impacting how they understand and use these items. As in the paragraph before, some might choose a particular digital medium over another, use multiple mediums, or even use different angles of photos; as Conway states, “Building collections of photographs through digitization is fundamentally a process of representation, far more interesting and complex than merely copying them to another medium.” (3) These different ways that historians can avoid misinterpretations can lead to the different uses in the field as Melissa Terras states, “The opportunities to provide and enhance resources ‘for learning, teaching, research, scholarship, documentation, and public accountability’ are immense.” (2)

Conway, Paul. “Building Meaning in Digitized Photographs.” Journal of the Chicago Colloquium of Digital Humanities and Computer Science 1, no. 1 (2009): 1-18.

Terras, Melissa. “Digitisation and Digital Resources in the Humanities.” In Digital Humanities in Practice, edited by Claire Warwick, Melissa Terras, and Julianne Nyhan, 1-22. Facet Publishing, 2012.